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Castle for Prince Caspian

CASTLE AND HISTORICAL VILLAGE CONSTRUCTED AT BARRANDOV FOR "THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN"

In order to complete scenes for “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”, which will celebrate its European premiere in Prague on June 17, a castle courtyard, complete with gate, towers and drawbridge, was constructed at Barrandov along with an adjoining village connected to the castle by a sixty-meter long bridge.

In order to build the one-hundred meter long and nineteen meter high castle and the village, which measures ninety meters by eighty meters in area, Barrandov’s Sets Division used 670 cubic meters of lumber and 23,000 square meters of wood panels. The construction of the castle and village took more than six months. An average of eighty people worked on the project on a daily basis and an additional thirty prepared sets in our workshops. A total of 2,500 square meters of large original stone tiles, which had to be imported from India, were used for the castle courtyard. In addition to wood and metal support scaffolding, 9,000 square meters of plaster imitations of stone blocks were used for constructing the house walls in the village.

An entire range of sets were constructed at Barrandov for “Prince Caspian”. Aside from the aforementioned exterior sets, castle interiors were also created on four soundstages. In addition, an enormous, richly-decorated twelve meter high set representing a mountain cave was constructed on Stage No. 6 and the new MAX soundstage (Stage No. 8) housed a mountain forest, complete with waterfall, small lake and real grass.

Shooting of the continuation of this American narrative family saga about children in a fairytale kingdom started at Barrandov last April and took a total of five months. Some sites around Usti nad Labem were also used for filming exterior scenes in the Czech Republic.

“It is the largest project that has been shot at Barrandov since 2004, when we hosted filming of Charles Dickens’s novel ‘Oliver Twist‘ under the direction of Roman Polanski. ‘Prince Caspian’ will be shot at traditional Stage Nos. 6 and 7 as well as at the new Max Stage Nos. 8, 9, and 10,” according to Janka Vozarova, Barrandov Studios General Director. She added that, in addition to the Sets Division, the film’s producers also took advantage of the services offered by the Costumes and Props Department and the Film Laboratories.

“Prince Caspian” is not the first experience Barrandov Studios has had with this film series. In 2005, portions of the first film – “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” were shot at Barrandov.