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F E A T U R E e d i t i o n 4 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 7 ARTISTS AT MPC, WITH HELP FROM RODEO FX AND LUMA, CREATE A FANTASY WORLD TO HELP MOVE THE FAMILIAR CHRISTMAS STORY INTO NEW TERRITORY BY BARBARA ROBERTSON I n 1816, E.T.A. Hoffmann, a German author, wrote a children's story in which a nutcracker, a young girl's favorite Christmas toy, comes alive. The nutcracker defeats an evil Mouse King in battle and whisks Marie Stahlbaum to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned an adaptation of Hoff- mann's story by Alexandre Dumas into the much-loved and oen-performed ballet "The Nutcracker." This year, Walt Disney Pictures released the sumptuous live-action film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms using the Hoffmann story as a starting point. It begins at a holiday party, where a Mr. Stahlbaum gives his youngest daughter, Clara, a locked, handcraed, egg-shaped box and a note from her deceased moth- er, Marie. The box is locked. That night, at her godfather Drosselmeyer's Christmas ball, Clara follows a string supposedly leading to Drosselmeyer's gi, but it takes her instead to a parallel world in which the key to her mother's box hangs from a tree. A mouse snatches it before she can reach it and races across a frozen lake. Guarding the lake is a soldier named Phillip, who tells Clara that she is the daughter of Queen Marie Stahlbaum. He leads her to a palace where she learns through a ballet performance about the land she has entered and her mother's role, which she is expected to assume. Lasse Hallström directed the filming, with Joe Johnston stepping in as director during postproduction and for re-shoots. Max Wood on the production side worked on pre-production and was the on-set visual effects supervisor throughout filming. MPC's Richard Clegg supervised artists working at that stu- dio's facilities in London, Montreal, and Bangalore who created 95 percent of the film's visual effects – the fully CG realms, a Mouse King made of 60,000 individual mice, 23 waterfalls and a waterwheel, the giant Mother Ginger marionette, and more. Rodeo FX artists contributed effects for shots in the real world, and Luma helped with shots, as well. "We started with our previs team and got MPC involved early on the environ- ments in the fantasy world, working from artwork from the art department," Wood says. "We knew the Mouse King would be in the movie, so we also got MPC going on the look and shape of him. And, we had Rodeo work on a fully-digital Victorian London." SETTING THE STAGE The story begins with the visual effects shots in 1879 Victorian London created by the artists at Rodeo FX. As the camera flies along the frozen river Thames, we see digital ice-skaters below. Animators created the ice-skating performances from data captured from roller-skaters. Motion capture also provided data for people in market stalls, horses and car- riages, and carriage drivers. Once Clara enters the fantasy world, approximately 500 artists at MPC took on the visual effects work, creating envi- ronments, characters, and effects. A huge palace dominates the fantasy world, and the fantasy world dominates the film. Surrounding the palace are four realms placed almost like points on a compass: Lands of Sweets, Flowers, and Snowflakes, and a mysterious Fourth