Chronicles of Narnia

Chris Cooke · December 10, 2005

I read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" as a boy and was very excited to see it made into a big budget feature and to see an ASC member doing the cinematography. Don McAlpine ASC, ACS did an impressive job on this film.

I found it interesting how he managed to get that super shallow DOF on relatively wide two shots. I'm guessing that was a result of putting the background out of focus during the DI.

Aslan was well done but I found that he looked soft on CU's. That could have also been a result of the DI but when shooting the animatronic Aslan it would be difficult to keep the nose and eyes both in focus without using a wide angle lens (which can look odd in CU's) and/or a ton of light.

I was also a little dissapointed when I saw the first CGI shot of the White Witch's reindeer. It was almost like they didn't care very much about making anybody but the main characters look real.

As a film and a story, I think this was one of the best book adaptations I've ever seen. The filmmakers translated this story onto screen much better than either previous versions.

December 16, 2005

I'm such a fan of the book series that I'm already predisposed to NOT likeing the film. :lol: That said though, I'm sure it'll be far better than any previous attempts to date. They've all been dreadful so far. I still think that aniamtion is the only way to go when dealing with talking animals but CGI would still be much better than putting some guy in a lion suit, so maybe it won't bother me too awfully much. :unsure:

Jeremy · December 19, 2005

I think Aslan was the only thing that really bothered me. He looked CGI, especially his eyes. There was hardly any movement in them, and they just looked kinda dead. Great adaptation, though!

Justan Zimmerman · December 20, 2005

This was the first time I saw a film projected digitally - make that a movie projected digitally. The wide shots of snow covered landscapes made me cringe. Digital technology met its match with all that white. Not that any of the people I was with noticed or had any complaints.