The Nutcracker and the Four Realms VFX Breakdown by Rodeo FX

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms VFX Breakdown by Rodeo FX

Our team created a 1.20 minute long, fully CG, opening sequence for Disney’s adaptation of the Holiday classic, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.

For this grand opening sequence, we merged the Walt Disney Pictures logo with an animated Christmas postcard showing a bird’s eye view of 19th Century Victorian London. Using archives as reference, and Geo Terrain Data as a base, we created a point cloud scene in order to build an exact replica of London and key landmarks. The landscape enfolds over a wide range of terrain and environments, from an iced-over Thames River with skaters, to Christmas markets, traditional paved and brick streets, snowball fights, Santa Claus parades and carollers.

We designed the FX snow in stereo to make the audience feel the snowflakes coming towards them. As the camera comes closer to the buildings, a series of different rooms are visible, created with props and crowds in order to deliver more detail and realism. We lit and comped the shot using deep methodology for holdouts, depth of field, grading and stereo. From the owl in flight to horse-driven carriages, our artists created more than 1200 props and buildings and over 2600 crowd to bring to life the 2700-frames shot, which we delivered in stereo, pushing the limits to the extremes of both our technologies and our artists.

Client

DIRECTORS

Lasse Hallström

Joe Johnston

PRODUCTION STUDIO

The Mark Gordon Company

DISTRIBUTOR

Walt Disney Pictures

OVERALL VFX SUPERVISOR

Max Wood (MPC)

OVERALL VFX PRODUCER

Marc Weigert

Rodeo FX Crew

VFX SUPERVISOR

Martin Lipmann

VFX PRODUCER

Mélanie La Rue

CG SUPERVISOR

Alexandre Ménard

COMPOSITING SUPERVISOR

Brandon Blevins

ANIMATION SUPERVISOR

Alexandre Ronco

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