A Boy Called Christmas is now on Netflix in utmost regions around the world (Sky Cinema in the United Kingdom) and has been cited as being one of the biggest new Christmas pictures of 2021. We managed to have a quick converse over dispatch with Stuart Penn who worked on the movie as a VFX Supervisor from the London branch of Framestore.
Released on November 24th, A Boy Called Christmas told the story of a youthful Nikolas who meets his fortune in a magical land inhabited by brownies on a hunt to find his father — and bring home the gift of stopgap The VFX was handled by Framestore who have worked on a slew of Netflix systems including The Crown, Jingle Jangle, Red Notice, Army of the Dead, The Midnight Sky, and Project Power.
Framestore has services in London, Vancouver, Melbourne, Mumbai, Chicago, and Los Angeles and has over workers.
Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions – could you give us an preface as to who you’re and what your part was on A Boy Called Christmas? Stuart Penn, I was Framestore’s VFX Supervisor on A Boy Called Christmas I was an on- set administrator for the shoot in Prague, working nearly with overall VFX Supervisor, Glen Pratt, as well as overseeing all of Framestore’s work.
How important of the film did Framestore have a part in? How numerous sequences etc?
Framestore worked nearly with director, Gil Kenan, frompre-production designing the characters through the shoot and to delivering 847 shots We worked on all sequences of the film from amping Miika the talking mouse and Blitzen, Nikolas’ safe reindeer companion, to sweeping arctic geographies Framestore also worked nearly with product developer, Gary Williamson, to realise the city of Elfhelm Are there any subtle VFX ways or sequences that cult may not be suitable to spot?
Adding falling snow to a lot of sequences. A lot of the chase through the trees with Nikolas riding Blitzen and pulling the sleigh was a full CG terrain. The cutlet megacity that Miika eats his way through was entirely CG grounded on an Art Dept practical model.
Christmas pictures frequently have an inexpressible sense to them that makes them feel “ Christmassy” – can you articulate what you suppose that’s and how you try to make the VFX feel authentic to that? I suppose with vacation flicks there’s a certain magic to it – Christmas especially is a time where utmost people like to believe in the good. With all our systems we strive to deliver the loftiest standard of VFX, but I suppose with A Boy Called Christmas it’s about helping produce the suspense of unbelief, making a magical experience that draws in observers of all periods.
Stephen Merchant voices Miika who’s the animated mouse in the movie. How do you try and bring some of Stephen Merchandisers visual characteristics (if at each) into the mouse? Effects like matching mouth movements etc?
Stephen did a great job of venting Miika, we used substantiation camera footage of his performance as base for the timing of Miika’s facial performance, indeed though we avoided anthropomorphising Miika’s expressions to make sure he kept his rodent nature. It was further about matching the timing of Stephen’s performance rather than the facial shapes.
a boy called christmas mouse A Boy Called Christmas – Picture Netflix Framestore specially worked on Netflix’s big Christmas movie Jingle Jangle. How important of the platoon also worked on A Boy Called Christmas and what assignments were learnt on that design that gave you an advantage for this bone?
There was veritably littlecross-over between the shows as Jingle Jangle was substantially done in our Montreal plant and A Boy Called Christmas in our London plant Though with every movie, effects are learnt that help us upgrade and ameliorate our workflow on the coming show.
What forthcoming Netflix systems are you presently working on? Or any other systems of note releasing soon?
The coming systems featuring work from Framestore’s fantastic London brigades are Kingsman prequel The Lords Man, and largely awaited The Matrix Rejuvenescences, both in playhouses on 22nd December. Our Montreal brigades have the Netflix dark comedy Do n’t Look Up and Spider- Man No Way Home arriving in playhouses this month, as well as Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall out coming time, and we ’re both presently working on Fantastic Beasts The Secrets of Dumbledore Did you check out A Boy Called Christmas on Netflix? What did you suppose? Let us know in the commentary.