Director Andrew Adamson has bounced between Far Far Away and Narnia for the last 11 years. Prince Caspian is his latest Narnia adventure. All images © Disney Enterprises Inc. and Walden Media LLC.

For a little more than a decade, Andrew Adamson has been bouncing back and forth between two make-believe worlds: "Far Far Away," the fractured fairytale land of the Shrek movies, and C.S. Lewis' mythical realm of Narnia. With Prince Caspian, his second Chronicles of Narnia film hitting theaters today, the New Zealand-born director has left the editing room to talk about himself and his career. With his flowing blond hair Adamson could easily be mistaken for David Spade, but his Kiwi accent and the absence of the actor's self-deprecating snark would quickly dispel the error.

"I started the first Shrek movie in 1997, I started The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe while I was working on the second Shrek and I think Shrek 3 started as Wardrobe was finishing. Then I started on this [Caspian] a few weeks after finishing Wardrobe. So it's been about 11 years of overlapped projects. And it's only four movies!"

At age 41, Adamson's experience stretches back to the dawn of the CG age, creating 3D animation and vfx for commercials back in New Zealand. "I was planning to be an architect," Adamson admits. "I didn't think I would be doing this, but it was a series of accidents -- actually, it was literally a car accident that stopped me.

By dint of luck, Adamson stumbled into computer animation after missing a university enrollment deadline. He was soon recruited by PDI and came to the U.S. to work on his first feature.

"I missed the university enrollment deadline because of the accident; then I just sort of stumbled into a job doing computer animation." Recruited by DreamWorks' Pacific Data Images division, Adamson relocated to the U.S. and went to work at the company's L.A. facility where his first job was as TD on Barry Levinson's whimsical fantasy Toys. "That was my first film. From there I realized you can tell stories rather than just do something for when people go to the bathroom. It just went on from there so it wasn't a very deliberate path."

Adamson served as visual effects designer for Joel Schumacher's Batman films before making his move into directing. His first effort -- the original Shrek -- was the first to win the brand new Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2002, and Adamson's directing career was off and running.

Like other animators who have transitioned into live action (Kevin Lima and now Brad Bird come to mind), Adamson's familiarity with the logistics and technical aspects of an animated project is an invaluable plus in shepherding films teeming with vfx and imaginary characters. "Emotionally, directing live action is very similar to directing CGI. The pitfalls, the things you despair are all the same: the story, the characters, 'am I getting what I need, am I getting the audience to movie in the right way?'