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 Chapter 3 - Reality Meets Imagination |
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 The unique design of Finding Neverland bridges two utterly different worlds: linking the prim and proper reality of turn-of-the-century London with that of an imaginary realm of outrageous dreams and infinite possibility. Throughout every element of the production design, the costumes, the photography and the lighting, the two worlds play off one another, and sometimes play tug-of-war, making for a distinct look that is just beyond the everyday, yet never entirely out of reach.Production designer Gemma Jackson explains: "There were a lot of different things in the mix on this story, but always we had in a mind a very strong magical element laid over the equally compelling reality of it. Marc was quite adamant that he didn't want a heavy-duty period film that got caught up in historical details. So we looked at far more than just re-creating 1904, and made it our mission to also capture the very essence of a world where imagination explodes outward from real life."
Academy Award-nominated costume designer Alexandra Byrne was similarly excited by the challenge of doing something unlike any previous project. "It's rare that a costume designer gets to combine reality with fantasy - you're usually doing one or the other - so it was quite thrilling," she says. "For many of the real-life outfits, I began with trips to museums to look at actual pieces and at paintings of the period to get the right weight and weave for the fabrics. On the other hand, for Neverland, it was all about going out on a limb and creating something right out of a child's dreams. It's sheer fantasy but with just a touch of the Edwardian influence.
Byrne drew from both the more buttoned-up English fashions of the time - subjecting Kate Winslet and Radha Mitchell to the acute discomforts of turn-of-the-century corsets -- but also the freer clothing styles a progressive family like the Llewelyn Davies sported with looser smocks, jaunty berets and knickerbockers for the boys. Then, for the playtime scenes, Byrne left reality behind with fanciful fairy wings, pirate breeches and Indian headdresses.
Director of photography Roberto Schaefer also worked to interweave the real world with a world that for all practical purposes can't be photographed: the world of the inner imagination. Says Schaefer: "Marc Forster allowed me a lot of freedom to explore how to give a sense of being inside a man's imagination in my own visual way, and I really appreciated that."
Schaefer worked in close collaboration with Kevin Tod Haug, the Visual Effects Designer on the film. "We started from the idea that we were going to try to show what life looks like through the eyes of an inventive writer who's not entirely here with the rest of us - he's off in his imagination somewhere!" Haug explains. "We wanted there to be a tinge of something fantastical or slightly strange surrounding Barrie. In the scenes with fantasy elements, we combined little bits of animation, CGI and photography of the real actors to create something like a dream. My particular specialty is impossible camera moves and things that look as through they're all live-action or real, and yet in fact are combinations of CGI and multiple camera moves. This was key to creating the right effects."
The film was shot in England, often at authentic locations including central London's legendary Kensington Gardens as well as the historic Saville Club and the 19th Century Brompton Cemetery. The scenes at the Duke of York's Theatre were all filmed at the historical Richmond Theatre in Surrey, a lavish turn-of-the-century stage which was built in 1899 and refurbished to its original splendour in the 1990s.
But the most excitement came in creating a place that never really existed yet many feel they have visited: Neverland, the enchanted isle of idyllic forests and lagoons, which was built from scratch on sound stages at Shepperton Studios.
Richard Gladstein explains how the filmmakers approached it: "Prior to showing Neverland, all of the fantasies and imagined scenes take place in Barrie's mind. However, with Neverland, we tried to create a place where everyone discovers their creativity and imagination." He continues: "We wanted it to be wild and beautiful, a fantasy world that each of the characters can see - and hopefully every one in the audience can too. It's a place that can become whatever you want to be, whether it's Barrie's version of Neverland or Sylvia's or Peter Davies' - or yours."
In creating this world of enthralment the entire production team was encouraged by Marc Forster to experiment any way they wanted to - no risk was considered too crazy. "There were never any real guidelines as to what was wanted - it was just up to us to come up with ideas, which was a wonderful challenge," explains Gemma Jackson. "The designs I came up with were really based on my own fantasies and memories of childhood, and a sense of capturing a kind of infinite world that goes on and on without end."
Costume designer Alexandra Byrne also drew on myths and fairy tales - but with a real-life twist. "The designs for the fairies, for example, are full of whimsy and mysticism, but they are also based on an extraordinary evening dress of the period that I came across," Byrne explains. "This is what we did throughout: worked from the period and expanded it outward into an imaginary universe."
Meanwhile Robert Schaefer was inspired by the mercurial English weather in his lighting design for Neverland. "I wanted to give Neverland a very dreamy feeling and the weather gave me some interesting ideas. Whenever we were shooting exteriors, we had to battle the constant changes of it being cloudy one minute, then sunny the next, then pouring, then cloudy, sunny, cloudy and so on. Then, one day while we were waiting for the weather to clear, I realised there is a kind of otherworldly charm to the sky when it's filled with these rolling clouds that darken and lighten, and I tried to bring a bit of that to the stage when we filmed the Neverland sequences. We wanted it to have that touch of natural magic."
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| Next Page: Peter Pan: The Play |
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