Framestore’s Animation Wizards Reveal the VFX Secrets of ‘Paddington in Peru’

Paddington in Peru, the popular bear’s third cinematic adventure, which was theatrically released in the U.S. by Sony last month, managed to seamlessly blend naturalist CG-animated characters against live-action backgrounds once again. Directed by award-winning music video and commercial helmer Dougal Wilson, the movie finds our favorite marmalade-loving bear (voiced by series regular Ben Whishaw) and his adopted family, The Browns, traveling to Peru to find Paddington’s favorite aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) who’s been missing from the Home for Retired Bears.

Like its two predecessors, the charming movie features stunning visual effects work by the teams at Framestore in Montreal and London. We had a chance to chat with Framestore London’s animation supervisor James King (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3, Queen Elizabeth and Paddington short) and Framestore Montreal’s animation supervisor Aulo Licinio (Paddington 2, His Dark Materials) to find out more about how they pulled off the visual magic of the movie.

One of the key challenges of the movie, according to King and Licinio was upgrading the CG-animated character to satisfy the visual demands of the 4K production. “We had to do a a lot of asset work on Paddington himself where he needed to be effectively up-rezzed because this was the first time Paddington was going to be seen in 4K,” says King. “We had beautiful assets from the first two movies, but we up-rezzed everything from the first movie to the second, and we needed to do it again for this third movie. We had to do an overhaul on all the textures, the grooming, his famous jacket and on the on fur himself. There was a lot of care and attention paid to his eyes.”

“Our animation director, Pablo Grillo, who also worked on the two other movies, is a walking anthology of Paddington,” adds King. “He’s rightfully completely obsessed with Paddington’s eyes, because they are truly the windows to the character’s soul. Any slight deviation from that, where perhaps the iris against the sclera was slightly bigger or the way the way the light was interfacing, Pablo would be right on it. He’s say, ‘This doesn’t feel right!’ We had to make sure he still felt like the old Paddington. That’s why he it was so important to work with a team that had knowledge of the two previous adventures.”

The Art of Upping the Resolution

As Licinio points out, “When you think about it, the last Paddington movie was done seven years ago, so our technology and internal tools have completely evolved today, so we took this opportunity to really push the boundaries of what we could achieve. The most challenging aspect of the job was to be faithful to the legacy of what made Paddington so loved and so successful, and that included all the textures, mannerisms and performances.”

King and Licinio worked with a team of about 70 people in Montreal and 40 in London throughout the two-year process. While it’s difficult to pinpoint the number of VFX shots in the movie, Framestore does reveal that the total render time for the movie reached an incredible 88,884,749 hours (or 10,146 years), across its studios in London, Montreal and Mumbai. Paddington’s fur was also multiplied by four times as much as the second movie to make sure the design translate into 4K. The bear’s famous duffle coat was also recreated to achieve better movement, drape and texture, using a new cloth solver called Carbon. Also, because everything Paddington touched is CG, the VFX team had to build digital versions of any prop he interacted with.

Among the film’s many challenging sequences was a Chaplinesque bit in which Paddington clambers clumsily into a hammock to settle down for the evening. “The idea for this came through in the forms of drawings from one of our sketch artists with Pablo Grillo,” recalls King. “We had these very broad graphical, squash and stretch ideas of this hammock being tangled and spun around, which we to replicate with the character effects team. So, there was a lot of managing the creative. We had an amazing animation team that was able to manage this, but having this idea land rhythmically and be funny is one challenge. Then, you have to unpack that technically and feed it back to the CFX department, and that requires such an amount of back and forth. So you always have this danger of accidentally unravelling what was great in the first place.”

All in the Bear Family

Licinio also mentions that the other CG-animated characters also had to follow in Paddington’s footsteps. “We had to take the language that defines who he is, because he’s not a quadruped, he’s a humanoid bear,” he notes. “We had his uncle in the second movie, and we have Aunt Lucy and the other residents of the Home for Retired Bears. We had a lot of fun bringing that same language to the other bears and build their different personalities through their actions, and also coming back and visiting Aunt Lucy as a secondary character. We have the animators make the character looking older and have contained emotions.”

The set for the Home for Retired Bears exterior was shot in Berry Bushes, a farm outside of London, and while many of the Peruvian exteriors were built on the backlot of Elstree Studios. There was a lot of subtle comping involved between the plates shot in Peru and Colombia, captured by the skeleton crew captured by the creative team. “I had the opportunity to initially set things up with Pablo, and we used FPS (Framestore Pre-Production Services) to really measure and create all the assets within our 3D space, which became the builds for the set,” says Licinio. “It was really impressive to visit the sets and discover what we had to develop for the extensions, as we are recreating the jungles of Peru, as well as the challenging river sequence included in the movie.”

The film also includes an exciting scene in which Paddington tried to navigate a riverboat careering down a chopping jungle river. According to Framestore, the rig for the boat was suspended 10 to 12 feet from the ground, in order to simulate the movement on the treacherous waters. Capturing the background plates for the riverboat scene required a five-camera array shooting in 4K.

What would a movie about Peru be without some wonderfully well-behaved native llamas? The film’s CG-animated Peruvian llamas were all based on a hero llama discovered in a sanctuary in the country. Another sequence features the famous Machu Picchu citadel located high in the Andes Mountains. Because the location was not closed off for filming, the original background plates contained regular tourists and visitors, so the digital team had to remove them.

Perfectly Imperfect

“I think there’s something really unique about having a character that lives and breathes alongside real-life actors,” notes King. “I mean you can think back to a movie like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which is close to so many people’s hearts, and you find a similar dynamic, where you have something real and something fantastical playing off one another. There’s an innate resonance in the way they touch and complement each other.”

Both animation supervisors admit to having a special fondness for the beloved bear. “Paddington is a fish out of water: He makes mistakes, but he’s always trying his best and doesn’t wish to upset anyone,” concludes King. “I think we can all relate to that ideal. He’s kind of the best of all our imperfections.”

“He has such a childlike wonder, innocence and spirit of discovery,” says Licino. “He’s always trying to learn something new and to find peace. He helps us understand ourselves a little bit more. He’s the character we all need to learn from in our world today.”

Paddington in Peru is currently playing in theaters. Framestore’s VFX supervisor in Montreal was Mark Curtis; Framestore’s VFX Supervisor in London was Sylvain Degrotte. Aulo Licinio and James King were animation supervisors. Executive producer was Dan Matley. The film’s animation director was Pablo Grillo. The production’s VFX supervisor was Alexis Wajsbrot. The VFX producer was Nick King.