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DAWN TREADER Blog Launched

Georgie Henley as Lucy in THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER(2010).
© 20th Century Fox

Just two months after some screenshots appeared online of the ship from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Fox and Walden Media have officially launched their facebook blog with the first entry. You can check it out down below. The third film in the series, the first produced by Fox after Walt Disney dropped the rights, will star Liam Neeson, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Ben Barnes, Will Poulter, Gary Sweet, Bruce Spence, Arthur Angel and Shane Rangi. Director Michael Apted is helming the production from a story by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Richard LaGravenese and Michael Petroni.

Here's what the first blog had to say.

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 production’s mechanical SFX crew, under the direction of veteran movie magician Brian Cox, and working with Barry Robison’s and Ian Gracie’s 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 Roadshow’s 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.

One might assume the cast would wait until all camera angles were set before jumping into the tank. Not so. There were several situations where the actors were required to wait underwater until director Michael Apted (the new skipper at the helm of the “Narnia” franchise) called “action!” In these instances, stunt coordinator Allan Poppleton’s safety dive crew rigged scuba tanks to the floor of the studio water tank, 24 feet underwater. The actors would then dive to the bottom of the pool, don a mask and regulator, and breathe normally until they were ready to film a take at the water’s surface.

The actors became so adept and comfortable staying underwater for long periods that, to pass the time, they would play “Paper-Scissors-Rock!” while awaiting their filming cue. The game simulates a coin toss in selecting something for a desired purpose – such as determining who would make it to the surface first once Apted rolled cameras.

Now certified to dive anywhere in the world, one wonders if about the cast’s next seafaring pursuits?

Did anyone say “surfing?”

Indeed. Skandar has used some of his daily meal money to purchase a surfboard, which he confirms he will ship back to his London flat -- probably for use on either the Thames or the English Channel. Perhaps he’ll decide from a game of Paper-Scissors-Rock!

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will hit theaters December 10, 2010.