The official Facebook page for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has been updated with the first Production Blog on the film, scheduled to hit theaters on December 10. Directed by Michael Apted, the third installment stars Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Ben Barnes, Will Poulter, Gary Sweet, Bruce Spence, Arthur Angel, Shane Rangi and Liam Neeson.
The following is an excerpt from the Blog entry:
The third book in C.S. Lewis series begins when the two youngest Pevensies, along with their irritating cousin Eustace, are swallowed into a bedroom wall painting, which depicts a ship sailing on the high seas.
To create the effect of the bedroom flooding with water, the productions mechanical SFX crew, under the direction of veteran movie magician Brian Cox, and working with Barry Robisons and Ian Gracies crack art department and construction crew, duplicated the sound stage bedroom set on an elevated platform which was then dunked into the smaller of Warner Roadshows two exterior studio water tanks. The three actors were then instructed to swim out of the bedroom door and windows to the surface.
Weeks before their scenes were filmed, Keynes, Poulter and Henley underwent a three-day scuba diving course under the supervision of Aussie diving instructor Andrew Allen. The actors trained in a local swimming pool and at sea.
You can say they all took to the lessons like fish to water.
After a relatively short rehearsal period in the studio tanks, filming began on the bedroom water scenes in late July, the first week of production. A short time later, the three young actors dove into a second studio tank, to enact the moments where they surface in the ocean and are saved by Caspian and his crew aboard the Dawn Treader.
You can read more here.
