Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/759864
20 cgw n o v e m b e r . d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 6 we used a lot of research," Manz says. "We found a Harold Lloyd film from 1928 that showed the hustle and bustle at the time. There were a lot of cars but no traffic lights and no rules." But, one of the most complicated envi- ronments was hidden inside Newt's magical case. Inside the case, micro-environments contained creatures in their habitats. Work- ing with Craig, Art Director Toby Brittain, and Director Yates, concept artists on the visual effects team helped work out which areas would be practical and which would be CG. "They designed areas that look like muse- um dioramas, but they are moving paintings like in Harry Potter's world," Burke says. "DNeg, Rodeo, Image Engine, Framestore, and Method each worked on one scene in- side the case. It was a massive undertaking." Even though many action sequences in the film took place in a particular location with one creature, as with the shots inside Newt's case, some were more complicated. "I had some shots with four or five com- panies," Manz says. "In one, for example, a flying creature that MPC created is eaten by a creature Rodeo made, that's eaten by a creature Image Engine made, in a digital environment from Method. It was one of the last things we shot. There were lots of creatures; we tried out lots of ideas. I stood on set and it was like watching a play come together." CREATURES AND GOBLINS The main creatures in the film are Niffler and Erumpent animated at Framestore, Occamy and Demiguise animated at MPC, and Pick- ett the Bowtruckle. "All these creatures have different charac- teristics – hide, fur, hair," Burke says. "But, the problems we had weren't technical," Manz adds. "We had the right problems, the creative problems. How do the creatures act? How do they behave?" Manz points to the goblin Gnarlack, the lead gangster goblin performed by Ron Perlman as an example. "In the Harry Potter films, the gob- lins were actors wearing makeup," Manz says. "For this film, they wanted a digital character. So we invested a lot of time in capturing Perlman's performance. We did a facial-capture session with him and really pushed the boundaries so Framestore could Occamy This huge snake-like crea- ture is covered in colorful, iridescent feathers. When Newt tries to capture it, it becomes frightened. It wraps itself around the raers in an attic and tries to thrash itself free. "He's so big that we had to divide the rig into differ- ent portions to make sense of his body," says MPC Visu- al Effects Supervisor Ferran Domenech. "He splits all the beams with its body. We had to use our Kali destruc- tion software to break the environment." But, Occamy also has the magical ability to shrink as well as grow. In another scene, it becomes small enough to fit in a hand. "We had to make the en- tire feather groom dynam- ically scalable," Domenech says. "And the shaders were quite complex. They had an effect like the feathers of a hummingbird."