Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1540269
o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 2 c g w 7 A beloved animated franchise is reimagined in stunning live action in 2025's How to Train Your Dragon, breathing fiery new life into a tale of an unlikely alliance between sworn enemies. Directed by Dean DeBlois—helmer of the origi- nal DreamWorks Animation trilogy—the story unfolds in the midst of a bitter generational feud between Vikings and dragons on the rug- ged isle of Berk. Young Hiccup (Mason Thames), son of Chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), boldly defies tradition by forging a friendship with Toothless, a Night Fury dragon feared by all. When an ancient threat emerges and catapults the lives of both the Vikings and dragons into jeopardy, the bond between Hiccup and his winged companion is at the forefront of a heroic fight for a new future. DeBlois teamed up with Oscar and BAFTA-nominated production VFX supervisor Christian Mänz to usher his classic animated tale into the live-action realm. Mänz and acclaimed VFX studio Framestore were up for the challenge, seamlessly merging cutting-edge visual effects artistry with real-world practical effects elements to capture realistic interactions between the cast and their dragons. Here, Mänz shares an inside look at the process of bringing the live-action How to Train Your Dragon to life on screen. How did you become a part of this project, and what interest- ed you most about it when you first joined the team? Christian Mänz: I first met with director Dean DeBlois in October 2022 to talk about how we could help realize Toothless for a live-ac- tion remake of the film he co-wrote and directed with Chris Sanders in 2010. I rewatched the original and could see immediately what a challenge the project would be. Though I have supervised a lot of creature animation heavy films—including the Fantastic Beasts tril- ogy—the potential complexity of the VFX work was much higher here, due to the sheer amount of interaction between the human and dragon cast. That challenge, and the opportunity to bring such a beloved world to life, made me really interested to be involved. Tell us about collaborating with DeBlois to bring his beloved animated tale into the live-action realm. How did you imple- ment cutting-edge virtual reality tech to allow him to visualize the dragons on set? Christian Mänz: Dean is a great storyteller and filmmaker, as well as being a lovely guy. He was keen to understand the differences be- tween live-action feature VFX and the animated film world, which he was, of course, far more familiar with. One element of this was how much work in animation and previs we would need to do before we went to camera. It was really important to road test all of the dragon designs—in- cluding Toothless—through animation, as this helped us understand their scale and how they would fill the practical sets, but also to in- form our on-set puppeteers when performing against the cast. This was led by Kayn Garcia from Framestore's London studio, whilst previs was supervised by Jon Allen at Framestore Pre-Production Services (FPS). Glen McIntosh worked alongside me as the produc- tion animation supervisor, and we had a great time working with the teams and working out how we were going to stage the dragon ac- Director Dean DeBlois (le) also helmed the original animated trilogy.