Framestore: A decade of imagination
Trevor Hogg celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Framestore art department with Martin Macrae
We take a look inside Framestore’s art department as it celebrates its tenth anniversary
As the Framestore art department reaches its tenth anniversary, the creative endeavour is headed by an artist who has been with the visual effects company for two decades. “My first project was the TV series Walking With Prehistoric Beasts where I helped with texturing creatures,” states Martin Macrae, Head of Art Department. “Then I moved onto the film side of things where I went through the matte painting department and digital environments. I had a good knowledge of the visual effects side of things as well as the art side. The lucky thing with the art department is we’re part of Framestore but also work independently. We’ll have lots of projects that people will come to us for, such as pitch packages to help sell a project to working with production designers on different shows as an extension of their art department, as well as internal shows that come through with visual effects. I literally help to maintain the communication and the creative briefs on all of the projects.”
An agnostic approach towards computer software allowed for a successful transition to working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re in a lucky position in the
art department where we are not relying on a huge pipeline,” notes Macrae. “All of the artists can work on any software that they want. When it comes to technology, thank goodness for things like Google and Zoom as well. It’s quite a small team [eight to ten artists] so it’s easier to maintain and manage as well. We’re communicating twice a day every day at the very least.”
Even though Blender is currently the favourite 3D software for conceptual artists, a long-standing mainstay of the design toolset remains Photoshop. “Everyone uses Photoshop to finish off their concepts. For instance, if we were doing a creature design, we would start off with sketches if it’s a quick turnaround. But once everyone has decided on an avenue in terms of which direction the creature should go, we go into a 3D sculpt, whether it’s Zbrush or 3D-coat, because we have to see it from all angles. We have to put it into potential shot beats to see how it would look in an environment, and if it is going directly to visual effects from us, we would directly give them the model. It’s almost like version one of the creature for them.”
Projects can change on a daily basis or even from the morning to the afternoon. “You have to keep things as flexible as possible,” states Macrae. “For instance, in short-term projects if the artist you think is ideal is free, then you tend to put them on it. But when there is more flexibility with deadlines, I try to push as much as possible for the artists to try an area that
“THE KEY THING WE LOOK FOR IS SOMEONE WHO CAN COME UP WITH GREAT AND ORIGINAL DESIGNS” Martin Macrae, Head of Art Department, Framestore
they’re not used to. It gives them more confidence as an artist. If you have someone who is good at doing creature work and also confident doing environments, I want to award them environment work and vice versa.” Every single project is different. “Sometimes you’ll be working from a script or ideas from the director, or ideas that have already been fleshed out by the production designer, or you’ll work out ideas with them. A job that comes in through visual effects has the same problems. Months can be spent in visual effects by TDS and texture artists trying to come up with a look. It’s much quicker to do a concept to help that design process along. On Fantastic Beasts we did some designs working in parallel with the animation team, coming up with how the creature moved and how it looked in the sequence. The information would pass back and forth between us to actually come up with the best design.”
Macrae continues: “At the start we always tend to do mood boards. For the mood boards we’ll collect a lot of reference, whether it’s photographs you’ve taken or something you’ve seen or a particular thing you’ve Googled. You put all of them onto mood boards and then discuss it with the director or production designer. The ‘no’ count is as important as the ‘yes’ count because you’ll eliminate a whole plethora of ideas that you might have explored without showing mood boards. When it comes to the mood boards for a creature, we’ll pick animals that we think are close to them from nature so that people can make a realistic connection to them.
“With clouds in The Aeronauts that was quite fun, because we would have regular meetings with the director and sometimes he would have something on his phone from when he was flying from New York and took a picture out of the window, saying ‘I want something like this for that sequence.’ Or there was a particular scene where we had to create stormy clouds brewing. We were running out of time to try to show something for that particular scene. We looked outside of the window, we were on this floor in Framestore which was a new floor and was quite empty, and it was a panoramic view of London. So we literally took all of this and stitched together and used elements of it. Basically, you use whatever you can get as reference. Pulling it from nature is the number-one thing you want to do.”
“Ready Player One had everything in there; that was a crazy project,” admits Macrae. “Working with [production designer] Adam Stockhausen was a fantastic experience. He would throw these ideas
“LEARN FROM THE BEST WHEN IT COMES TO COMPOSITION AND LIGHTING” Martin Macrae, Head of Art Department, Framestore
at us and we did everything from props to characters to vehicles to environments to rooms. There were a lot of areas touched by us in a year and a half of working on that. It was wide open for us to experiment.”
“Blade Runner 2049 was one of those great iconic projects,” continues Macrae. “The original Blade Runner was probably one of my favourite sci-fi films. Visually Denis Villeneuve was trying to push it as much as possible. The sequence that we helped to design was Las Vegas. The idea behind it was so unnatural looking; this orange palette, trying to do it justice and living up to the designs of Syd Mead was a tricky one to try to get right.”
The biggest surprise was how the conceptual work impacted Kong: Skull Island. “The director picked up on a lizard creature that was in the original black and white movie. We started doing some sketches. One of our concept artists, Daniel Baker, came up with a silhouette sketch of this creature and the director went, ‘I like that. Develop that a bit more.’ It ended up being the Skullcrawler, which was written into the script as this main villain creature that King Kong was fighting.”
CONCEPTUALISING CREATURES
There are some important elements to keep in mind when conceptualising a believable creature. Studying anatomy is critical, as Macrae explains. “You can see quite a lot of great artists on Artstation but the proportions look slightly off or it’s hard to pinpoint what the problem is, but when you analyse it again a lot of it is down to the anatomy of how things are put together. Look at nature. Look at what we’re used to.”
Originality is paramount. “Try to avoid looking at other concept art too much because you don’t want to copy ideas from other artists,” states Macrae. “What you want to do is take something from what you observe around you, analyse it and put your own spin on it. The key thing that we look for in the art department is someone who can come up with great and original designs. If the idea behind it is not original, that’s not going to get you a long way in the world of concept art.”
BUILDING ENVIRONMENTS
Being aware of the world around you is crucial for environmental design. “Because predominantly we’re working in film, I ask people to study their favourite movie and find out who the cinematographer was,” reveals Macrae. “A lot of environment concept art is done as if it is a frame from a movie. If you want to do something good, then learn from the best when it comes to composition and lighting. A lot of the great cinematographers have been doing that for years. Make sure to study them and that will elevate your art.”
A design can be overworked. “Trust your instinct,” remarks Macrae. “‘Practise, practise and practise,’ is the thing that I say to everyone as well. Sometimes you get artists who are a little bit knocked back and think, ‘I’m never going to get there.’ If you’ve got the urge and drive to do it, just keep practising and you will get better. It is an art form. You might have the raw talent, but you need to put the hard work in to get what you want out of it.”
Concept art of I-r0k’s gun from