The award-winning animation and visual effects studio takes us through how the festive film came to life.
Charles Dickens’ ageless legend is reborn in this supernatural, time-travelling, musical adaptation of the definitive Christmas story, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol. Directed by Stephen Donnelley, the goal of the feature was to create a new definitive version of Scrooge, the classic story that we love to retell.
Adding a new twist to a universally loved classic story required a unique style that reflects the storytelling language. In the incredibly exciting visual development stage, the team set out to create a fresh filmic style, spring boarding from the original script and working across several different aspects of design: personality, style, tone, costume, interiors, and wider world-building. This is especially apparent in the magnetic main characters, such as Scrooge, where the team avoided the conventional crooked old miser character presentation.
A Christmas Carol is one of the archetypal stories of character transformation, as a musical Scrooge’s songs punctuated that change. Featuring re-imagined songs from two-time Academy Award-winner Leslie Bricusse, animating the performances played a huge part in amping up emotions. Using live-action references and keyframe animation the team adapted the animation for a huge variety of characters.
The film was produced by Timeless Films in association with Axis Studios and released by Netflix. The voice cast includes Luke Evan, Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Johnny Flynn, Fra Fee, Giles Terera, Trevor Dion Nicholas, James Cosmo, and Jonathan Pryce.
Watch the Making of Scrooge: A Christmas Carol below.
