How Framestore Brought Santa's Reindeer to Life

Last week McDonald's released it's 2018 Christmas spot in which Father Christmas makes a detour to the Golden Arches to placate his hungry reindeer.

The spot was created by Leo Burnett London and directed by James Rouse through Outsider while the impressive special effects were delivered by Framestore London. Below, three member of the Framestore team behind the amazing VFX in the film - VFX senior producer, Josh King; head of 2D, Suzanne Jandu and head of animation, Ross Burgess - take us through how they brought Santa's trusted troupe to life.

Above l-r: Framestore's VFX senior producer, Josh King; head of 2D, Suzanne Jandu and head of animation, Ross Burgess.

How closely did you work together with James Rouse?

SJ: Close communication from concept to final stages was important to both James and our team so we worked very closely with him from the outset. He spent time at Framestore each week, in conversation with the artists and the clients. This regular face-to-face contact was integral to the entire process and we were able to respond to his vision with ease on every shot.

"Pre-production commenced by getting up close and personal with real-life animals."

James was very interested in creating a London Christmas vibe whilst also bringing the CG reindeer to life. So, while he was busy with the animation team working on the expressiveness of the reindeer, the compositing team was assembling the backgrounds. Removing the green screen and compositing digital matte painting stills was a huge part of the process. Having a constant dialogue between James and our team enabled us to achieve the look and feel he wanted. This undoubtedly played a huge part in the success of the commercial.

What size team did the work require and how long did it take from start to finish? 

JK: The project was 21 weeks from start to finish, including a seven day shooting schedule. We began with a tight crew in character design, look-development and pre-visualisation, this grew into a core crew of four artists across each department including, roto, tracking, model, texture, groom, FX, animation, lighting and comp.

"The brief was to steer away from magic and keep the anatomy correct to real reindeer."

At times this grew and, of course, there were other key members – from our rigger and groom lead to our heads of CGI, 2D, CD and colourist, and also our dedicated production department. At the last count, there were over 60 people involved.

What was the brief for the reindeer; did they have to look ultra-realistic or a little more magica-make-believe?

JK: The brief was to steer away from magic and keep the anatomy correct to real reindeer. That being said, we did recognise that these are Santa's reindeer. They have steered him across the world delivering presents to millions if not billions of children on one special night of the year, probably for many years. We imagined that they would have to appear real – perfect specimens of their kind – and yet more sentient than the average reindeer, displaying emotional intelligence and a strong bond and understanding with Santa.

Tell us a bit about the research and techniques used to create the reindeer; what was the most challenging aspect? 

JK: Pre-production commenced by getting up close and personal with real-life animals. We gathered an almost unfathomable amount of reference material of reindeer in the great outdoors. With a comprehensive and detailed reference image (and video) bank, the team then developed a character expression study of facial and body movement. An intricate rig was developed to enable single and multiple reindeer interactions and expressions, allowing the animators to truly flex their capabilities in creature work.

"People feel sorry for animals more than they do humans, so this is something we can look to exploit when it comes to enabling a CG animal to emote with the viewer."

Intricate attention to detail was paid to the anatomy of the reindeer; from bones, muscles, fat and skin to even wrinkle interactions. This enabled us to work with real-world anatomical and biological constraints and create natural movements and look as life-like as possible. James was able to direct the reindeer’s performance to the minutest detail in facial movements. We even created a digi-double of the actor that played Santa so James could direct the movement of the dynamic CG beard we created for him in a shot where Santa and his reindeer are in flight.

The reindeer's emotions are impressively done - their disappointment almost brings a tear to the eye! How easy is it to convey emotion in an animal without it looking too humanoid?

RB: I think people feel sorry for animals more than they do humans, so this is something we can look to exploit when it comes to enabling a CG animal to emote with the viewer. The trick is to find great existing reference of animals looking sad or puppy-eyed and apply it to the animation at the right moments. 'Anthropomorphism' is a term we use to describe an animal that is able to convey a humanistic emotion and we can apply it in subtle ways, such as the slightest cock of the head or slow blink. With that said, reindeer don't typically show those kinds of emotions so we studied dogs quite a bit – they're a great reference for tugging on the heartstrings, especially when they are hungry!