A BAFTA for Paddington

Paddington at the Palace took home the BAFTA for the Most Memorable Moment of 2023! Massive congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on the Platinum Jubilee tv spot! The nominees for this new BAFTA were selected by a panel of industry experts and voted for by the public – we’re delighted to see that everyone loves it as much as we do.

We Are Groot

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 has had another amazing week, making it the best-performing second weekend in the last five years of the MCU, as well as the highest-rated Marvel film on Letterboxd. It’s fantastic to see all the hard work from LDN, MTL, VAN and MUM paying off!

Director James Gunn has been sharing some adorable behind the scenes content, which you can find on our Youtube channel.

Loki Season 2

Loki season 2 got its premiere date this week. Variety reports that everyone’s favourite God of mischief will be back on our screens on 6th October. We’re looking forward to seeing all the marvellous VFX from Matt Twyford and the LDN and MUM teams.

A Wispa of Wonka

Ahead of the film’s release later this year, Timothee Chalamet spoke to IndieWire about his inspiration and his hopes for the film – hopefully we’ll get to see a trailer coming soon! Read the full story here.

Godfather of Harlem

Returning for Season 3 of the hit crime drama Godfather of Harlem starring Forest Whitaker, Framestore’s New York studio was responsible for bringing the show’s gritty, historical setting to life, beginning with on-set supervision through to delivery of the primary VFX for all ten episodes. Read more here.

Press

Variety

Variety unravelled the VFX genius behind Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, which is frontloaded with in-depth comment from VFX Supervisors Stephane Nazé and Alexis Wajsbrot. Read the full article here.

Deadline

Tim Webber and Theo Jones spoke to Deadline for Disruptors magazine, which is being distributed at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The piece explores the cutting edge of VFX, and our dynamic duo discuss FLITE, FUSE, Unreal Engine and AI. You can read the digital edition of the mag here, along with interviews with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, Francis Ford Coppola, Idris Elba and Ken Loach – not bad company to be keeping!

New Rockstars

YouTube channel New Rockstars gave us a shoutout on their GOTG Vol 3 recap for the fantastic work on baby Rocket.

Deadline

The Little Mermaid director Rob Marshall sat down with Deadline to discuss his approach to making the film, and how he found the most perfect Ariel. Read the full story here.

Awards

ADC Awards

We are thrilled that the Design team’s work on Ms Marvel took home Bronze in the Motion Graphics category at the ADC Awards this week. Framestore was also awarded Merit for 1899 in the Title Sequence category, and for Nike ‘Footballverse’ in VFX.

Creative Review Awards

On Wednesday the Creative Review Annual Awards were unveiled with Honorable mentions for Asda ‘Have Your Elf a Merry Christmas’ in VFX and Ms Marvel in Title Design.

In other news

Taking FLITE

MTL was happy to welcome Tim Webber and Theo Jones this week, engaging in an in-depth Q&A following the screening of FLITE!

Yesterday, in partnership with Epic Games, Framestore hosted a virtual production showcase in ZeroSpace studio in downtown Brooklyn, New York. This was an evening of live demos and discussion about the current and potential future uses of AI / Machine Learning. We also took a look behind the scenes at some of the industry’s most coveted Virtual Production projects across Advertising, Episodic, and Film. One such project was FLITE, Tim Webber’s directorial and writing debut, a short film that puts the Unreal Engine at the heart of a VFX and animation pipeline. Following a screening, Tim and VFX Supervisor Theo Jones were on hand to answer questions from the audience.

Contagious

Contagious hosted their Cannes Contenders 2023 event in the LDN studio this week. Experts put their necks on the line to predict what’s going to win big at this year’s international festival of creativity.

Taking the stage at CAFE VFX

MTL made a prominent appearance at this week’s CAFE VFX, where the team were onstage giving talks and taking part in panel discussions as well as faithfully staffing the recruitment booth.

On day one, Chloe Grysole moderated a panel discussion with industry peers, delving into the opportunities and challenges of remote and distributed production. Margot Ingrassia and Bruno LaFlamme offered practical interview advice for emerging artists, while Tasha Kokinasidis and Rob Garner conducted one on one interview exercises with students.

On the second day, VFX Supervisor Christian Kaestner took part in an engaging conversation about the creative implications of real-time technology and virtual production, alongside other industry experts. Maxime Masse, Global Head of Lookdev, impressed attendees with a comprehensive case study on real-time asset optimization techniques, using Army of the Dead as a reference.