BEARY TRUTHFUL
Extensive work went into the bear rig to calibrate real-life actions with the CG performances
A large practical rig was constructed with the same size and spec of the CG bear. “The idea from the start was to do something decidedly more organic and driven by the puppeteers; however, they do need something to train against in the beginning,” states Framestore VFX supervisor Robert Harrington. “Polar bears don't really canter. Once we were happy with the running and walking cycles, we took this as our data to start vaguely reverse-engineering reality.”
“We added some reference grids/ LEDS to the set, measured it, profiled the little Canon DSLR lens and tracked the bear rig with one of my most favourite pieces of software, the good old 3DE,” remarks Harrington. “There are obviously some tolerances for error in there, but you can still draw data from it, and it was clear that rise-versus-fall was a thing for the performances. We went back to Wales, adjusted the dampers and finetuned things. Clearly, I love a telemetry trace. I believe that the data you get out of something is related to how good the data is that you put into it, so it felt like a great endeavour to chase.”
produce something in 3D that can be handed off to other departments for finetuning. There’s a night-time shot of a boat going up a river; it was a plate based on a concept but the only thing we kept was the boat, with the other boats, trees, sky and water being CG.”
Believable performance
CG animals had to believably perform and emote alongside cast members Dafne Keen, James Mcavoy, Ruth Wilson, Clarke Peters, Lewin Lloyd, Lin-manuel Miranda and Anne-marie Duff. “We watched a lot of videos of polar bears, dogs and cats to study their movements and behaviour in minute detail, in order to understand and formulate the rules of motion that we would apply when populating our world,” notes Framestore animation supervisor Aulo Licinio. “Our characters also needed to have the capacity to emote without saying a single word. This led us to develop our characters with a more anthropomorphic thought process. Breaking down the motion of an animal face and mixing with something more human was able to give us the ability to stretch emotions and eventually, performances. The reference
“WE STUDIED ANIMAL MOVEMENTS AND BEHAVIOUR IN MINUTE DETAIL” Aulo Licinio, Framestore
pool just grew and grew. We had our own animators performing to camera, actors and puppeteers on set, online reference, and animal locomotion workshops.”
All of the creatures are anatomically correct, highly detailed and can hold up in 4K; when it came to having them convey emotion, the focus was on innate expressions that were usually physically based and eliminating certain basic behaviours such as begging for food and sniffing. In the case of Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen), her daemon known as Pantalaimon (Kit Connor) shapeshifts into various animals depending on her emotional state. “We cast all of the animals that we needed off of photography and got puppets made to scale of the key ones,” explains Dodgson. “Transitions were always done through movement. We made sure that all of the different forms of Pan have a streak of white in them so you always get this slight blur
of white as they transition. Lyra is often a certain type of animal [an ermine] so that helped us.”
Daemon traits
When a child transitions into adulthood, the daemon settles into a singular animal form. “It takes time for that to develop,” observes Whitlam. “As you become an adult, certain parts of your personality are pushed down and others are amplified.” Dodgson used the Chinese calendar to figure out golden monkey traits that still and once existed in Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson). “It was great having Ruth Wilson come in and talk about the golden monkey’s character and the backstory about the two of them growing up,” remarks Harrington. “That was both pretty deep and pretty special.”
The actions of the daemon were an effective way to indicate the true mental state of a character. “You can show when Lyra is becoming braver by making her daemon run ahead,” states Dodgson. “Or you can tell when she is really afraid by having Pan hanging back.”
Contrasting physical traits were given to the armoured polar bears Iorek Byrnison (Joe Tandberg) and Iofur Raknison (Joi Johannsson) to distinguish them during their fight. “We did variances with size, groom, texture, wounds and armour as well as with mannerisms and speech,” states Hillier. “We did a loose blocking of each shot to see what works, how we can connect two shots, and then massage from there.
“I was surprised when I actually looked at some reference of real bears fighting that the fur really shakes around. But then you add armour which impacts what’s happening and how much jiggle you would put on a bear. It’s a collaborative and evolving process.”
“AS YOU BECOME AN ADULT, PARTS OF YOUR PERSONALITY ARE AMPLIFIED” James Whitlam, VFX executive producer
“It’s fair to say that this is primarily a character show coloured by environments,” notes Whitlam. “There wasn’t a huge call for effects simulations.” The dynamic will change with the adaptation of the second book The Subtle Knife. “Season two is more environment and when the characters do turn up they’re more fantastical, like these Spectres that eat peoples’ souls,” remarks Dodgson. “For our teams, it’s great because the show gives us a variety of work to do.” Hillier is in agreement. “This has been a nice and smooth project,” he says. “Everybody understood that His Dark Materials is a visual effects-heavy show. It has been a big group effort and that helps to make this show magical.”