One knows a children’s film festival has got off to a flying start when its first workshop involves fire-breathing dragons and the iron throne from one of present day’s best fantasy drama television series, Game of Thrones.

Conducted by visual effects (VFX) artist, Thomas Kutschera from PIXOMONDO – the company tasked with creating the dragons for HBO’s massive hit TV series – the workshop titled, ‘Game of Thrones: Creating the Dragons’ took a group of aspiring animators on a journey through how 3D technology is applied to design these larger-than-life characters.

“Since Season 2, Pixomondo has been creating the dragons for Game of Thrones. As the dragons have grown over the years from 1.8 metres to 38 metres in size over the successive seasons, we have had to pay the greatest attention to detail – from the scales and spikes on the dragons’ neck to their colour and crusty texture,” said Kotchera.

“We look of course towards nature to look for animals whose characteristics we can implement in our dragons to make them look as real as possible. We carefully examined skeletons of reptiles with massive chest bones to create the rounded portions right above the dragon’s neck and manipulated them using 3D and VFX technologies to fill with the amber glow you watch on screen, indicating that the creatures are ready to spit fire,” he added.

Turning to cinematic muse, Kutschera noted: “Also, we draw inspiration from work that belongs to the fantasy genre. The 1981 film Dragonslayer, for instance, or the Jurassic Park series were all ahead of their times and brought to life unimaginable cinematic experiences. Jurassic Park inspired the threat impulse for our dragons.”

From asset creation to modelling the dragons before converting them into 3D, the use of ZBrush technology to sculpt their minutest details, to bringing in Anim Rig technology to transform the low-resolution models into very light ones containing 3,000 polygons and capable of great maneuvering and flexibility that the animators love to work with, the workshop presented its young attendees detailed insights into development of these 3D characters that convincingly integrate a fully photorealistic dragon on live action plates for the show.   

By Season 7, more than half million polygons and 483 digital control objects were responsible for bringing the dragons to life. In simpler terms, these technicalities cause the ripple on the webs between their fingers or make their skin contract and expand like real life creatures when the gigantic beasts land on a cliff or prepare to take flight.  

SICFF is the first-of-its-kind film festival in the country and region. It seeks to make children and young people media literate, nurture their talents and present the in filmmaking for, by and about children and young people, right here in Sharjah.

The six-day cinematic extravaganza commenced on Sunday evening (8 October) with the opening of the fifth edition of Sharjah International Children’s Film Festival (SICFF 2017) at the Al Jawaher Reception & Convention Centre. Organised by FUNN – Sharjah Media Arts for Youth and Children, SICFF 2017 features an unprecedented 124 films from 31 countries, as well as workshops, seminars and appearances by celebrated industry professionals.