Disney set up a day for me (and a couple of my youth ministry students) to come take a serious look behind the scenes of Disney Studios and meet Howard Berger (the genius behind the creature creations for Narnia).
Below you'll get to see a quick video overview of our day. But Narnia insiders get the whole video (in great download format so you can show it to your students).Go here to make sure you're a Narnia insider
(yes, even if you've been with interlinc forever, you have to say that you want to be a Narnia insider).
Our Day started by meeting Howard Berger at his "creature" studio. I was very impressed with Howard and how practical his digs were... like a great youth group room... everything there was well used. We sat down to ask Howard about his work on Narnia and discovered just how much he has grown to love this far away land. You could see and hear how much these movies have imprinted into his heart. You can hear all our questions with Howard on the video.
Next, Howard gave us a tour of his workshop. It was amazing. We saw so many creative people working on a ton of creatures. Looking around we saw not only how they created the characters but the organizational needs to make sure that the right person puts on the right head, day after day. Howard even let my students play with one of the remote control heads.
Next we were off to Disney studios to take a quick peek at the Disney Archives. They pulled out the original wardrobe and frozen Mr. Tumnus for our visit (was so cool to see them both up that close). We got to see a lot of other great things in the Archive, including getting to hold one of Walt's many Oscars.
Then it was a quick trip upstairs to see and play with some of the smaller props from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. We got to peek into Peter's suitcase (yes, there was stuff in there!) and play with the Queen's dishes (the Turkish Delight was a bit stale). This archive room was amazing... literally surrounded by so many movie props, we just kept saying, "look... do you know what that is!"
I hope you'll make sure that you are a Narnia Insider so that you can get ALL of the amazing, cool Narnia resources that interlinc is pulling, finding and creating for you. The power of these movies will be an awesome and effective tool for youth ministry. I hope you'll make the most of the opportunity.
