Wicked

Wicked presents a wonderful mix of everything Framestore does best - talking creatures, magic spells, and a fairytale environment steeped in nostalgia, paying homage to 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The long-anticipated film drew talent from London, Montreal and Mumbai to deliver 870 VFX-heavy shots. 

The film takes viewers through numerous realms within Oz, each with their own distinctive style. Framestore Pre-Production Services (FPS) provided previs and postvis on sequences throughout the film to help inform the shoot, and lay a foundation for the final visual effects. Working with intricately constructed physical sets for locations such as the courtyard and classrooms of Shiz University, the Ozdust Ballroom, Munchkin Land, and of course, the Emerald City, the Environments team extended and expanded the sets. “We have a lot of high up views in the Emerald City particularly,” adds VFX Supervisor Jonathan Fawkner, “we see views from balconies and the tops of buildings, so we needed to expand those amazing sets and then add a new perspective - what do they look like when seen from above?”. The Emerald City challenged the team's design skills, adding small touches to keep the CG extensions as detailed as the practical sets, to ensure a seamless blend. “We really had to think about every part of the city - architectural details like archways, but also small dressings - the bunting, the style of the railings, it had to feel like a cohesive, immersive place where people really live,” says Fawkner. “Working with Production Designer Nathan Crowley was a real pleasure, his sets were so brilliant and really gave us a clear visual style to follow - he trusted us to take his vision and elevate it, building up the layers of each environment.”   

Similarly for scenes within the vast campus of Shiz University, the shoot utilised blue screens behind the set window frames, so that the environments teams could add the exterior views in post-production. “This meant that we had to essentially construct a map of the whole University, to consider where each window is facing, how high each balcony is and what the views should be,” explains Fawkner. “Oz is a magical land but it also has to work practically.” 

Shooting outdoors added an additional layer of complexity to the Environment build. Contending with the British weather meant a subtle extra finish to shots - brightening skies to complement the lighting, and removing rainwater from floors. Munchkinland and the Emerald City also featured volumetric crowd simulations, to supplement the ensemble cast with digital extras that could be placed around the final sets and their digital extensions. 

In the world of Wicked, humans and talking animals live side by side as peers, with several creatures serving on the faculty of the University. Central to Elphaba’s story is her teacher, Doctor Dillamond - a CG goat voiced by Peter Dinklage. 

The team began with concept art from Framestore Art Department, and visited Buckinghamshire Goat Centre to find a real life match. “We cast Summer as Doctor Dillamond,” explains Fawkner. “She was the right size and build, and so we photographed and filmed her - studied her movements to establish the physical limitations of our character. He has to teach a class, there are buttons to push and levers to pull, so we had to understand how those muscles and joints work.” Using this reference, the creatures team built the model for Doctor Dillamond in CG, working through several stylistic iterations to find the right age, type of beard and fur length, and establishing the shape of his horns. The animation team paid much attention to Doctor Dillamond’s facial expressions, “his journey is one of the driving forces in the narrative of the film, so our audience have to like him, and empathise with him” says Animation Supervisor Dale Newton. “And, he also has to sing, so there’s a brilliant vocal performance from Peter Dinklage that we have to match in animation. The vocal performance gave us huge insight into the character and how he should move and behave.” 

Once the build and groom for the character was developed, the artists had to develop his wardrobe. The concept art offered several options for how a professor might dress, to visually align with the costumes of the actors. Collaborating closely with the film’s costume department, the artists designed and built several CG outfits for Doctor Dillamond, studying the cloth types, their texture and movement. This process was repeated for all of the animal faculty at Shiz, an intricate world-building detail that helps the audience visually bridge the gap between digital creatures within a practical set. 

“The key to fully immersing the audience into a scene with CG characters is interaction,” explains Newton. “Doctor Dillamond has a couple of really nice moments where he’ll touch something - a lever, a rope, at one point he adjusts a teacup as the tea pours - all those physical interactions take a lot of work to animate, but they really help your eyes accept Dillamond as a tangible part of the scene.”

The same is true for the Ozdust band. The Ozdust Ballroom's lively atmosphere wouldn’t be complete without its eclectic animal band. The team brought these fantastical creatures to life by combining photorealistic details with whimsical "Ozian twist" stylization. Starting with Framestore Art Department’s concepts, the team created the Ozdust Band’s eclectic lineup by selecting species from their extensive CG creature library, reducing build times while allowing creative embellishments. From a giraffe keeping rhythm with a drum ensemble to a beaver playing the banjo, each animal was tailored to its role within the band.

The animation team faced the challenge of balancing photorealism with stylized exaggeration, grounding movements in naturalistic references while integrating anthropomorphic enhancements to enable musical performances. Pre-animated cycles of strumming, drumming, and other instrument actions were developed to ensure consistency, with extra refinement dedicated to hero shots and close-ups. Integration posed further challenges, particularly in choreographing the band’s dynamic interactions and syncing them with the music. To ensure flawless integration, precise tracking and rigging were key to allow for complex interactions between CG creatures and physical elements, including props and environments. 

“The band was an exciting challenge,” says Creature Supervisor Pierre-Loic Hamon. “Each animal had to feel like it belonged to the world of Oz while performing in a believable way. The balance of realism and fantasy required us to rethink our usual creature workflows.”