Along with the opening image, the final image creates the bookend that encapsulates the journey. It’s the last thing the audience sees, and should cement the theme of the film, as well as represent what happened and changed over the course of this journey.
‘Blake Snyder’
Based on James McKay’s concept for the finale image (below), we’ve created detailed a pre-vis layout and in ToonBoom Harmony, to create an immersive 3D scene. This will be the most technically complex and most expensive shot in the film, literally bringing the audience into the illustration book world, which we will also mirror at the end (with more radiant colours than the bleak foggy opening), creating a rousing climax befitting of Scrooge’s reformed character.
Hudds 1840s panorama - Concept Art by James McKay
For the final scene, the shot takes us from Scrooge’s offices, with the camera panning out to reveal Huddersfield in the 1840s. From that, we pull out into what will become a book frame, within the last page of the Christmas Carol book.
The multi-plane camera, innovated by the Walt Disney Studios in the 1930s, separates layers in 3D space so that when the camera is moved, we see the shift in parallax and perspective. Unlike the original, which was two stories high, today’s multi-plane camera is all digital, sitting on a desk in our studio, powered by ToonBoom Harmony.
Creating this shot was a massive task, creating 12 separate layers of background artwork and one character level.
This video shows the shot in layout drawing, with scratch dialogue. Colour, mist, the book border, and CG book are all still to come.