How Framestore tackled fresh shooting methodologies for Paddington in Peru, while drawing on its rich history in character animation. An excerpt from befores & afters magazine.When Framestore embarked on its third Paddington filmDougal Wilsons Paddington in Peruthe visual effects studio did so with significant experience in crafting furry creature performances from the first two movies, and from a range of other projects such as the Guardians of the Galaxy films, His Dark Materials and Christopher Robin, among many others.Indeed, all the lessons Framestore had learnt over the years in creating such creatures would be drawn upon for Paddington in Peru, from animation, to fur grooming and simulation, and to rendering. Meanwhile, a significant change this time around was the setting. The earlier Paddington films were predominantly set in London and, accordingly, shot on London locations. Paddington in Peru was set, of course, in Peru, where Paddington and the Brown family head in search of a missing Aunt Lucy. However, it was not principally filmed in that country, as Framestore and production visual effects supervisor Alexis Wajsbrot explains.Some of the locations we wanted to go to were so remote that really only one guy could access the location after, say, six hours of crazy car and boat and train rides, that we decided very early on that we would shoot the principal photography with the actors in the UK at Sky Studios Elstree and at a couple of farms also in the UK. There were also plate shoots in Colombia and Peru, but the majority of the shoot was in the UK.This meant that, for exterior Peru scenes, the actors would largely be filmed on partial or bluescreen sets, and then composited into separately filmed background plates or digital environments. Looking to ensure the film remained as grounded as the first two Paddington movies, Wajsbrot says a concerted effort was made to integrate the foregrounds and backgrounds. We wanted to feel that the backgrounds were as real as possible, so we wanted to shoot as much as we could for the background in order to not feel like it was not a show with fully 3D backgrounds. Thus, a major location scout exercise was undertaken in pre-production, led by director Wilson and production designer Andy Kelly. They went to Peru and scouted loads of locations, says Wajsbrot, who worked with visual effects producer Nick King on the film. Another team scouted locations in Colombia. Then this fed prep work for storyboarding the whole movie and prevising and techvising, something Framestore Pre-Production Services (FPS) was a big part of.Wajsbrot identifies one particular sequence as a classic example of the shooting approach that Paddington in Peru took. This was for a scene of the Brown family on a boat on a river in the Peruvian jungle, as it encounters a series of rapids. The boat scenes were captured on a boat mock-up sitting on a motion base and filmed against bluescreen (the films special effects supervisor was Mark Holt). For that scene, not only did we do previs and techvis to know which speed the boat was going, we also used that to work out what height the camera would be when you are in the saloon or when you are above the deck. Then wed go shoot with a camera array in Colombia to give us flexibility for all the angles and heights. It gave us hours and hours of plate photography of the river, of backgrounds, of the beach and the rainforest.Previs.Plate.Final.Similarly, for scenes that take place at an Incan fort, production filmed plates at Machu Picchu (the tourist-heavy location meant that people would need to be painted out of the background plates). Moments that involved the characterswho were not filmed on locationrequired the building of partial sets, set-pieces or bluescreen setups in the UK that matched the background plates that had been shot.Furthermore, the many background plates went through a meticulous selects process. We came back from shooting in Colombia and Peru, recalls Wajsbrot. It was literally three weeks before we started main photography. The DOP Eric Wilson, Dougal and I locked ourselves in a room and we watched hours and hours and hours of footage of backgrounds. This was actually very hard because when you see a background, it can be anything. But, we had to select backgrounds because the process that we put in place with Eric was that we would pre-select all the backgrounds and then when we were shooting principal photography, not only could we live-comp the foreground with the background for immediate feedback on the camera angles, but also for making the lighting match.For those background platesto which Framestore would commonly be adding in a CG Paddington, in addition to other environmental or compositing worka classic balls and charts was also shot at the Peru or Colombia location. This was then replicated to some degree during principal photography, with Wajsbrot encouraging Wilson to shoot with a stand-in also holding a gray ball. It allowed the cinematographer to match the lighting in the real-time comp, and of course benefited the VFX teams later in post-production. Eric and I were able to look at the live-comp and make adjustments right away, perhaps tilting the camera up or down, says Wajsbrot. In the end, that was the gag, that it needed to look like we shot everyone over there, and I think we really achieved it. Dougal also has his very unique way of directing where he rehearsed everything with anyone, adds Wajsbrot, on the way the filming progressed. He shoots everything with what he calls his crap-o-matic, basically on an iPhone. So, you have a version of the movie somewhere out there that must be very funny where everyone on set is playing a role or different roles. Its actually very funny.Wajsbrot is particularly proud of a moment where background and foreground plates were able to be matched as two different drone shoots for a camera-crane like pullback on the family, who are on a beach. One shoot was a background plate in Colombia shot with a DJI drone and the other was a foreground element shot in the UK also with a DJI drone. It was, effectively, a motion control multi-pass done with the drones that relies on the GPS coordinates recorded by the drone to provide for accurate positioning measurement. What we wanted to do was record a plate in Colombia with the drone and then in the backlot of Elstree Studios, where we had a set, repeat that same motion, explains Wajsbrot. We worked with our drone team, The Helicopter Girls, to research how to translate all of the coordinates and offset them to where we were in London.The shoot at Elstree was not without some complications. Here, a beach set was built, with the Brown family also needing to emerge from the river, so a pool of water was also employed. The drone team rehearsed the drone pullback on the weekend and were able to show through live-comps that the two drone platesfrom Colombia and from Elstreematched up. Then, shares Wajsbrot, for the real shoot, they pressed action and the drone went down instead of up. Suddenly, the drone is underwater in the little pool! Unfortunately the drone was destroyed and they had to bring in a different one. We re-did the shot and it worked great. I think its a really good step forward in the world of how to do motion control in a simpler way.issue #28 Paddington in PeruA motion control shoot of a different, and more traditional, kind was orchestrated for scenes featuring Antonio Banderas Hunter Cabot character and Hunters ancestors, played also by Banderas. In the film, these ancestors appear to be talking to Hunter, and to be controlling him and driving him in search of gold. Explains Wajsbrot: Some of the techniques we used were real motion control, some were faux motion control, meaning that we had the camera operator redo a scene just by hand. In comp, we could stabilize it enough that it just worked. The most complex scenes were where Cabot is talking to himself, very closely. In that case wed use a double for the shot and then replace the face. We also used a different technique for where hed need to shadow himself, but hes the same person. Sometimes the performance was too long so we had to morph Antonio to make his performance shorter and then readjust the eyeline.Shooting the multiple Antoniosup to seven characterswas a challenge simply from a costume and make-up point of view. Each costume change was about four hours, says Wajsbrot. Sometimes you have all of their ancestors together in the same place, which meant we couldnt shoot them all on the same day. In that case, we had to split it over two days and ensure the motion control camera setup was in place. It was definitely a bit of a puzzle for our first AD, Nick Laurence, to put all of that together.The post Brand new challenges for a familiar bear appeared first on befores & afters.