HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON

Rising Sun Pictures helped bring to life Harold’s magical drawings as he embarks on an epic adventure for the new fantasy film, Harold and the Purple Crayon. The studio produced hundreds of visual effects, conjuring catapults, boulders, an oversized fan, medieval weapons, a moose, a reptile creature named Carl and other wonders that spring from Harold’s magical crayon drawings. They also created dazzling imagery for the film’s climax where Harold and the villainous Gary battle in the town square.

Based on the beloved children’s book by Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon is directed by Carlos Saldanha in his live action directorial debut. Zachary Levi stars as Harold. The cast also includes Lil Rel Howery, Zooey Deschanel, Jermaine Clement and Ravi Patel. Matt Welford is Production Visual Effects Supervisor and Ken Wallace is Production Visual Effects Producer.

Artists from RSP’s Brisbane and Adelaide studios spent months designing and executing unique visuals in which the simple sketches drawn by Harold (Levi) transform into real-life creatures and objects. “It required hard work and dedication, but the results are fantastic,” says RSP Visual Effects Supervisor Marc Varisco.

Harold’s drawings have a wonderfully whimsical quality and transform almost instantly into three dimensional objects. There’s magic happening everywhere. RSP VFX Supervisor, Marc Varisco.

An early challenge for the team was to determine how best to represent Harold’s crayon drawings. Artists experimented with various looks for the hue and texture of lines and how they flowed from Harold’s crayon. “The concept of a boy drawing objects in thin air raised many questions,” notes Comp Supervisor Matt Greig. “To what extent do the drawings have three-dimensional depth? What happens when a character intersects with a crayon line? Does it react…does it move?”

Then there were the issues of matching the CG drawings to Levi’s hand gestures, and transforming them into real life characters and objects. “Zachary’s motion didn’t always conform perfectly with the shape of the object he was drawing given that, at times, the design of the object had evolved during post-production,” explains Greig. “He might start to draw something that later needed to be bigger or of a different shape.”

“We experimented with different concepts for the lines,” adds CG Supervisor Bhakar James. “It couldn’t be two dimensional like a ribbon floating in the air, but it also couldn’t look like toothpaste. It needed to be more magical and catch the light in a certain way. Ultimately, we went with a quite complicated rig set up, although it looks simple and effortless.”

Turning Harold’s line drawings into 3D objects required a flexible approach based on the nature of the individual object and the context of the scene. “Some items were simple, like a log or a lasso but others were quite complex,” explains Greig. “Realistically, it would take several minutes to draw some of these objects, but there wasn’t time for that. So, we had to make adjustments to how much detail to show and how fast the transformations occur. If Harold is drawing an oversized fan, does he need to draw the mesh cage and every blade of the fan?”

Individual shots raised other practical concerns. “Our basic concept for the drawing effect had to be modified to fit the framing, composition, lensing and other things of that nature,” observes Greig. “If Harold is standing 10 feet from the camera, you wouldn’t be able to see the lines he was drawing. We took small creative liberties to make it work.”

The film’s extended climax, spanning nearly ten minutes and 300 visual effects shots, is a tour de force. Harold and his nemesis Gary (Jermaine Clement)—each equipped with a piece of crayon—engage in a comically escalating battle in a park where they create ever more fantastic illusions. They menace one another with a battle ax, a fan, a catapult, a giant spring, a harpoon and much more.

The visual effects become more ornate as Gary uses his supernatural powers to transform the park into a rumbling volcano. “We created trenches that open and spread rapidly across the ground,” says James. “We filled the fissures with lava flows and added smoldering rocks, embers and smoke. It’s right out of Lord of the Rings, only tongue-in-cheek.”

“One of our biggest challenges was to lend all this an air of believability,” observes Greig. “Everything that appears, no matter how incredible, had to seem tangible. If it’s not grounded there’s no sense of peril, no purpose to what the characters are doing or how they’re reacting.”
RSP also produced several animated characters. They include a moose — familiar to readers of Crockett’s book—that change from human form to a moose when under stress. “We did the initial blocking with hand drawn animation to make sure the composition and timing was working,” recalls Varisco. “The creatures had to appear a natural part of the scene, fit the camera perspective and align with their human counterparts.”

Most notably, artists designed and produced a character named Carl who is a unique blend of reptile, lion, and bird. “We went through multiple design iterations alongside the production team,” says Varisco. “We had to carefully consider his proportions, features, and physical abilities. Initially, we aimed for a more cohesive look to unify his different parts, but the director and VFX supervisor wanted something more whimsical and disjointed—like something straight out of a child's imagination. Ultimately, we arrived at a design that perfectly captured their vision.”

The scope of the project raised practical issues. “Getting all the CG elements through the render farm was no easy task,” says VFX Producer Nicole Nonis Kastor. "It took careful forecasting, resource management, and render optimisation, successfully accomplished it without bottlenecks."

Ultimately, the process of translating an illustrated children’s book into live action cinema was both exciting and demanding. “Working on a new film, you’re in a position to establish character designs and the look of the effects,” says James. “Carlos wanted to see things that haven’t been seen before. That pushed us to tap into our full range of expertise to come up with solutions.”

Nonis Kastor says the results are the product of a deep collaboration with the production team and an all-out effort by RSP. “There were so many elements to this project and every department had a massive role to play,” she notes. “We valued the trust the client gave us to bring the project across the finish line. That allowed us to focus on the creative and producing quality work.”

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