Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1058642
20 cgw | e d i t i o n 4 , 2 0 1 8 exchanged identities, a trick made possible by artists at Image Engine who created full CG doubles for each actor and morphed between them. "We do a transition where the camera is very close up and doesn't move," Manz says. "We see the transformation with all the hair moving on the CG character." Newt's London Apartment It looks conventional at first, but something is happening in the living room. Lights flash and reveal baby Nifflers scurrying around. The rodent-like creatures with a long snout and fluffy hair love sparkly objects, and these babies were trying to steal things in Newt's apartment. "The brief for all baby creatures is that they have a cute quality, so we referenced young chicks as a starting place and guinea pigs for the different color designs," Burke says. "David wanted a semi-comedic Chap- lin-esque shot. Newt has to use his skill and some kitchen implements to catch them in a comedic way." We discover that although Newt's apartment looks simple, he has a menag- erie of magical creatures downstairs in the basement. "In the last film, he used his suitcase to capture and house creatures," Burke says. "This is the bricks-and-mortar version. It's like a rescue hospital. Newt has been away and come back. He wants to see his animals and get on with it." The basement was one of the first things Craig designed, according to Burke. It has interwoven Escher-esque staircases and multiple alcoves for Newt's CG animals. Among the digital beasts are an Augurey, a thin, green and black, mournful-looking vulture-like creature, and a Leucrocotta. "The Leucrocotta is a mythical creature based on a stag," Burke says. "We designed it in the visual effects department and thought it would be amusing if it had a large jaw that it could open like a shark. We went straight into animation studies once we had a rough sketch. A team of animators, modelers, and riggers gave it basic controls so we could design the movement, weight, and some facial expressions." It's in London where Newt meets Dumb- ledore, and the wizardly professor sends him searching for Grindelwald. The sequence takes place in the city of London, in Albert Square and near St. Paul's Cathedral. "We added soot and dirt to all the build- ings to create the look of 1920s London in the street scene," Manz says. "Then we filmed on greenscreen for foggy London and put the world in aerwards, digitally scan- ning St. Paul's Cathedral and Albert Square, and creating mist and fog. We created shapes in the fog through light. Framestore created all that. Lots of locations, lots of scans, lots of reference photos." Paris Circus Grindelwald, Newt learns, is in Paris. Since Paris today looks similar enough to Paris in the 1920s, the filmmakers had Clear Angle Studios spend a month in that city scanning buildings and capturing textures. "They scanned and textured whole streets," Manz says. "We could show low- res versions to Stuart Craig in postvis and introduced him even more to what we can do digitally. We'd say, 'Well, we can slide that building there. It's easier than moving a large chunk of set.'" In digital Paris, Framestore artists built a pretend square, and within it, a magical circus. There are crowds of people, fire-eat- ers, and children tumbling inside bubbles outside a large circus tent. "When you go to a fun fair, you see chil- dren running aer a guy making big bubbles, so we thought, What if the child could jump into the bubble?" Manz says. "David liked the idea, and it made it into the film." To create the effect, they spun a seven- year-old boy into the air, and then a digital double took over. Framestore created the bub- bles and digital doubles in Autodesk's Maya. Inside the tent are Credence and Nagini, and, as is her wont, Nagini transforms into a snake. GRINDELWALD ESCAPES CAPTIVITY IN A CARRIAGE PULLED BY CG THESTRALS. NEWT'S ESCHER-ESQUE BASEMENT HOUSES HIS CG ANIMALS.