Andrew Adamson and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
By Scott Essman
Director Andrew Adamson was born in Auckland, New Zealand on December 1, 1966 and has lived in Los Angeles and San Francisco for the past 15 years where he has worked in computer animation and effects in TV commercials, at a time, according to him, “when computer effects became prominent in films.” Following that, Adamson directed the incredibly popular Shrek films, followed now by THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. He spoke vibrantly about his latest experience on the phone from the press junket in New York.
“What got me involved in storytelling was visual effects – Shrek was my first real experience as a storyteller,” he said. “In visual effects, you’re doing a subset of what you’re doing as a director. It was very helpful on Narniato have that background. A lot of what you learn in visual storytelling – juxtaposing images – are tools that you use as a director. My understanding of the technology allowed me to feel safe technology-wise and allow me to focus on the story and use the technology in support of telling the story.”
Adamson discussed the transition from Shrek to Narnia as a fluid one. “In Shrek, I took a fantasy genre and gave it a lot of heart; that’s what I thought the Narnia stories were,” he noted. “Shrek was very irreverent and Narnia is reverent but at it’s heart it is a family story taken to epic proportions.”
He also noted that he has grown comfortable with live-action effects – animatronics and puppetry – as well as computer-generated effects. “The nice thing about working in this area is that the technology has come a long way – you can switch backwards and forwards without worrying about how to match them,” he stated. “There were certain things that I wanted to do with real wolves, but our wolves had to talk – so we also used CG wolves. Where I wanted a lot of contact, animatronic lions allow you to do that. Then there were hybrid creatures – the half-man half-beast – a horse body with a CG human body, then a human body with a CG horse, then a fully CG centaur. It was a big jigsaw puzzle!”
Of course on a production as large as Narnia, Adamson explained that there was much planning in pre-production. “I did storyboards with the more 
technical sequences being previsualized. I worked with Rhythm and Hues 2 1/2 years ago to do the minotaurs and centaurs. By comparison, Shrek was 4 1/2 years of work for me – the full film was five. For me, Narnia was 3 1/2 years. It was a 142-day shoot on stage, plus three weeks in the Czech Republic. Probably about 20% was in front of green screens, but a lot of green tights on minotaurs, fauns, etc. The scene with Father Christmas was all in a studio with green screen. We shot studio work, spring and summer in New Zealand and winter exteriors in the Czech Republic. We had a well-oiled team in New Zealand from Lord of the Rings, but experienced without being jaded. The energy on set was amazing.”
Adamson credits editor Sim Evan-Jones with whom he collaborated on the two ShrekToys. “He has a vague memory of me from Toys,” Adamson laughs. “The thing that I’m most grateful to Mark for was surrounding me with the right people. I wanted to make sure I enjoyed the experience of making it and that we created a good atmosphere for the kids. I needed them to believe in themselves as a family, and we had to create a family environment to do that. We had to make it fun for the kids.” films with being Adamson’s “creative right hand. We had been working for seven years. He shares my sensibilities.” He has also worked with producer Mark Johnson – back from when Adamson created digital effects on the Barry Levinson film
One funny story about the long shoot is that one of the young actors grew 5 1/2 inches. “We worked around that with a lot of costumes,” Adamson recalled. “We shot mostly in chronological order, so you can see physical changes and growth! I was able to use that for the story. We finally finished principal photography in December of 2004, so it has been one year of post-production.”
Adamson confessed that after completing such a huge project, “I want a vacation! It was a long arduous process. I have not thought about [the future] too much. Ultimately, there are other stories to tell. I’ve been involved in digital effects for most of my working life — I’m very comfortable with them. But my patience for VFX dailies gets thinner. However, It’s great for imagination to take people and transport them to other places, so I will probably continue to make other films of this scale.”