BEAUTY IN THE BEASTS

For practically forever, human imagination has run wild with the idea of creatures that are both of this world and somehow not. Just over five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci was revelling in this kind of imaginative creativity, observing nature and, for a period of time in the earlier part of his career, converting that work into any number of visualeffects stage designs and productions. It seems fair to say that he’d be totally at home with the work of today’s illusion makers at Framestore in their work on Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and the ways in which the very real informs and inspires the very fantastical. Framestore’s Dan Baker (Art Department concept artist) and Christian Manz (VFX supervisor) discuss the collaboration and dynamic between art department and visual effects for the film.

“We started the concept stuff really early on, which is always fantastic for an art department to get any extra time,” explains . “We were right in there with the initial briefs, months and months before production started.” Beyond the movies, Dan cites a particularly enduring reference