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March / April 2019

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DEPARTMENT A FRIENDSHIP FORGED IN FIRE A NEW RENDERER HELPS DREAMWORKS CREATE THE LAST CHAPTER IN THE HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON SERIES f you love someone, set them free…." That premise was at the heart of The Hidden World, the third and final installment in the DreamWorks Animation film series How to Train Your Dragon, loosely based on the books by Cressida Cowell of the same name, about an insecure young Viking and his beloved dragon Toothless, as they help each other grow and mature, and eventually fulfill their desti- nies separately. Storywise, the third installment, released February 22, picks up shortly after How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) left off. The young Vikings are still dragon rescuers, not dragon slayers, as they first began in the original film from 2010. The dragon Toothless and the Viking Hiccup, now ruler of the tribe along with the fearless Astrid, are members of the Dragon Riders squadron, who continue to rescue captured dragons and bring them back to the village of Berk to live. But flaws within the chaotic yet Utopian society soon become apparent: There just isn't enough room on the island for both humans and beasts to life comfortably. So, Hiccup embarks on a mission to find the mythical Hidden World, fabled to be a safe haven for dragons. Meanwhile, the evil Grimmel, who longs to capture Toothless, a Night Fury — believed to be the most feared of all dragon species — and eradicate all dragons forever. Hiccup and Toothless remain loyal friends, but… Toothless meets a white Fury, called Light Fury by Astrid, and the two strike up a romance as only dragons can. However Grimmel captures Light Fury in attempt to force Toothless into becom- ing his alpha dragon. Hiccup and the Dragon Riders attack Grimmel and free the dragons he has captured. But, Hiccup and Toothless realize that the dragons will always be in danger from humans, and they bid farewell as all the dragons head off to their new home in the Hidden World. For How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Dean DeBlois returns as director, with Brad Lewis (Ratatouille, Antz) and Bonnie Arnold (How to Train Your Dragon 1 and 2, Toy Story, Tarzan) producing. The film was released by Universal Pictures. Also returning in this last chapter are many of the hero characters from the previous films, including Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), Astrid (America Ferrera), Hiccup's mom Valka (Cate Blanchett), Snotlout (Jonah Hill), twins Ruffnut (Kristen Wig) and Tuffnut (Justin Rupple), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz- Plasse), Gobber (Craig Ferguson), and Eret (Kit Harington). New to the series is the evil Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham). With the exception of Valka, the animators were able to reuse the existing human models for this third installment, although the hair and surfacing were updated, according to David Walvoord, visual effects supervisor. "We really weren't happy with Valka. We wanted to make her more appealing," he says. "She was incredibly difficult to light, and whenever something is hard to light, it's generally a clue that you can do better. So we took another shot at her. And from a story point, that was really important. We were distancing her a bit from that unredeemable act of abandoning her child (Hiccup) in the previous films." In this film, the Vikings of Berk are outfitted with drag- on armor made from fallen dragon scales. Initially, this was conceived just for Hiccup, for a particular scene — the premise being that the armor was fireproof and would enable the char- acter to walk through fire. But once the artists dressed Hiccup in the armor, "it became obvious that it was really cool, and we all responded strongly to it," Walvoord notes. "And then we re- alized the film was missing a unique visual statement in terms of the characters. For the environments, there was the Hidden World and New Berk. But the characters felt like a continua- tion [of the second movie] since not a lot of time had gone by — just one year in the film." Soon, the team was pointing out more scenes in which Hiccup could wear the armor. And then production designer Pierre-Olivier Vincent suggested that all the dragon riders should wear the armor. Everyone loved the idea. "We had done different costumes for them, but it was kind of more of the same," Walvoord says. "And then we saw that dragon armor…. It really does make the characters look fresh and different from the previous movies." The addition of the dragon armor was particularly difficult for the modelers, who had to hand place all the tiles and fit them together like they were solving a jigsaw puzzle — 3,620 discard- ed scales from Toothless alone comprised Hiccup's body armor. The artists also reused the returning hero dragon models, which were also refreshed and resurfaced. The crew certainly had experience in dragonology from the first two films — modeling and animating wings and tails of all shapes and sizes. And in some cases, multiple append- ages. Also, multiple dragons. But in The Hidden World, they had to model and animate more than few dragons (close By Karen Moltenbrey "I

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