Since Castletroy native Norman Walshe was old enough to hold a crayon he loved drawing and now he is living out his dream.

A concept designer, his job is to create and design props and sets on movies, and he is working on some of the biggest films currently in production, Gulliver's Travels to name one.

His voice trembled with excitement over the phone line from his home in Ealing, West London when he said: "In the past month I've got onto Gulliver's Travels. It's a big, big movie – you're talking about $200 million. Jack Black is going to be Gulliver and I'm a big fan of his as well. I can't really discuss the story, but it's Gulliver's Travels with a twist."

We won't see the finished film on the big screen until 2010, but Norman will have completed his work long before that. So it's no wonder he is struggling to remember all his work on Inkheart.

"I worked on it around a year and a half ago. Then, about two months ago we were all shown the movie and it turned out to be a nice film, especially for the kids," said Norman.

Based on the best-selling novel by Cornelia Funke, Inkheart is a fantastical family adventure about a secret class - the Silvertongues - who possess the power to literally bring books to life. But for every fictional character allowed to leap across the divide, a real person must take their place. And guess who helped design the book which is at the heart of the film?

"I was asked to do environment visual drawings like what the castle might look like and some props including starting work on the book in Inkheart."

However, the movie business is a lot less glamorous than people think.
"At the start there were five of us in one little room doing drawings with the acclaimed production designer John Beard who did the cult movie Brazil and Absolute Beginners."

Despite working on scenes behind the scenes, Norman did meet the film's stars Brendan Fraser, best known from The Mummy films, and Paul Bettany (The Da Vinci Code).

In the film Fraser plays the role of a doting father who has kept a terrible secret from his daughter since she was three years-old: he is a Silvertongue and inadvertently sent his beloved wife into the pages of a book called Inkheart.Is it true that movie stars always look smaller in real life?

"Yeah, Brendan is a lot smaller than he looks on the big screen – he's not that tall. You wouldn't think he was this blockbuster movie star but he was very nice and down to earth. When you see them in the flesh they're very regular people.

"They came into our office to see the concept art. It gives them a better feel for things because of the CGI (computer generated images). Sometimes they never even get to see some of the sets because they're computer generated," explained the 34-year-old.

Indeed, the direction film makers are heading is good news for Norman as in practically every other business, costs are being cut.

"Concept artists are needed more and more now because they only build half sets in most cases because it costs too much to build the whole set."

By its nature the movie business is a tough one and once a film finishes, a concept designer's job is done and they must look for new employment.

"When you're working you do get paid really well and you save a fortune as well because you're working so hard. I generally start at 7.30am and I'm rarely home in the evening before 8pm."

But this year was a particularly tough one for the movie business.
"It was a very touch and go time. There was the writers' strike and then the threat of an actors' strike. Companies were afraid to set up a big production in case they would have to let everybody go. It was a fairly risky time.

"After Inkheart I got on to the Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but it fell through. They pulled the plug on it. We were on our way to Malta, we had or bags packed and all when we heard the news. I'd never been abroad on a movie before either.

"That's just the nature of the business. It's up and down the whole time. Work happens in bursts and when you're working you earn quite a lot of money," said Norman.

Most of us would be nervous wrecks if we lost our job every six months and didn't know what was around the corner but for Norman it's just a way of life.

And if that wasn't bad enough Norman faces rejection practically everyday of his working life as well.

"You do tonnes of drawings but a lot of work never gets used. Usually I'd do about nine concepts for things during the week and none of them might ever get used.

"Sometime you might work on a movie and you might never have your work in it at all. It all depends on the production designer that you're working with or maybe the budget isn't there. You might have these wonderful designs but they can't make them due to the budget. Or your design in the film may have changed so much that it mightn't look anything like what you concepted. It's part of the process."

But Norman's fingerprints can be seen all over Inkheart.
"I did Capricorn village which is the Italian village on the hill. I drew what it looked like when it was derelict and when they do up the village with all the banners and flags."

And seeing your work, often years after you've drawn them, up on the local Omniplex's screen makes up for all the rejection and hard work, he says.

"It's great when somebody sees your concept in the office and goes 'Oh my God!' and then you see it on the big screen – it's such a great buzz."

And the fact that Norman has been hired to work on one of the biggest movies currently in production means that the buzz around Norman is going to get louder and louder.