[IMG:L]When Howard Berger watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time he let out a big sigh. It was so loud even one of his kid’s had to shush him. What took the film’s Oscar winning makeup guru by surprise? Seeing the faun, Mr. Tumnus with legs!
“I just took this big deep gasp because it was so awesome to finally see him done,” he confesses. “I had been so used to seeing James [McAvoy] walking around in green pants for months and months. I just let out this big sigh. I remember one of my kids elbowed me, ‘Dad, shhh!’ But it was so awesome it just pulled me into it.”
It was Berger’s special effects counter-part Dean Wright who made sure Mr. Tumnus was standing upright for the film. Now the two have teamed up again, this time for the franchise’s second installment Prince Caspian.
Hollywood.com: Prince Caspian is set 1300 years in the future. Will Narnia have an entirely different look and feel this time?
Dean Wright: It’s dramatically different actually. The film has become much more wild and I think the whole theme of this film has gotten a much grittier tone to it. And it is reflected in both the production design and the character design…Basically the kids, went back to London. They’ve been there for a year and as they get sucked back to Narnia this time. They’re expecting to find the same place that they left [behind]…they stumble upon the ruins of it and it has been destroyed in a battle. And the plants and vines have overgrown it all.
HW: So it’s less of a fantasy world and more of a medieval place?
DW: Yeah it is, we have castles and all that and they definitely look to Spanish influence. And the costume designer looked at that greatly for all the costume and armor weight.
HW: How will you top Mr. Tumnus in this film?
Howard Berger: You know actually one of the first characters that we did on the show, which is…Trumpkin the Dwarf that’s played by Peter Dinklage and to me he’s our Tumnus…In the first film I just really wasn’t happy with what we ended up with and same with the performers…They really weren’t actors, they were just little. And this time we really talked about it with Andrew [Adamson] and said we really should cast dwarves, dwarf actors. And Peter Dinklage who’s probably the best there is and then we got Warwick [Davis] to play Nikabrik…it’s interesting you look at Peter Dinklage and it’s kind of minimal, or it looks minimal, but he’s got a full gelatin nose on and these big ears. All the hair work, we shaved Peter’s head entirely which was great. And then Warwick has a really big, big makeup. A full gelatin face makeup and ears and a lot of hair work. And it’s just really nice to be able to revisit characters like that. Especially ones that I just felt were not so great in the first film and now they’re really outstanding. But yeah, I think those two characters are really the heart and soul.
[IMG:R]HW: What was the casting process for finding the dwarves?
HB: Well I think it was relatively difficult. I mean Andrew really didn’t have a lot of choice.
DW: I mean we were going back and forth, “Are we going to have to go the Hobbit route?” You know and casting a full sized actor, doing the makeup and then having to scale them down and we didn’t want to do that. Because the movie is going to be big enough as it is for visual effects.
HW: What was Andrew’s role when it came to creature design and special effects?
HB: He’s not controlling. I mean, he’s a perfect director to tell you the truth, just because he trusts you. Once he trusts you. Because on the first film we didn’t know each other and there was a certain amount of holding the reigns. You know of course he should. On this one he let the reigns go a little bit more and that’s where we came up with dwarves and the satyrs and all that stuff and we revisited everything.
DW: I really like the design you’re doing on the satyrs too. On the last film it sort of came at us as a budgetary issue. And that Andrew wanted the satyrs to be fully CG in the first film. And towards several weeks before we started shooting, all of the sudden it was like, “We can’t afford that. We can’t do that. Howard, design something.”
HB: So we banged out a bunch of satyrs but they were makeups and we just never had enough time to really think it out. And this time we did and came up with some pretty nice conceptual artwork and I think once its all together it’s going to look really fantastic.
DW: And the goal is to have the creatures that are humanoid, look like humanoids and the ones that aren’t are not. And you have to break whether it’s a werewolf or a satyr, they shouldn’t look like a human. And so Howard has done a amazing job for the upper half and then we have to put the bottom half in.
[IMG:L]HW: What can you tell us about the set?
DW: We’ve got this castle, it’s a huge set, it’s an enormous set in Prague, in the back lot of Barrandov Studios, the famous studios. But still it’s just a courtyard and then we’ve got towers and towers and towers that go all around it. And we’re about to start shooting in a couple of weeks some of the scenes…we’ve got in the castle raid Griffin’s are back and this time they helped carry the kids into battle. And so they swoop in flying around the castle and so we got sets that will be just like one tower or a couple of towers or just the back lot set itself. And then we got to expand, expand and make it bigger and bigger and make it feel just as real.
HB: What do you estimate the shots being at?
DW: Well it’s probably going to be at the end of the day probably 1600 to 1800 shots…We’ve got Howard’s hundred plus creatures which take eight hours to get ready, six hours between the time they go through you and wardrobe and everything. And then we shoot with them for another eight hours so they have 16 hour days a lot of times, 18 hour days these guys.
HB: But you know as you’re looking at stuff from the night raid and I just remember seeing all the creatures running. I mean all their green legs and I just went, “Aw man, Dean is going to have to animate all those legs. That’s hundreds of legs.”
DW: Fortunately I have about a thousand of my closest friends that are going to help.
HB: That’s right, sitting there at home. You’re kids are going to be doing it too.
DW: As a matter of fact my kids are going to learn to rotoscope.
HB: They should [Laughs]. Every child should know how to rotoscope.
