When it came to animating the wide range of CG dragons in “How to train your dragon” Live-action-remake, author-director Dean Deblois – Who helped the three Dreamworks animated the films with Chris Sanders (“The Wild Robot”) – had a specific mandate. These dragons need to fit comfortably with the same photoreal dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park.”
This poses a direct challenge for many animated designs, well established by Cressida Cowell in its “dragon” books, which have realistic structures but are expressive and exaggerated – and yet completely credible in an animated environment. How would the live-action version of film Visually express the personalities and hearts of these dragons?
Vfx Studio Framestore (led by VFX supervisor Christian Manz and animation leader Glen Mcintosh) could give more tactile authenticity with his animation. “In the type of work retroactively, we thought we could lean more into animal references that inspired these dragons but without simplification and exaggeration,” Deblois told IndieWire. “And so, with the monstrous nightmare, he is strongly crocodile. Gronckle is a kind of walrus meets an English bulldog, and the deadly Nader is clearly like a tropical bird -inspired creature.”
However, a remarkable improvement was the threatening red death, the Queen of Dragon Hive at Isle of Berk. Deblois got a second crack on her because there was not enough time to do his justice on the animated original due to a short production schedule.
“So we decided to take a little more time and think about what would a creature that lives in a volcanic caller look?” Said Deblois. “And would its armor and staining reflect its environment? And there was a lot of talk that this is basically an old lazy lion being fed and is very cranky.” The red death turned out to be one of the biggest creatures that Framestore has ever worked with, given her extensive structure, rigging and FX.
But no great new design was required for Toothless, the mysterious and difficult -to -catch Night Fury, which binds with Hiccup (Mason Thames), the reluctant Viking Dragon whisper. Deblois and Sanders got it right the first time and ripped on “The Black Stallion” for inspiration and emotional resonance. Now it was about finding out the right size for living action and dropping the animal within.
“With toothless he was always a black panther,” added Deblois. “It was his design and it was apart from the reptilian patterns of the other dragons. But he is so sensitive and has such a specific personality that, when we played with the design that may have inspired the animated look, we found that the longer we went away from it, the less toothless he became.”
Of course, it is the extremely large and expressive eyes that help define toothless: a trait he shares with volatile foreign stitches, which Sanders also designed and has undergone a CG conversion for “Lilo & Stitch” Live-Action-Exmand. “And so there is no animal on earth that has eyes so big, not even the blue choices,” Deblois continued. “So we realized that we probably had to shrink them down. And when we did, we lost we continued to lose the character. And so there is only something with his seam -like similar proportions of the big spam and the big eyes and position for the nose and ears. We had to keep it to keep the character.
“And then we began to lean into the very specific muscle and skeleton and structure of the skin, the scalp’s iriscity and tried to get a feeling of credibility without changing too much of the silhouette and the most important design functions, especially facial.”
But while they slightly peeled down his eyes and head, they made overall toothless larger and more powerful. They studied cat videos and collected small pieces that turned out to be useful. Still, the animated performance of Toothless for his intimate scenes with Hiccup was already a touch stone and indelible etched in the views of the viewers.
“The Lane that I chose from the beginning told the same story as the animated film,” Deblois said. “And I wanted to follow as close as we could for the couples of iconic moments, such as” Forbidden Friendship “(when Hiccup and Toothless first meet in Cove), or” Test Run “(when Hiccup first flies on toothless). So in our Life-Action language, we still tried to be the best we can, to know that the music ”.
For “Forbidden Friendship”, which represents the most iconic scene in the entire franchise, the director thought it would be nice to treat it very faithfully for the fans. “I would always encourage our animators to look at the original” forbidden friendship “while also considering what they wanted to do with their performance,” Deblois continued. “And so if there was ever an idea or an expressive pace that for me just called true and felt memorable, I would encourage them to assume it in their own way.”
But adapting to live -Action for the first time was an adjustment for Deblois. He needed to rely strongly on the actors’ performances. To help with the scenes between Mason and Toothless, the production was given with a dragon doll with led mouths, eyes and earplates made from the famous seams and glue. “And then you had puppet Tom Wilton who worked with Mason Thames and was the stage partner when they draw in the sand as they go through that dance,” Deblois said.
“And every little doubt and movement that Mason had to react to was presented live that the cameras rolled. In this case, Tom’s body would disappear, and there was only one dragon on the stage. There was so much thought and sensitivity that entered the notion that it made it very truthful,” added Deblois. “
“Test Drive” was built around a piece of Powell’s music that dictates its length. What they did with this sequence was to look at it through POV of the camera language (Bill Pope of “The Matrix” was the Kinematographer) and how they could make it more engrossing. “We made it feel as if the cameraman can’t keep up with the subject,” Deblois said. “The visceral intensity is ringed up, but it is also supposed to be quite close to its beats and its structure and its length to its animated counterpart.”
For this and the other flying sequences, Framestore worked with the SFX team at Ride-on Gimbals, where each dragon shows another flight pattern. “The Gimbales were on platforms that were about 10 meters high and could move on six different axles,” added Deblois. “And then at the top of these we built Drakbuster. For each dragon we had breasts, neck and head, and every dragon that was robotic and articulated could be controlled either through the animation that had already been created by our animators at Framestore or live with joysticks.”
This allowed them to put Mason in the saddle on top of this robotic dragon, which was already moving on a gimbal. “But then, depending on how the dragon flies and pumped its wings, it would also affect Mason’s body,” Deblois continued. “He was going to hold as a jockey on a horse with his hands further up on the neck. If the dragon drew or risen or rolled, we would have that effect on Mason.
“We knew once in the animators’ hand, we would get a fantastic performance,” he said. “It was about how we would integrate the Live-Action characters. I think it was the first time it was ever done that way, so it felt pretty groundbreaking but also a little scary because we didn’t know if it would work.”
