Walking down a short little wooded trail (the equestrian center had an earth floor allowing them to dig terrain into it) the trees thin out and a small clearing emerges containing a perfect little stick structure. Standing just outside the house are mock-ups for the beavers, which will be done entirely by CGI in the movie. They give a good feel for how the scene will look on screen. It matches the book perfectly.
Around the corner from the waterfall is the Ice Queen’s main hall. While walking through this set we had to dodge several men with military grade laser range finders. The entire set, down to handprints in the molded walls, was being digitally rendered so that the CGI effects could be seamlessly meshed with the physical set. Giant translucent ice columns rose forty feet up into the rafters (special effects plans on doubling that), the walls also have the same ghostly green ice effect. The queen’s throne rests at the end of the colonnade and up a short flight of steps. Looking as if carved from one massive block of ice, it is a regal and grand seat of power for the Ice Queen.
A short walk from the Throne Room is the Ice Queen’s courtyard. This is easily one of the most impressive sets, even though it is far from the largest. The first thing that you notice is that it is made out of the same translucent material that the rest of the ice castle is made from, but then you realize that all of the people milling about are not workers on the set but statues. Just as the book describes there are statues of all manner of creatures scattered all over the courtyard, from the giant Rumblebuffin down to smaller statues of mice and beavers. The effects crews worked for six months to make over 80 statues to populate the courtyard and it is just a dreamscape of fantasy creatures in stone. The detail work is just amazing. Every one of the statues has all of the equipment that its real life counterpart would have. There are arms and armor on the dwarven warriors, whose braided beards are frozen as if in mid-charge. Whiskers can even be seen on the smaller animals.
From there, a short drive down a road takes you to the most solemn set. A short grassy hill rises out of the sound stage floor. Upon the crest of the hill a circle of boulders surrounds the Stone Table. The table is inscribed with runes and looks ready for the dreary task it will be given to do.
