Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1540269
responsible for the scene where the Viking ships are attacked as they attempt to reach Dragon Island. Framestore's Montreal team, led by VFX supervisor François Lam- bert, created the night village attack that opens the film—as well as the third act battle against the Red Death on Dragon Island, along- side the Berk docks and the end scene where the Vikings are re- vealed to now be living alongside the dragons. Framestore's Melbourne team, led by VFX supes Glenn Melen- horst and Dom Hellier, looked aer all of the dragon training arena sequences plus Gobber's limb replacement. Working with one company meant that asset and knowledge sharing was far easier than if we had used multiple companies, as well as giving us more of a chance of consistency in the look of the finished work. Glen and I reviewed work with the teams every day—from ani- mation to FX tests and final comps—which we would then show to Dean and Wyatt Smith, our editor, to get their notes. To get a show of this scale and complexity done efficiently and to a high level relies on a lot of clear communication between us and the VFX and animation supervision teams, with support from multiple producers, line pro- ducers, coordinators, and production assistants. Which soware programs and tools were the most important for this project's VFX workflow? Christian Mänz: On a film like this one, the VFX department uses various tools and soware on the production side and in post. Our VFX production team, led by production manager Sam Gir- dler, created a bespoke FileMaker database which—as well as track- ing shot notes and statuses—also automated a lot of tasks, such as packaging up the multitude of set data for Framestore on the mul- tiple turnovers. Our on-set data wrangler team used Blackmagic Pocket Cinema cameras as well as GoPros for witness cameras, alongside SLRs [sin- gle-lens reflex cameras] to take HDRI [high dynamic range imaging] photos and other devices to measure camera data. All of the sets were 3D scanned via LiDAR [light detection and ranging] by Clear Angle Studios, with textures captured on SLR and Roundshot cameras. We also used their full-body photogrammetry rig to scan all of the cast in their multiple costume variants, as well as their "Dorothy" head scanning rig to capture the high-resolution data required by Framestore to create digital doubles for the flying scenes. Framestore, of course, was using multiple soware and hardware to create the nearly 1,500 shots they finished on the film. The main ones included Maya, Nuke, and Houdini, but they also used plug-ins and proprietary applications. This included Freak, Framestore's cus- tom path tracer, which it uses to render all of its images. Tell us about bringing the character of Toothless into the real world. What was the development process like, and what challenges did you encounter along the way? Christian Mänz: When Peter Cramer, president of Universal Pic- tures, had been discussing with Dean about making a live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon, he wasn't convinced that Tooth- less would work in the real world. His touchstone was Buckbeak— j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 5 c g w 9