VFX Studio ‘Framestore’ to Return to Narnia for Netflix’s Adaptation
NarniaWeb has learned that the London-based VFX Studio Framestore is to return to Narnia to work on the visual effects for Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Magician’s Nephew adaptation at Netflix. Framestore have previously worked on the digital effects for Walden Media’s Prince Caspian (2008) as well as The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010).
In Prince Caspian, Framestore handled 514 shots, including CGI characters like Trufflehunter, Aslan, and Pattertwig, as well as the Dryad Dream sequence, the tube station-to-Narnia transition, Cair Paravel, and various set extensions.
For Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the studio created various elements, such as the CGI Aslan, the Dufflepuds, the painting-to-ocean transition, and the non-breaking wave at the world’s edge.
In the 15 years since the Walden Media film trilogy wrapped however, the VFX industry has been through some hard times. Rhythm & Hues, the lead VFX studio on The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe (2005), filed for bankruptcy in 2013, and the Moving Picture Company (MPC), who worked alongside Framestore on the visual effects for both Prince Caspian and Dawn Treader closed down earlier this year.
As with the Walden films, there are likely to be a number of other smaller VFX houses working alongside Framestore on the digital effects for Netflix’s Narnia; all of which is being overseen by Kris Wright, the director of VFX at Netflix.
Good choice of a VFX company for Narnia. If unsurprising, it’s at least very promising: FrameStore has done numerous movies, small and big, with excellent visual effects. They are known for breaking new ground in different effects fields. I particularly liked their ambitious work on Gravity 2013. I found that movie transporting partly because of how good the effects were. If they can bring a that kind of awe to Narnia, and bring a different quality to it than their previous Narnia efforts (maybe something more naturalistic and yet more stylised than before) that would ignite my interest. I certainly hope they indulge in practical effects as well as CGI. And I pray that they stay AWAY from AI haha
Just reading from the list of visual effect shots they worked on from PC and VDT, looks like Framestore was behind some of the more impressive shots from those films. The wave and VDT’s Aslan particularly looked excellent.
Hopefully Netflix gives them the time (!) and budget required to bring Narnia to life.
i can’t say I know enough about the VFX industry to know which companies are the best, but for me It’s just pleasing to see that we are getting a proper cinema-level VFX company on board for this project. No cheap “made for Netflix” effects here.
Whether they are given the time and money necessary to out-do what they did for the Walden films remains to be seen, but overall this is another promising sign that the producers are aiming for the highest possible quality.
I just hope they don’t go for the same look with the dryads. I would like them to be more human with Prosthetics and make-up then vfx cgi special effects.
Glad they’re getting some Old Narnians back in there lol. The VFX on VOTD was rather hit or miss, but that may just have been because it was relied on way too much. Prince Caspian was pretty impressive though!
@Eustace, I’m pretty sure the director is the one who decides what dryads look like, not the VFX people.
I hope they learn from lessons of the vfx Community pushback to the Barbie promo that suppressed/undermined/hid/overlooked the vfx artists for Barbie and don’t bury their vfx artists again, because WB really threw Framestore under the bus, I hope they get as splashy and generous marketing as the Production design, costume and cinematography, crew , it’ll probably be your job @Impending Doom or @Glumpuddle to hold everyone’s feet to the fire when/if you do press junkets because hearing the level of disrespect and disregard they felt during the Barbie marketing broke my heart https://youtu.be/Mrws6gPaqG0?si=-aRcFsrDwyG2-She
They did some great work for Walden’s Narnia. Just a couple thoughts on their Aslan:
The elephant-sized Aslan in Prince Caspian, with a weird face – and the roughed up Aslan in the final scenes of Dawn Treader are very different. I get that they were trying to make Aslan seem bigger to Lucy in PC, as the book talks about. And all respect to them for trying.
Sadly it didn’t work in the end. (Actually, does he look different in the final scenes post-battle? I think he does. Maybe the ginormous Aslan is how Lucy sees him at that time, but to the others/in real life, he looks more like in the first film. If that was the intention, I think they should have highlighted that more, to tell that story for the audience.)
But even in Dawn Treader, the appearance of Aslan changes. To me, his face looks rounder in the dream sequence with Lucy and Susan, than at the end with the wilder appearance.
@ Jonathan Paravel
Framestore talked a bit about the differences between how Aslan looked in PC and VDT In this interview linked in the article. Pretty interesting read! https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/narnia_the_dawn_treaders_vfx_crew/
Will WETA be back? They do great work!
Jonathan Paravel, I didn’t realize others noticed Aslan’s change in face shape from the Disney/Walden LWW to PC. I think I know how it happened, based upon sketches I made from lions in nature photography books. I think they based the underlying shape of Aslan’s neck and head off a lioness, to get the shape of the lion underneath the mane, and then attached the mane. The reason I think this is that lionesses are generally smaller, but they do just as much hunting, so their muscles in their jaws and legs are thicker in proportion to their heights.
Regardless, Framestone’s animations of Aslan and the talking beasts were very high quality and I don’t want this to be seen as a complaint, especially since their animations are still higher quality than many visual effects in Marvel and other movies.
That is an impressive list of effects! I especially loved how they handled the transitions to Narnia in PC and VDT and hope they come up with something as equally creative. Also, as someone who has done a film with vfx, when I see “514 shots,” I know even more just how much of a massive undertaking that is!