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Report: Pullman at Oxford Literary Festival

Posted by Will on March 25, 2007 at 2:00 am

A chap named Steven has written on his blog about the Philip Pullman and New Line discussion at the Oxford Literary Festival. Whilst there were no scenes from the movie shown, it seems some animation testing of Pantalaimon as a ferret was previewed by Mike Fink, the film’s animation designer. Steven reports that “Philip’s favourite scenes in the movie are when Lyra first meets Iorek Byrnison and when Lee Scoresby and Serafina Pekkala are flying in Lee’s hot air balloon and Lyra is lying asleep. […] How will they represent Dust? Fink was very elusive about that, so I’m not really sure what the answer is.” Read more. You can also read a comprehensive write up in saestina’s blog and you can read about Claire’s thoughts in the comments section of this article. The Oxford Mail has also reported on the event: “Mr Pullman told the audience in Oxford Town Hall on Saturday: “I did not expect the book would be so successful and that it would be made into a film.”" Read more.

Claire says:

Well, I was going to write a report too but it looks as though others have beaten me to it ;-).

But to add a couple of things:

Deborah Forte mentioned that they really wanted a complete unknown child to play Lyra - someone who hadn’t even acted before - because it was important that she was naive of the whole process and would grow thoroughout the filming, just as Lyra does throughout her journey.

This meant that Dakota was (understandably) a little nervous on her first day of filming with Daniel Craig. To put her at her ease, he started jumping up and down in front of her. Apparently, she wasn’t sure how to respond at first, but then she started imitating him, and this worked really well to relax her and get her focused and energised for the scene ahead. In fact, Mike Fink added, she then maintained this ‘ritual’ before every scene she did!

The animations of Pan as the ferret and Stelmaria were, as others have said, absolutely amazing - I couldn’t tell whether they were the real animal or animations. We also saw a very basic and blocky Hester washing herself :-).

Deborah Forte confirmed that they had a screenwriter working on the second film already, and had an outline for the third, but there had been no decision made about whether the other two were actually going ahead yet.

New Line were actually filming the session, and there were notices up around the room saying that by attending we were giving our permission for our images to be used in any behind-the-scenes footage (presumably for the DVD).

Philip Pullman confirmed that he was well on the way with The Book of Dust, but that it wouldn’t be out for another couple of years. He said Lyra would be the main character, although she’d be a little older, but apart from that he refused to say any more as he explained that if he talked about a book while he was writing it the energy of the story ‘leaked out’ of him.

PP also talked about the differences between doing the story on stage at the National and on film - the main problem of the stage being that it was very difficult to get a sense of wide open space, so showing the witches flying wouldn’t have worked (and they would probably have got all tangled up in each others’ wires!).

I was impressed by the constant reiteration by both Deborah Forte and Mike Fink that the most important thing was the story, and that everything else, including the effects, had to be an organic part of that. It’s a similar attitude that Peter Jackson’s team had for ‘Lord of the Rings’, which encourages me.

Two frustrating things emerged for me (apart from the lack of final footage): Mike Fink mentioned that he had some stunt footage but it wasn’t shown. Also, the guy sitting a couple of seats away from me was looking at a sort of photobook with loads of backstage and on-set pictures. After sneaking a few glances, I asked him where he’d got it and he said it was a cast and crew book and they’d only printed 1000 of them - he’d only got his the day before. I spent the next ten minutes trying to look at it surrepticiously. Lots of crew pics and a lovely one of DBR and Nicole Kidman together. Also a pic of the Iorek bear model, which was about three feet high!

Wish I could have looked at it properly, or at least asked the guy who he was. Tantalising!

Anyway, the whole thing was really interesting and has made me look forward to the film even more now!

March 25, 2007 3:27 pm | link

Report: Pullman at Oxford Literary Festival

Posted by Will on March 25, 2007 at 2:00 am

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