Production Blog #10: Designing Narnia

Roger Ford – Production Designer

Treasure Chamber Concept Art

The Beach – Cair Paravel Ruins

We found a location in New Zealand for where the children arrive in Narnia called Cathedral Cove. It has a wonderful tunnel-like arch in the rock. So we started to think we could echo the shape of the tube station in the natural formation of the cliff for the transition. The children go into a man-made tunnel and come out a natural tunnel, emerging onto the beach.

They see the ruins off the top of the cliff and of course they’re unaware at the beginning that it’s the ruins of Cair Paravel. We obtained the drawings for Cair Paravel that had been done for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And we found the location where we could actually rebuild Cair Paravel (in ruined form) on a promontory, looking over the sea.

Cair Paravel – Treasure Room

The Pevensies discover the ruins of Cair Paravel 1300 years since they had last been there. The children soon realize that there’s (as there was before) a treasure room. Presumably in order to conquer Narnia, the Telmarines had to seize Cair Paravel, but why didn’t they find this treasure room? We had to devise a secret door behind the stone statues that lead to the treasure room. The treasure room is underground – under the great hall of Cair Paravel. The set was built immaculately initially, and damage was then added everywhere – the destruction of the castle actually penetrated the treasure room in certain areas, which was quite difficult to achieve.

Read the rest at Narnia.com!