00:00When we realized that we were going to be making this film for IMAX,
00:04it meant that we could really think about using the aspect ratio narratively.
00:18It's an iconic scene.
00:20Forbidden Friendship and Test Drive are the most iconic scenes from the animated series.
00:23And so we wanted to recreate it faithfully,
00:26but lean into everything that live action would give us in terms of immersion
00:30and the sense that a live cameraman was following or trying to follow the subjects.
00:37And so it was a tricky prospect from the start
00:40because we wanted Hiccup to feel like a jockey on a horse.
00:44And that meant that for the live action element of Mason Thames,
00:47he had to be moving with the dragon.
00:49So we built a 10-foot tall gimbal that would move on six axes.
00:54And on top of that, there was a robotic dragon,
00:58a bust essentially, chest, neck, and head,
01:00that was fully articulated and controllable off-screen
01:05by guys with joysticks or with animation that had been previously done.
01:11And we would put Mason up there,
01:13we would run the dragon through all of the movements,
01:15whether he was diving or ascending or rolling or pitching,
01:18and we would photograph Mason moving with the dragon.
01:22So you'd get all of that jostling in his body to make it feel really convincing.
01:26And putting it all together in the hands of our visual effects and animation team at Framestore
01:32meant that they could bring all the personality and the life to Toothless as well
01:36because he's very much a scene partner in this.
01:39He's as panicked as Hiccup is when they come detached.
01:43And it's really all about them finding a way forward just to fly intuitively
01:48and be symbiotic partners in flight.
01:50One thing that was really important with this scene was the breadth.
01:54We had done a helicopter scout around Iceland and the Faroe Islands
01:59and Scotland at the very beginning of the process.
02:01And we shot cameras, all of the coastlines, the sea stacks, the canyons.
02:07And this scene really sort of pulls it all together.
02:09We were able to cherry-pick our favorite bits
02:11and add them to our island of Berk, which is a real island, by the way.
02:16It's called Tindholmer, and it's in the Faroe Islands.
02:18But we've embellished it, we've increased its size,
02:21and we added all of the features that we needed to make this scene really work.
02:24One of the inspirations for it were some of those GoPro videos you see
02:29of people in wingsuits hurtling down near vertical cliff sides
02:35in Switzerland or something, and you get that first-person point of view
02:38of nearly colliding with rock formations.
02:41We wanted that energy, and we wanted to feel like we were with Hiccup
02:45in the saddle, riding on the back of Toothless.
02:48And so that was really kind of the inspiration,
02:52is just, can we grab the audience and have them lean forward,
02:55you know, on the seat of their pants, fully engaged,
02:57and also feeling what it must be like to fly a dragon.
03:00When we realized that we were going to be making this film for IMAX,
03:04it meant that we could really think about using the aspect ratio narratively.
03:08And there are just moments within the story
03:11where you either want to pop wide,
03:12and you're suddenly in this vast environment.
03:16So that was a no-brainer to have IMAX for the flight sequences
03:21because we really want it to feel experiential and visceral and palpable
03:26so that you feel like you're the dragon rider
03:28and you get the closest sense of what it is to fly
03:31while sitting in your movie theater seat.
03:46And there are just moments within the story
03:48You
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