I went to Oxford today to see Philip Pullman speak on the new film version of Northern Lights as part of the Oxford Literary Festival. Pullman is a big inspiration to me in a lot of ways (writing, theatre practice, storytelling in general, religion, you name it basically) and this was the first time I've seen him in person, so it was very exciting for me.
Details under the cut. Spoiler-free for those of you I have recently peer-pressured into buying these books.
I got to Oxford a couple of hours early, so I wandered around Christ's Church for a while, then made my way to city hall about an hour early because it was starting to rain. The lecture was general seating, so there was already a queue forming when I got there, which I joined because I really had nothing better to do with the time. Plus anyone who's ever queued for something remotely fannish for any period of time knows that crazy things always happen in those lines. Like the time I got caught in the middle of an argument-turned-old-lady-riot while waiting for day-of tickets outside of the Vienna Opera House. Lots of people yelling at each other in German for hours because no one could leave the line and hence the argument could not dissipate.
Anyway, they were sadly no rioting Austrians, but there was a festival volunteer on a major power trip who caused hilarity worth the price of admission alone. Much bonding in the queue over her insane behaviour.
Okay, so the lecture itself. Philip was there with Debra Forte, the producer of the upcoming film version of The Golden Compass/Northern Lights and Mike Fink, the head of special effects. The majority of the talk was on the process of translating the book to film, and hearing people working on the film talk about how they love and respect the story, in addition to the visuals we saw, makes me really hopeful for this adaptation. They just seem to get it.
They were originally planning to show us some scenes from the film, but they didn't have anything close enough to being done to show to the public. Bummer. They did show us some special effects shots that will be used in the film, though, and some other artistic renderings of what things are going to look like. Apparently this is the first time the public has been shown anything other than the publicity photos that New Line released a few weeks ago, so that's pretty exciting.
The coolest things we saw by far were some preliminary renderings of the daemons. You guys, they look FUCKING AWESOME. The animations weren't anywhere close to finalized, so they're going to look even better, but they were pretty amazing as they were. We saw Pantalaimon as a ferret and a mouse, and you almost couldn't tell it was computer animation at all. It was extremely convincing. Apparently they're keeping the final forms of the animations under wraps, though. One of many things that appear to be top secret, like what Dust is going to look like.They also showed us some preliminary animation of Stelmaria, and she was the hottest thing ever. The audience literally gasped, because we're that geeky and she was that beautiful. She looked so damn cool and majestic and menacing and PERFECT. They also showed us a visual effects shot of Mrs. Coulter's zeppelin flying over Lyra's London. The zeppelin was apparently only 10% done, but it was stunning already. And Lyra's London is amazing. The artistic renderings that are already online make it look kind of spacey and weird, but it's actually really old world and gorgeous. It looks the way our London would look if Sir Christopher Wren had rebuilt the entire city after the 1666 fire and then the blitz had never happened. Very like if you made the oldest parts of Oxford or Cambridge the same size as London.
The last shot we saw was of the ship Lyra and the gyptians take to the North, and it was similarly beautiful. The ship is kind of Viking-like, but in a really cool way, with these big paddle wheels on the side. Very cool. And they've put the CGI ship on top of real water, so the whole thing looks very convincing.
There was also lots of talking and questions from the audience. I, being the nerd I am, took lots of notes, so here are all the things I found of interest.
Forte bought optioned the rights to Northern Lights when she saw it in manuscript before it was even published twelve years ago. That's some serious foresight. Pullman said he had honestly expected the trilogy to not perform terribly well, certainly to sell less than his previous books, which only did mediocre. When asked what age group Pullman had been expecting to read the books, due to their surprising popularity with adults, he responded, "I think it's rather conceited to expect an audience at all."
His initial inspiration for the book was the landscape of hell that Milton describes in the first two books of Paradise Lost, which is also where the title His Dark Materials comes from. The original working title for the trilogy was The Golden Compasses, also from a quotation from Paradise Lost. When Northern Lights went to the US editor, he thought the title was a reference to the alethiometer, changed it to a singular compass and made it the title of the first book instead of the trilogy as a whole. This is, apparently, the same editor who changed the name of the first Harry Potter book from Philosopher's Stone to Sorceror's Stone, which Pullman said, "obviously makes no sense."
Pullman really struggled with the first chapter of Northern Lights. On his sixteenth draft (according to him, I think this may have been hyperbole) he was hit with the idea of daemons and it all came together.
From Forte: "Imagine how boring the world would have been if Eve hadn't eaten the apple."
Tom Stoppard was dropped as the screenwriter because the studio didn't like the angles he was emphasizing in his treatment. Pullman said he actually liked Stoppard's drafts, but Forte said their mantra was "Stick with Lyra," implying that Stoppard did not. In Weitz's shooting script, Lyra is in every single scene but one.
When Forte first optioned the book, she and Pullman had a meeting where they discussed their dream cast. Pullman picked Nicole Kidman for Mrs. Coulter because she can be simultaneously "warm and cold, terrifying and seductive." His other pick was Laurence Olivier from 1945 for Lord Asriel. One out of two isn't bad. "1945 Olivier wasn't available."
They both also wanted a Lyra with no acting experience so that she would have the innocence and naivete on film that they were looking for. Therefore they had four open calls across the UK and saw over 10,000 girls. After the first of the four stops, the casting directors sent Pullman a DVD with the top 40 or so girls they had seen in the first city and asked him to pass on his thoughts in a couple of weeks. Two days later he called them and told them that one of two girls he had seen on the DVD was Lyra. One of those two girls was Dakota Richards who was subsequently cast.
Pullman got a little touchy about the religion issue (I suspect because the moderator teased him by calling him the anti-Christ?) and made very clear that the books were not anti-God but anti "organized, politically-based theocracy. When religion becomes political, it is extremely dangerous. It is the Authority the books take on, not God."
His favourite scenes in the film are when Lyra meets Iorek for the first time and a small scene in the balloon where Lee Scoresby is talking to Serafina Pekkala. (Incidentally, he got the name Serafina Pekkala out of a Helsinki phone book).
When asked what he was disappointed didn't make the film, he replied, "Well, all my wonderful prose, of course."
When asked what The Book of Dust will be about, he said, "Uh, it's about Dust." Nice. Elaborating, he said that Lyra is, in fact, the main character, and that she will be older than she was in Lyra's Oxford. He implied that some other familiar characters will be present as well, though no specific mention of who those characters might be. (One of them had better be Will, or I will CRY. I love that boy so much, maybe even more than Lyra.) Anyway, he said he's well into it but expects that it will be a very lengthy work. He estimates two years until either it's done or published, I couldn't tell which he meant. So let's say two to three years.
The script for the film version of The Subtle Knife is currently being written, and The Amber Spyglass is being outlined. They fully expect to continue with the trilogy but didn't close the door on the option that the last two films might be scrapped if the first performs poorly.
After the talk, Pullman stayed behind to autograph books. He asked that all the children be let to the front of the queue and spent a long time talking with each one of them, which was really sweet, but meant that he was clearly a little tired and not terribly excited about signing all for the rest of us. He just asked for your name, signed the book, and moved on, so I was kind of flustered and excited when I gave him my name and he said, "Oh, where are you from then?" I told him I was originally from the States but living in the UK now and he looked kind of disappointed, like he was bummed I hadn't... flown across the Atlantic just to hear him talk for an hour and a half? But whatever, he spoke to me!!</div></div>
Details under the cut. Spoiler-free for those of you I have recently peer-pressured into buying these books.
I got to Oxford a couple of hours early, so I wandered around Christ's Church for a while, then made my way to city hall about an hour early because it was starting to rain. The lecture was general seating, so there was already a queue forming when I got there, which I joined because I really had nothing better to do with the time. Plus anyone who's ever queued for something remotely fannish for any period of time knows that crazy things always happen in those lines. Like the time I got caught in the middle of an argument-turned-old-lady-riot while waiting for day-of tickets outside of the Vienna Opera House. Lots of people yelling at each other in German for hours because no one could leave the line and hence the argument could not dissipate.
Anyway, they were sadly no rioting Austrians, but there was a festival volunteer on a major power trip who caused hilarity worth the price of admission alone. Much bonding in the queue over her insane behaviour.
Okay, so the lecture itself. Philip was there with Debra Forte, the producer of the upcoming film version of The Golden Compass/Northern Lights and Mike Fink, the head of special effects. The majority of the talk was on the process of translating the book to film, and hearing people working on the film talk about how they love and respect the story, in addition to the visuals we saw, makes me really hopeful for this adaptation. They just seem to get it.
They were originally planning to show us some scenes from the film, but they didn't have anything close enough to being done to show to the public. Bummer. They did show us some special effects shots that will be used in the film, though, and some other artistic renderings of what things are going to look like. Apparently this is the first time the public has been shown anything other than the publicity photos that New Line released a few weeks ago, so that's pretty exciting.
The coolest things we saw by far were some preliminary renderings of the daemons. You guys, they look FUCKING AWESOME. The animations weren't anywhere close to finalized, so they're going to look even better, but they were pretty amazing as they were. We saw Pantalaimon as a ferret and a mouse, and you almost couldn't tell it was computer animation at all. It was extremely convincing. Apparently they're keeping the final forms of the animations under wraps, though. One of many things that appear to be top secret, like what Dust is going to look like.They also showed us some preliminary animation of Stelmaria, and she was the hottest thing ever. The audience literally gasped, because we're that geeky and she was that beautiful. She looked so damn cool and majestic and menacing and PERFECT. They also showed us a visual effects shot of Mrs. Coulter's zeppelin flying over Lyra's London. The zeppelin was apparently only 10% done, but it was stunning already. And Lyra's London is amazing. The artistic renderings that are already online make it look kind of spacey and weird, but it's actually really old world and gorgeous. It looks the way our London would look if Sir Christopher Wren had rebuilt the entire city after the 1666 fire and then the blitz had never happened. Very like if you made the oldest parts of Oxford or Cambridge the same size as London.
The last shot we saw was of the ship Lyra and the gyptians take to the North, and it was similarly beautiful. The ship is kind of Viking-like, but in a really cool way, with these big paddle wheels on the side. Very cool. And they've put the CGI ship on top of real water, so the whole thing looks very convincing.
There was also lots of talking and questions from the audience. I, being the nerd I am, took lots of notes, so here are all the things I found of interest.
Forte bought optioned the rights to Northern Lights when she saw it in manuscript before it was even published twelve years ago. That's some serious foresight. Pullman said he had honestly expected the trilogy to not perform terribly well, certainly to sell less than his previous books, which only did mediocre. When asked what age group Pullman had been expecting to read the books, due to their surprising popularity with adults, he responded, "I think it's rather conceited to expect an audience at all."
His initial inspiration for the book was the landscape of hell that Milton describes in the first two books of Paradise Lost, which is also where the title His Dark Materials comes from. The original working title for the trilogy was The Golden Compasses, also from a quotation from Paradise Lost. When Northern Lights went to the US editor, he thought the title was a reference to the alethiometer, changed it to a singular compass and made it the title of the first book instead of the trilogy as a whole. This is, apparently, the same editor who changed the name of the first Harry Potter book from Philosopher's Stone to Sorceror's Stone, which Pullman said, "obviously makes no sense."
Pullman really struggled with the first chapter of Northern Lights. On his sixteenth draft (according to him, I think this may have been hyperbole) he was hit with the idea of daemons and it all came together.
From Forte: "Imagine how boring the world would have been if Eve hadn't eaten the apple."
Tom Stoppard was dropped as the screenwriter because the studio didn't like the angles he was emphasizing in his treatment. Pullman said he actually liked Stoppard's drafts, but Forte said their mantra was "Stick with Lyra," implying that Stoppard did not. In Weitz's shooting script, Lyra is in every single scene but one.
When Forte first optioned the book, she and Pullman had a meeting where they discussed their dream cast. Pullman picked Nicole Kidman for Mrs. Coulter because she can be simultaneously "warm and cold, terrifying and seductive." His other pick was Laurence Olivier from 1945 for Lord Asriel. One out of two isn't bad. "1945 Olivier wasn't available."
They both also wanted a Lyra with no acting experience so that she would have the innocence and naivete on film that they were looking for. Therefore they had four open calls across the UK and saw over 10,000 girls. After the first of the four stops, the casting directors sent Pullman a DVD with the top 40 or so girls they had seen in the first city and asked him to pass on his thoughts in a couple of weeks. Two days later he called them and told them that one of two girls he had seen on the DVD was Lyra. One of those two girls was Dakota Richards who was subsequently cast.
Pullman got a little touchy about the religion issue (I suspect because the moderator teased him by calling him the anti-Christ?) and made very clear that the books were not anti-God but anti "organized, politically-based theocracy. When religion becomes political, it is extremely dangerous. It is the Authority the books take on, not God."
His favourite scenes in the film are when Lyra meets Iorek for the first time and a small scene in the balloon where Lee Scoresby is talking to Serafina Pekkala. (Incidentally, he got the name Serafina Pekkala out of a Helsinki phone book).
When asked what he was disappointed didn't make the film, he replied, "Well, all my wonderful prose, of course."
When asked what The Book of Dust will be about, he said, "Uh, it's about Dust." Nice. Elaborating, he said that Lyra is, in fact, the main character, and that she will be older than she was in Lyra's Oxford. He implied that some other familiar characters will be present as well, though no specific mention of who those characters might be. (One of them had better be Will, or I will CRY. I love that boy so much, maybe even more than Lyra.) Anyway, he said he's well into it but expects that it will be a very lengthy work. He estimates two years until either it's done or published, I couldn't tell which he meant. So let's say two to three years.
The script for the film version of The Subtle Knife is currently being written, and The Amber Spyglass is being outlined. They fully expect to continue with the trilogy but didn't close the door on the option that the last two films might be scrapped if the first performs poorly.
After the talk, Pullman stayed behind to autograph books. He asked that all the children be let to the front of the queue and spent a long time talking with each one of them, which was really sweet, but meant that he was clearly a little tired and not terribly excited about signing all for the rest of us. He just asked for your name, signed the book, and moved on, so I was kind of flustered and excited when I gave him my name and he said, "Oh, where are you from then?" I told him I was originally from the States but living in the UK now and he looked kind of disappointed, like he was bummed I hadn't... flown across the Atlantic just to hear him talk for an hour and a half? But whatever, he spoke to me!!</div></div>
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