Paddington in Peru

Framestore VFX Supervisor Alexis Wajsbrot served as Production VFX Supervisor on the family friendly feature, working closely with fellow Framestore creative and Production Animation Director, Pablo Grillo. Grillo served as Animation Director on all three Paddington films, “he basically is Paddington at this point” jokes Wajsbrot, “him and Ben Whishaw.” 

Framestore’s involvement in Paddington’s third adventure began in pre-production, where Grillo and director Dougal Wilson worked in sketchbooks to outline the sequences and potential comedic moments, which evolved into some rudimentary animation tests, and eventually traditional storyboards. “Everything starts with a sketch, allowing us to feel our way through the scenes and define who Paddington is and how he’d react to everything around him," explains Grillo. In tandem, Framestore’s Art Department collaborated with Production Designer Andy Kelly to begin producing concept art for the new locations in the film, helping to shape the set design and CG environment build.  

From here, Framestore Pre-Production Services (FPS) went into pre-visualisation and tech-visualisation, mapping out the sequences with early animation to determine camera angles. “In order to capture scenes where it’s just Paddington, we’re shooting an empty plate,” clarifies Wajsbrot, “it’s just the environment, so you have to ensure that the camera is the right height, and there is enough room for Paddington. When he interacts and moves around, we need to ensure there’s space for him to move around and that his co-stars have the correct eye line. We also need to ensure that any props he interacts with are the right size when shot practically, and then recreated digitally so that he can hold or touch them.”

“Paddington has an ensemble cast and it’s vital that his interaction with them is seamless, and that his performance always lives in the same world as theirs,” adds Animation Director Pablo Grillo.

In the 8 years since Paddington 2, the technology for animation and groom in visual effects has evolved several times over. Framestore’s artists were tasked with rebuilding Paddington once again, this time in 4k resolution. “Everything has come on so much since the last film in our industry, and all of our proprietary tools as well. Even smaller details like Paddington’s duffle coat and hat have more advanced cloth simulation, shading, and movement.” 

Managing a team of 120 animators, Grillo draws reference from performances from the voice of Paddington, Ben Whishaw, and physical comedian Javier Marzan, to produce the final performance of Paddington. “It takes a while to learn how to animate for Paddington specifically,” he clarifies, “it’s like learning a musical instrument, each animator becomes a virtuoso in Paddington, and my role as conductor is to bring them all together to make a harmonious performance.” 

Creating part of the Amazon rainforest is no small feat. VFX Supervisor Alexis Wajsbrot travelled as part of a small unit to Peru, to capture high quality background plates. Using a variety of camera rigs and drones, the crew shot hundreds of expansive backgrounds in 4K resolution. A second unit travelled to Colombia, where they captured the rainforest river environment using an array of 5 different cameras on the back of a boat, shooting the background at a variety of speeds and angles. 

In order to blend the multiple plates flawlessly, the VFX team utilised live compositing, allowing the previously shot background plates to be incorporated into the live camera feed on the foreground shoot. Being able to adjust the lighting on set to match the lighting in the plates, ensuring it was similar in hue and coming from the same direction, generated an additional layer of believability for the audience. 

“The background plates we shot were absolutely stunning, but some needed augmenting in CG to be able to fit into the narrative of the film. For example, the river rapids sequence, the fork in the river was a real place, but the more dangerous path was too narrow for the boat, so we expanded it to make it wider, more dangerous, and a better fit for the scene.”

In the same way, the bank that Paddington and the Browns wash up on was a real location, but very challenging to get to - and impossible to take a whole cast and camera crew to! So we shot it with our rig and with drones, and re-created the bank on a lot in Elstree studios, where we filmed with the cast. We then took our practical set, and meticulously composited it into the background plate, creating a water simulation to merge the bodies of water in the two real plates. 

The ancient citadel was inspired by a shoot at Machu Picchu. “We couldn’t shut the whole area down to film, so we shot with a small rig and our drones, and used matte painting to paint out small groups of tourists,” explains Wajsbrot. “Then we augmented with CG to make our citadel more overgrown, as Machu Picchu was very well maintained, and our citadel had to seem undiscovered, unexplored.” Some parts of the iconic monument were used in the film, and some sections were re-built as sets on the backlot in the UK. Other parts were created digitally, and all the components were intricately stitched together to create one incredible location. 

“The CG citadel that we built had to match both the partial set built at Elstree Studios and the real Machu Picchu location in Peru,” adds VFX Supervisor Mark Curtis. “We were often cutting back and forth between them so our build had to be flexible enough to work in either scenario. As such we relied on lidar scans, reference photography and plate photography from both locations to form the basis of our CG build.”

“The Home for Retired Bears is a great example of how all the disciplines within a production work together,” says Wajsbrot. The process began with some amazing concepts from Framestore’s Art Department, which were shared with the Production Designer Andy Kelly, who began to build out the sets, and all their interiors. Framestore Pre-Production Services (FPS) stepped in to help block out the scenes in previs, and establish camera angles for the shoot in techvis using proprietary tool, FarSight Go. “It’s such a help on the shoot to be able to hold up an iPad and see in real time where Paddington will fit in to the shot,” continues Wajsbrot, “and then we see hair, makeup, costume, and lighting all do their part to capture the best performance from the incredible cast. From there, we go back to FPS for them to do some postvis”. An early stage animation, post-visualisation applies some basic graphics to the footage from the shoot, to indicate where the final animation will be. This helps the filmmakers finalise their edit, instead of waiting for final VFX. Once the edit is locked, it’s into post-production for an army of compositors, animators, lighters, riggers, texture artists, and more to craft every pixel of Paddington, his clothes, and everything he touches, integrating him into the world so carefully built by the thousands of masters of their craft in the stages before. “Everything really came together for those scenes - the set was so beautifully detailed, and then we got to fill it with bears of every size and shape, expanding the landscape to transform the surroundings from outer-london countryside to amazon rainforest.” 

The expedition to Peru sees Paddington and the Browns board a ship that ends up encountering some rapids. The perpetual movement of the boat created a challenge for both the special effects and visual effects teams on the film. “Andy Kelly designed this amazing boat motion rig at Elstree studios, it was 10-12 feet off the ground and would rock back and forth to simulate the rough waters. The stunt team were on hand to ensure the cast had a safety wire as they had to run up and down as it rocked on the rig,” explains Wajsbrot. “So that’s how we captured the exteriors. The interiors were a different set entirely, to be able to fit all the camera equipment in, and then we matched lighting and comped in the relevant background plates to make sure the backgrounds all made sense given the orientation of the boat and its direction of travel.”  

In addition to Paddington and the cast of Peruvian bears, the film featured a host of native wildlife. Framestore’s artists had to build llamas, an ant-eater, and a menacing purple spider. The process began with an enormous library of reference footage, getting to know the creatures and their movements. In the case of the purple-kneed tarantula, though a fictional breed created for the film, the teams took inspiration from several real species of spider, combining their features to produce a truly terrifying arachnid. 

“We started by "casting" a Llama,” says Curtis. “The team went to a Llama sanctuary and shot extensive reference photography of our Hero Llama (his name was Diesel) and a secondary Llama (her name was Harley). These formed the basis of our Llama builds.” Using the reference photography, the modelling team worked to excruciating detail creating an accurate reproduction of the chosen Llamas. “Eyelid details, muzzle wrinkles, blood vessels in ears all these and more were meticulously reproduced,” continued Curtis. “Next, we worked on giving our Llama the right "character". We couldn't just slavishly reproduce Diesel or Harley - our Llamas face had to fit the character we see in the film. To achieve this we worked closely with Pablo Grillo. He had a very specific idea of what kind of personality this Llama would have and how this would be reflected in his facial features. Words like "Arrogant" and "Haughty" were used a lot.”

Once the base models of the two Llamas were finished the rest of the character team began replicating the skeleton, muscle, fat and fur, as well as creating variations in colour, texture and groom for further background and secondary Llamas. Once fully rigged for facial performance and movement, the groom team added the final layer of detail - caked mud around the feet, grass and straw in the fur and tiny particles of dirt around the eyes and nostrils. “Reference footage of small bears riding llamas was thin on the ground,” jokes Curtis, “so we had to establish the right feeling of energy, weight, momentum, chaos and jeopardy was no small animation challenge, but one I think our team nailed it.”

Speaking to Radio 1’s Screen Time podcast, director Dougal Wilson praised the “incredible technology and the team here at Framestore to make Paddington feel all the emotions, and make us laugh, in the way that we all love.”

Paddington in Peru released in UK cinemas on 8th November 2024, and globally from 14th February 2025.