- First trip to America?
- Yes.
[suitcase lock unclicks]
[owl hoots]
Must get that fixed.
- [Uniformed Man]
Anything edible in there?
[suitcase lock squeaks]
- No.
[majestic music]
[loud rush of air]
[hurtling of car through the air]
[dramatic music]
- Hi, I'm Mike Seymour
from fxguide.com for Wired,
and welcome to our guide
to erumpent mating dances.
Newt, the British Magizoologist,
arrives in New York,
after being expelled from Hogwarts,
in JK Rowling's new world of
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
- Yes, where is this man?
[knuckles rap on suitcase]
[suitcase lid creaks open]
- So, you're the guy with the
case full of monsters, huh?
- News travels fast.
[majestic music]
[coins clinking]
- Put this on.
- Why would I have to
wear something like this?
- Because your skull is
susceptible to breakage
under immense force.
- [Mike] One of the many
creatures that Newt must deal with
is kind of a magical
horny rhino beast on heat,
known as a erumpent.
[majestic music]
Seen here in a shot
that was actually added
quite late in production,
with our heroes trying to
capture the creature on ice.
[majestic music]
One of the highlights of the
film came actually from just
five words in JK's original script,
which eloquently just stated
Newt does a mating dance.
The path from this to the screen involved
18 foot fiberglass
puppets, choreographers,
animators and the lead star Eddie Redmayne
actually acting out complex video selfies
and then sending them
to director David Yates.
The actual effects work fell
to Tim Burke and Christian Manz
and the team at Framestore.
Now while many companies
contributed from MPC, Method,
D Neg, Cinesite and others,
it was Framestore and the brilliant legacy
from creating Dobby in the
original Harry Potter films
that led to this outstanding
character work in this
particular film.
Eddie was completely
committed to working with the
character team as early as possible,
actually filmed himself with some help
from his choregrapher
from The Danish Girl,
for his side of the mating ritual,
and then sent that to
director, David Yates.
The erumpents animation approach
was actually typical of a
different way they worked
with characters in this film.
Framestore's animation
supervisor, Pablo Grillo,
was given quite a lot of time
before principal photography,
not just to have the team look at designs,
but actually,
animation studies of all
the creatures in the film.
Pablo and the team therefore managed to
work out the erumpents mating ritual
well before the actual filming started.
This allowed the team behind the War Horse
stage production puppet
to build a 18 foot high,
20 foot long, four man
erumpent rig out of fiberglass
and learn all of Pablo's sexy moves.
Eddie would then rehearse with
this giant puppet and in fact,
worked out with it on set.
Once the framing and timing was right,
the team was then able to remove that
and of course film a clean
plate with just Eddie
and then add in the
character in post production,
with just this, superb
interaction with Newt.
This approach of using
puppeteers was actually used on
all of the cast of creatures in the film,
from the bowtruckle to the young marmite.
Now we often,
and I guess quite rightly,
focus on the creative
skills of the animators,
but increasingly it's
these puppeteers on set,
led in this case by Robin Guiver,
who are producing this terrific
interaction for the actors,
that allows such believable
performances to be captured.
- [Newt] Nothing to worry about.
That is a murtlap.
- Well don't forget,
subscribe for more
behind the scenes action.
I'm Mike Seymour, for Wired.
[dramatic music]
- Was that everything
that came out of the case?
[soaring music]
- [Threatening Voice] Time's
running out, Mr squid.
[dramatic music]
[regal music]
