A Boy Called Christmas
We’re already looking forward to 2021’s Holiday season where there’s promise of an adventure worth waiting for. Here’s the first official teaser for the highly-anticipated A Boy Called Christmas – may as well leave yer Xmas decs up if you haven’t taken them down yet, eh?
Army Of The Dead
And now onto a thoroughly different first-look – a glimpse at Zack Synder’s outrageous ‘zombie heist’ movie Army Of The Dead, which dropped this week courtesy of showbiz bible Entertainment Weekly. Our MTL team pulled out all the stops for this one, pouring in gallons of blood, sweat and tears (but mostly BLOOD).
WandaVision
Marvel Studios’ WandaVision starts streaming on Disney+ January 15th – here’s the latest trailer to keep you entertained in the meantime:
The Alternative Queen’s Speech
With the use of deepfake technology, Framestore transformed actor Debra Stephenson into a very outspoken (and very limber) version of the real 94-year-old Queen. The work was for Channel 4’s 2020 ‘Alternative Christmas Message’, which has been airing every year since ’93.
Making Of
And here’s how we did it:
His Dark Materials: Breakdown
The Midnight Sky
Head over to Netflix to check out Framestore’s out-of-this-world VFX on George Clooney’ s The Midnight Sky. The movie was released on Netflix 23rd December and remained within the top ten trending for the entire Holiday season.
To quote Mr. Clooney directly, “Framestore did a brilliant job with all of it”
If you haven’t yet seen the movie… turn away.
This week we released behind the scenes content on our instagram, taking a look at *that* death scene and the astronauts’ walk into space.
Press
The Hollywood Reporter gets behind the making of the movie and how Framestore used cutting-edge VFX to create the zero-G effect. Read here.
VFX Supes Chris Lawrence (LDN) and Matt Kasmir also spoke to Ian Failes at Befores&Afters about animating astronauts, and blood, in space for that gruesome scene. Read the article here.
Ian Failes also delved into the incredibly intricate photoreal CG face replacements created for the movie, as well as LED wall filmmaking, CG spacecraft and spacesuits.
Press
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
FX Guide digs into Framestore’s charismatic creations for the magical Jingle Jangle: Buddy 3000 and Don Juan Diego. Read more here.
Celebrating Women in the Workforce
The future looks promising for women directors as Indie Wire’s ‘Film Directed by Female Filmmakers Coming Out in 2021 and 2022’ reveals they achieved historic highs this past year, making up 18% of filmmakers (from top 250 domestic features). That’s up up 5% from 2019!
We’re pleased to say that two projects Frametsore are hard at work on are included; Flora & Ulysses, directed by Lena Khan and Matrix 4, directed by Lana Wachowski.
The Matrix Reloaded Keanu Reeves © Warner Brothers 
You’ve been [Framed]
We couldn’t mention The Midnight Sky without showing off some of the Framestore talent behind the making of the film.
First up, meet Martin Belleau, our Lead Lighting TD (MTL) who worked on some of the stunning sequences. He’s got legendary negotiating skills and would be a martial art instructor if he wasn’t so good at what he does. Read more about Martin here.
Next up, the wonderful Claire Lawrence-Slater, our Creature FX TD (LDN). She’s a cat-loving musician who’s had a brush with Warhol, as well as one of the talented creatives who helped bring George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky to life. Read more here.
In Other News
A brand new poster has arrived for the devious duo, Tom and Jerry
That’s it for this week. Stay safe out there!