Christopher Robin

In the heartwarming live-action adventure Disney’s Christopher Robin, the young boy who embarked on countless adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood with his band of spirited and lovable stuffed animals has grown up and lost his way. His childhood friends, led by Pooh, venture into our world and help Christopher Robin (played by Ewan McGregor) remember the loving and playful boy still inside.

As someone who grew up with Winnie-the-Pooh stories, working on this film provided a refreshing change from the superhero and spaceship based films I had been working on over the last few years. My primary focus during lookdev work was on developing the characters of Owl and Rabbit. Owl presented a unique challenge as I was the first to utilise Framestore’s newly created feather hair system. Achieving a realistic look based on European eagle owl references required the use of a high number of unique feather textures for various feather types that make up these birds. In contrast, developing Rabbit was a more straightforward process.

Lighting also presented a technical challenge for the picnic scene featuring young Christopher Robin at the start of the film. Shot atop an English countryside hill over the course of a day, the variable British weather conditions proved true to form – with the sun going in and out of clouds over the various takes. As a result, lots of creative techniques were required to ensure continuity across the shots.

Read more about the visual affects we did on the film from our VFX supervisor, Chris Lawrence – https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/framestore-delivers-spectacular-character-effects-disneys-christopher-robin