Philip Pullman's September message details his trip to the Shepperton Studios to survey the His Dark Materials movie. He reveals several cast members we knew nothing of beforehand:
- Tom Courtenay as Farder Coram
- Jim Carter as Lord Faa
- Jack Shepherd as the Master of Jordan College
- Simon McBurney as Fra Pavel
Of the cast as a whole, Pullman says he is, “astonished and delighted with every one of them, and with the others I haven`t got time to list. Take it from me: this is a brilliant cast.” He goes on to record his delight in the costume, animatronics and set design: “I could see from the artwork how sumptuous and extraordinary this film will look.” There's much more in the full message – boats, dresses and spies – so go read it.
eep! exciting.
That's extremely good to hear. 🙂 Good to know Pullman's liking the cast and all.
It's wonderful to know that Pullman thinks so highly of the cast. I'm very excited now! I can't believe that filming starts next week! I feel like I have been waiting for this movie to be made for years now. I can't wait to see some of the first pictures of the sets and costumes etc… 🙂
Wow, what I wouldn't give to see all the creative activity happening at the studios and sets! The spy-flies sounds great…I'm personally glad they're not CGI, although they may need to be in some scenes. When can we see pictures of everything????? Mr. Pullman seems giddy.
Wow. That was unexpected. Glad that PP got to visit, but this is how we hear about 4 roles being cast? And there are more he didn't mention? Jeez. It really frustrates me… Pullman's details of things are great and just vauge enough to make this exciting and infuriating. Has Weitz's stunt with the interview back in 2004 shut us out of the loop almost completly? Will we get some sort of set blog? Some liasons?
I guess our fan community doesn't warrent enough buzz from most sites and spies. I really can't stand being in the dark on these things.
This is so studio driven… To the outisde world they're treating it rather like any other production, rather than a $150 million dollar adaptation of an award winning book, where they should at least create some sort of advance buzz by giving us a look inside the craft of making this film.
All I can go by is Pullman's delight and details and hope that inside the production, as a team of craftsmen and artists, this is going well for them and is soemthing special.
They design the spy-flies? But this it's not happening until the amber spyglass?I suppose that this means that they will do the entire triology??!!
Spy-flies were in TGC/NL. Remember, Iorek makes the little cage for it?
Pullman sounds positively giddy with delight, I'm so excited!!!
ME TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:
Yes, the spy flies are first seen in TGC when two attack Pan on the deck of the boat when Farder Coram lets Lyra go out for air.
I'm listening to the audio cds every night. I just love to hear Pullman read it! Now to get the other books…
But no one's mentioned Fra Pavel yet… He doesn't show up until the TSK, right? For him to be cast must mean they're going to change the sequence of events a bit, or at least include some of the beginning of TSK. I don't quite remember where he comes into the story.
As for things revealed and things kept secret, you must remember that it *is* still more than a year until the film's release. The more they keep us in suspense, the more they keep us interested. I just want to know who's playing Lee!
Jim Carter and Jack Shepherd worked with each other previously. Interesting.
It was stated a long while back, perhaps even when Stoppard wa still writing the script, that Fra Pavel would be introduced earlier. In what way exactly, none of us are sure, of course.
And my comments regarding New Line's choice to be hush, hush about this does not come in a way of wanting to know everything. It's an expectation that the studio would take a project of this calibur and market it and keep a buzz going as early as possible. How should this be done you ask? By having a blog site run by someone on the set. Heck, hire someone to be the behidn the scenes guy.
Jackson had a video blog for "Kong", Edgar Wright had one for his "Shaun of the Dead" follow up "Hot Fuzzma nd Dnayy Boyle had one for his upcoming film "Sunshine".
Or invite folks from sites like Aint it cool news for set visits, or heck, even people from BTTS!
Have some sort of liason with the fan community in some avenue.
to be continued…
Part 2:
If these kinds of things don't occur at some point within the next few months, this will lead me to believe that New Line is indeed in it purely for the money and are treating this as just another production. I realize that I sound quite one sided and haven't really taken into account many factors of why a business does something or not.
But I've worked in the film industry and though it might be in mainly independent cinema, I feel I have a decent understanding of how things are done on all levels/facets of a project, and I am angry about how New Line has handled HDM thus far.
I just hope the actual filmmakers (Weitz the DP, the production designer etc.) are completely in love and devoted to this project.
And based on Pullman's words, it does seem they are.
Well, they still haven't started filming yet, have they? I wouldn't expect any set visits to be offered until after that–would you? Or maybe I've got it wrong here.
I didn't mean to accuse you of anything, if that's how I sounded… I'd like information as much as the next fan.
I did take the comments fairly harshly and that was due more to my state yesterday then anything else. As much as I was excited about it, I was also quite flustered by the news.
Generally, yes set visits from various parties would not take place until after the production starts, but I'm leaning more and more to New Line not doing things like this, or blogs and such… I don't doubt Weitz and his ability to get a good crew and cast, I just doubt New Line in how they handle this film up until the release.
But I'll shut up now, as we're getting off topic. Oh Tom Courtney was in the 2002 Nicholas Nicolby!
So many people are being cast!! The movie will be filming soon though-OMG!!!!! I forgot!!!!! THEY'RE GONNA START FILMING!!!
Doesn't look as though they'll be holding open auditions for extras then. 🙁
Good choices all around, i think. i was hoping for sean connnery for Lord Faa, but this guy's really good.
Hoobits, I am sure that New Line's Massive Marketing Machine will ramp up soon. I understand your concern, though. A big studio like NL would be foolish to ignore the tremendous fan base and not allow us tidbits of info and more. I think they learned from Lord of the Rings, how important fan presence is. So be patient. I am sure we will soon get an official TGC website, diary set reports, blogs and more very soon. 🙂
the movie is going to be fantastic the books enchanted to me are the best thing. in my opinion Lyra and Mrs. Coulter are the most extraordinary personages are. The book lets to Harry potter very down :tongue: :laughing:
Who the hell is Fra Pavel? Guess they kind of translated his name in the Brazilian version…
Ohh right, Fra Pavel, the priest who read alethiometers… I'm definetly supposed to reread these books :\
3 more days… 🙂
3 more days for what??
Anybody knows if there will be a web page during the production? And if chris weitz will direct the three adaptations?
They start filming tomorrow. 🙂
You think they'll anounce anything new?
omg, is it REALLY tomorrow??? that's crazy
supposedly.. :wassat:
Filming tomorrow, they must have so much worked out and in place.
I wander if they read this?
There is not that many names on IMDB yet.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385752/fullcredits
Michael Fink the FX supervisor has worked no loads of stuff.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0277842/
And in the art Dept there is a couple of names I recognise.
Linda Bergkvist
http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/list.pl?gallery=142
Arron Simms
http://www.aaron-sims.com/index1.shtml
With some of the marketing art and their work I'm hoping it will follow suit.
Really? You don't think there isn't a lot of crew listed?
I'd say there is quite a bit of the physical, day in day out production crew listed. You have much of your sound department listed, as well as the assitant directors, a nice chunk of the art department and administrative people ( listed under other crew mostly). Really we just don't have repeats on a lot of the positions that need multiple people (Like production assistant) really the only department we don;t see anything listed from is the camera and lighting department, which would consist of 1st Assistant camera, 2nd AC, grips, gaffer etc.
Hoobits, you know tons about movie stuff. Please tell us more!!!
Wow. They're filming. Just…wow.
Anybody have any information abaut how is processing the filming, and news about the caracthers….??!! 😉
Guess whos back
🙂
Does anyone know where we can get pictures of Dakota
There seems to be a lot less names than any other comparable film, Narnia for example. Addmittedly they're not finished, but still not many.
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