SFXer Howard Berger blogs on the creatures of Narnia

A LOOK INTO THE CREATURES OF NARNIA
BY HOWARD BERGER
Makeup Effects and Creature Designer

Once in a lifetime, something so amazing happens and you are so grateful for it. But, to have it happen twice in a lifetime is unheard of. I am talking about the privilege of another journey into Narnia that the creative team at KNB EFX Group, Inc. gets to take for PRINCE CASPIAN.

The first film was a challenge, as we had never tackled a project so huge in scope and with so many creatures playing at once. It was important to bring all the Narnians to life and make it completely believable that they could believably live in this magical land. And here we are again, ready to meet up with the new Narnians that inhabit the land 1,500 years later.

The first step took partner Greg Nicotero and I back to the drawing board, as we wanted to mix things up a bit. We wanted to take another pass at what the Narnians would be like if they had become more wild in their appearance, seeing how they have been living in hiding within the forests all these centuries. What if they were all different age groups, sizes and races? We felt that the Narnians in the first film were all in their thirties, so we designed some study sculptures to demonstrate our concepts and approached director Andrew Adamson with the ideas. He liked our take and felt this could give Narnia an even more real existence.

In PRINCE CASPIAN, we have heavy set fauns, old age fauns, female dwarves, centaurs and their families. The minotaurs are now on the side of good. A new hag, a werewolf and the satyrs are back, but all newly redesigned to be more animal-like than the prior movie.

I think in every film there is one character you fall in love with. The first movie had Mr. Tumnus, played by the great James McAvoy. This time it is Peter Dinklage who plays Trumpkin the Dwarf. The character is so wonderfully written, and once you see Peter as Trumpkin, he becomes alive and real. We gave Trumpkin his look, but Peter gave him his heart, and the collaboration brings to life a new and interesting addition to this rich world.

A lot of the same crew from the first film have joined us, including my co-winner for the Best Makeup Oscar last year, Tami Lane (with key support from our third team member, Sarah Rubano). We are all excited and thrilled as there is an evolution that has occurred in Narnia and we are all privileged to be here to experience another wonderful adventure.

BIO

Howard Berger grew up in Los Angeles (the son of a post production sound mixer) and spent his younger years visiting the studios of Oscar winners Stan Winston (whom he met at age 14, and who gave Howard his first job after high school graduation) and Rick Baker, the renowned animatronic and makeup effects innovators, with whom he would later collaborate on "Aliens," "Pumpkinhead," "Predator," "Harry and the Hendersons" and "Men in Black."

With partners Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman, he co-founded his own makeup design company, KNB EFX Group, in 1988. Over the past 19 years, KNB has worked on a wide range of distinguished films, ranging from the Oscar winning DANCES WITH WOLVES to Martin Scorsese's CASINO, from Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL films to most of Robert Rodriguez's projects, including the recent SIN CITY to name just a few of the 600 titles on which KNB has performed their artistry.

For their excellence and highest caliber of work, Howard and co-founder Nicotero were recently awarded the British Academy Award (the BAFTA) for Best Makeup on THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Howard (and colleague Tami Lane) also took home their first Academy Award for Best Makeup on the film adaptation of the C.S. Lewis classic.