Designing Dumbo – How VFX brought Tim Burton’s… | Little White Lies

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Designing Dumbo – How VFX brought Tim Burton’s elephant to life

11 Apr 2019

A hand gently holding a grey parrot with its wings spread against a dark background.
A hand gently holding a grey parrot with its wings spread against a dark background.
VFX supervisor Richard Stammers discusses his role in the making of Disney’s live-action adventure.

Disney’s latest live-action feature sees one of its most beloved character reborn on the big screen almost 80 years after audiences we first introduced to him. Dumbo is Tim Burton’s imaginative retelling of a young circus elephant whose oversized ears enable him to fly.

In order to realise his vision, the director turned to London-based post-production house MPC, who were responsible for digitally rendering the film’s pint-sized pachyderm protagonist. Dumbo was primarily shot at Pinewood and Cardington studios, with MPC’s various teams – comprising 1200 VFX artists and production crew – delivering 1150 shots for the film over the course of two and a half years.

To get a better sense of exactly what it is a company like MPC does, we spoke to the film’s visual effects supervisor, Richard Stammers, about the various creative processes that went into designing Dumbo. It’s the latest video in our Credit Role series, which spotlights some of the talented folk working below the line in the film industry, whose craftsmanship doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.

Watch the full video interview below and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more.

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