HisDarkMaterials.org

CBBC Newsround has posted a few pictures of the filming of The Golden Compass. The pictures include a first look on dæmon models used in the film and a shot with extras dressed in clothing that reminds me of the 1930s.

Click here for the pictures

A new picture of Dakota Blue Richards and Nicole Kidman has appeared on IMDB.com. It appears to be a picture from a promotional article that has been sent to various cinemas.

Click here for the picture

The picture is currently unconfirmed by New Line, but appears to be authentic.

Award-winning author Philip Pullman will deliver a public lecture on Friday 10 November at Bangor University.

The Whitbread Book of the Year winner will lecture on Strangeness & Charm, the fundamental particles of narrative, which will explore the art and science of writing.

Philip Pullman is taking a break from both writing and filming to visit the University, where he is an Honorary Fellow.

Filming began recently of his most famous work, the trilogy His Dark Materials, which promises to be a blockbuster which stars Nicole Kidman as Mrs Coulter, Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra and Tom Courtenay as Forder Corm.

Another of his works, one of the Sally Lockhart stories, is being filmed for BBC Television with Billie Piper in the lead role.

Dr David Roberts, Registrar of the University, said: "We are delighted to welcome back Philip Pullman to the University. He is a brilliant writer, but also an inspiring lecturer who is passionate about education. This is a unique opportunity to hear a leading author explain his work."

The lecture ( 6.00pm , Main Arts Lecture Theatre) is free of charge, but is already attracting huge interest, and those planning to attend are advised to arrive early.

[© News Wales, 06/11/06]

Nicole Kidman was back in London yesterday - and she was at her meanest.

The Oscar-winning actress was at Shepperton Studios shooting scenes as the scheming Mrs Coulter for The Golden Compass, which is based on the first novel of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

Dakota Blue Richards plays Lyra, the girl who fascinates wealthy Mrs Coulter (recently voted, by British schoolchildren, the third nastiest literary villain, after Harry Potter's nemesis Lord Voldemort and Sauron from The Lord Of The Rings).

An observer on the set told me how Nicole, when in character, can change from being warm and friendly to incredibly dangerous.

She slipped into London quietly on Wednesday to resume her role in The Golden Compass. Before that, she had been caring for her husband, Keith Urban, the country and western singer, who had been in a treatment facility in Nashville, Tennessee, to deal with his drinking.

The actress will be back on set today and will film other scenes on and off until the end of the month.

Last night she helped host a screening of Anthony Minghella's acclaimed film Breaking And Entering for cast and crew working on The Golden Compass.

Nicole, of course, is an old friend of Minghella's and Jude Law, who stars in Breaking And Entering - and who was Nicole's leading man in Minghella's Cold Mountain.

The Australian actress told me, when we chatted recently at the Rome Film Festival, how she likes to switch between largerbudget pictures and smaller ones.

"My love is for the smaller films that are avant-garde. I don't want to get safe. I'd like to become more wild and dangerous in my choices.

"It's important to keep trying to make choices artistically," she said, adding that there's only a certain amount of time during which an actor has the power to determine what films they can make.

"I want to do The Golden Compass because it has a really good script - and I like the part and the people - and also films like Fur," she explained.

The latter, by the way, is (to give it its complete name) Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus, which Nicole calls a 'controversial' movie because it's 'so obtuse'.

It's a fictional exploration of aspects of the celebrated photographer's life. As Nicole explained, it works on many levels and you have to be open to dive in and check out its different layers.

"Some people respond and some don't," Nicole told me. "I've been involved in so many films: some of them ignite discussion and some of them don't. I remain committed to making films that do."

That's why I like this actress. I'd rather sit through something dangerous that might not quite work than something you know is going to be safe and boring.

IT HAS had three directors and two screenwriters, and taken four years to get off the ground, but His Dark Materials, the eagerly awaited fantasy film based on the book trilogy by Philip Pullman, is finally being made.

Fans of the books were offered the proof yesterday, when Hollywood released the first still from The Golden Compass, the first of the films based on the bestselling books.

The shoot is due to continue in Britain until the end of January, and the film is not likely to open before December next year, but the still gives fans the first glimpse of Nicole Kidman, the Oscar-winning actress, as the glamorous but manipulative Mrs Coulter, and Dakota Blue Richards, a 12-year-old unknown from Sussex, as Lyra Belacqua, the fiercely independent heroine of the books.

She may not have had any acting experience, but Dakota was picked for the biggest child role in a film since Harry Potter. She stood out from 10,000 young hopefuls who attended casting calls in the South of England by New Line Cinema, which also made the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Having been a big fan of the books, she loved the National Theatre stage production and wanted to play the character “more than anything else in the world”.

Based on the award-winning Pullman novels, the trilogy includes The Northern Lights (known in the US as The Golden Compass, which is the title of the film), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

Taking its inspiration from Milton, William Blake, theology and Norse legend, it tells the story of a young girl who travels to the Arctic to save her best friend. Along the way she encounters shape-shifting creatures, witches and other-worldly characters in parallel universes.

The trilogy has sold more than nine million copies worldwide, its appeal being that, like Gulliver’s Travels or Alice in Wonderland, it can be enjoyed on different levels by readers of all ages — yet another example of the way in which children’s books are increasingly joining the mainstream.

But adapting it for the big screen was easier said than done. The Golden Compass is written and directed by Chris Weitz, the Hollywood film-maker whose own script reportedly led to a draft by Sir Tom Stoppard, the Oscar-winning playwright, being quietly shelved.

Soon afterwards, Pullman found himself having to deny vigorously that anti-religious overtones had been removed from Weitz’s script for fear of upsetting American Christian groups — and the producers found they needed someone to replace Weitz.

The director walked out of the production, overwhelmed by the huge “technical challenges” involved, but he was brought back to rescue it when Anand Tucker, the film-maker who succeeded him, left over “differences in creative direction”.

The production is now firmly back on track, taking place at Shepperton Studios, having started in Oxford, Pullman’s home — he wrote each morning in his garden shed until it became too crowded with books — and an important setting for the story’s action.

Pullman has visited the set every day, but he is leaving the film-making to the film- makers.

He has described Weitz’s script as “a model of how to condense a story of 400 pages into a script of 110 or so”, adding: “His vision of the way it should be told on screen matched my own.”

Asked how he felt about letting people make a film based on his books, he said: “If I didn’t want it to happen, I could always have said no. If I’ve written the story well enough, then a film won’t spoil it; and if the film happens to be good, so much the better.”

He added: “I put my trust in New Line Cinema, not because of their unrivalled expertise with computer-generated imagery, but because the conversations I had with everyone involved led me to believe that they shared my understanding of the democratic nature of reading, and shared my faith in the free play of the human imagination.”

The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass will follow, although no filming dates have been set.

© The Times, 31^st October 2006

CBBC Newsround reveals the long-awaited first official photograph of Dakota Blue Richards.

Continue to the article.

According to "The Guardian," Scholastic has landed a book contract to produce companion books to the new film "The Golden Compass." 

"After the book sales bonanza of the Lord of the Rings and Narnia films, a global publishing programme is essential for any self-respecting fantasy blockbuster: box sets, official movie companions, storybooks, colouring books, and so on. So Scholastic is delighted to have signed a tie-in deal for The Golden Compass, the forthcoming film based on Philip Pullman's Northern Lights... Scholastic won the book contract because it publishes Pullman's trilogy in the UK, while the film is being produced by its US TV & film arm alongside New Line, which was behind Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings."

The article also confirms that Ian McShane will voice Iofur Raknison.

Phit created two amazing maps, one of the world, another of Lyra's Oxford.

Comments or suggestions can be sent to Phit via private message.

View the maps!

Peer Productions Youth Theatre in Woking are delighted to announce that they will be producing the complete His Dark Materials stage play in 2007.

At the moment they are holding auditions for actors aged 8 - 23 years. All are welcome regardless of previous experience or ability.

Full information about the production and the youth theatre are available on their website which is www.peerproductions.co.uk.

View the flyer!

Children’s authors Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Rose are among those taking part in London’s first ever Swedish cultural season for children, to be launched next week.

The programme includes five productions at South Bank children’s venue The Unicorn Theatre and nine rehearsed readings of specially translated plays at venues including the National and Polka theatres.

Swedish furniture giants IKEA will transform the foyer of the Unicorn into an underwater-themed installation for the season’s launch on October 11.

High profile speakers booked to take part in a series of free seminars at the venue exploring culture for children over the course of the two-week event include Pullman, Rose and culture minister David Lammy.

Tony Graham, artistic director of Unicorn Theatre, said: “Small Feet Go Far is one of the most important events to take place at the Unicorn. It is built around the important idea that children’s culture matters.

“That Sweden values its children can be seen in its approach to child development, culture and education. This festival will encourage us to look at how we see our own children.”

For details see www.smallfeetgofar.com

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