A beloved animated franchise is reimagined in stunning live action in 2025’s How to Train Your Dragon, breathing fiery new life into a tale of an unlikely alliance between sworn enemies. Directed by Dean DeBlois — helmer of the original DreamWorks Animation trilogy — the story unfolds in the midst of a bitter generational feud between Vikings and dragons on the rugged isle of Berk.
Young Hiccup (Mason Thames), son of Chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), boldly defies tradition by forging a friendship with Toothless, a Night Fury dragon feared by all. When an ancient threat emerges and catapults the lives of both the Vikings and dragons into jeopardy, the bond between Hiccup and his winged companion is at the forefront of a heroic fight for a new future.
DeBlois teamed up with Oscar and BAFTA-nominated production VFX supervisor Christian Mänz to usher his classic animated tale into the live-action realm. Mänz and acclaimed VFX studio Framestore were up for the challenge, seamlessly merging cutting-edge visual effects artistry with real-world practical effects elements to capture realistic interactions between the cast and their dragons. Here, Mänz shares an inside look at the process of bringing the live-action How to Train Your Dragon to life on-screen.
How did you become a part of this project, and what interested you most about it when you first joined the team?
Christian Mänz: “I first met with director Dean DeBlois in October 2022 to talk about how we could help realize Toothless for a live-action remake of the film he co-wrote and directed with Chris Sanders in 2010. I rewatched the original and could see immediately what a challenge the project would be. Though I have supervised a lot of creature animation heavy films — including the Fantastic Beasts trilogy — the potential complexity of the VFX work was much higher here due to the sheer amount of interaction between the human and dragon cast. That challenge, and the opportunity to bring such a beloved world to life, made me really interested to be involved.”
Tell us about collaborating with Dean DeBlois to bring his beloved animated tale into the live-action realm. How did you implement virtual reality technology to allow him to visualize the dragons on-set?
Christian Mänz: “Dean is a great storyteller and filmmaker, as well as being a lovely guy. He was keen to understand the differences between live-action feature VFX and the animated film world, which he was, of course, far more familiar with. One element of this was how much work in animation and previs we would need to do before we went to camera.
“It was really important to road test all of the dragon designs —including Toothless — through animation, as this helped us understand their scale and how they would fill the practical sets, but also to inform our on-set puppeteers when performing against the cast. This was led by Kayn Garcia from Framestore’s London studio, whilst previs was supervised by Jon Allen at Framestore Pre-Production Services (FPS). Glen McIntosh worked alongside me as the production animation supervisor, and we had a great time working with the teams and working out how we were going to stage the dragon action in the film.
“On-set we used a Framestore proprietary tool called Farsight Go, which is an AR (augmented reality) iPad app driven by Unreal Engine. I had used it to great success on the last Fantastic Beasts film to visualize the extensive digital set extensions. This time we used it to represent the dragons for Dean, the other key filmmakers, and the actors.
“All of the animation studies that the team had done in pre-production were ingested into the software. We could then load that animation and see it in the set via the iPad camera, which we could also match to the film lens we were shooting with. It became an invaluable tool to line up the puppets, check actor eye lines and frame shots.
“When shooting the action of Toothless fighting the Monstrous Nightmare in the training arena, second-unit director Patrick Loungway used Farsight Go to record a camera move, and then referenced playback of that when shooting the plates. It reduced some of the usual guesswork when filming this kind of material and definitely made the final shots even better.”
Tell us about setting up your workflow for such a large-scale project. How did you organize your team, share assets and communicate throughout the process?
Christian Mänz: “As the production VFX supervisor working alongside Glen and VFX producer Chris Raimo, our office and on-set team varied in size from about 15 of us during filming to eight in post production, plus seven in-house comp artists.
“Framestore, however, had around 1,200 people working on the film and on the production across sites in London, Montreal, Melbourne and Mumbai — as well as the large FPS team, who did all of our previs and postvis.
“We split the VFX shot and asset work between three of these Framestore sites in London, Montreal and Melbourne, treating them as three separate vendors with their own supervision and production. Mumbai supported all three of these, but we did not deal with them directly on the production side.
“Framestore’s London team, led by VFX supervisor Andy Kind, handled all of the Toothless acting scenes — such as his first meeting with Hiccup — alongside the iconic flying sequences and Toothless’ battle with the Monstrous Nightmare in the training arena. They were also responsible for the scene where the Viking ships are attacked as they attempt to reach Dragon Island.
“Framestore’s Montreal team, led by VFX supervisor François Lambert, created the night village attack that opens the film — as well as the third act battle against the Red Death on Dragon Island, alongside the Berk docks and the end scene where the Vikings are revealed to now be living alongside the dragons.
“Framestore’s Melbourne team, led by VFX supes Glenn Melenhorst and Dom Hellier, looked after all of the dragon training arena sequences, plus Gobber’s limb replacement.
“Working with one company meant that asset and knowledge sharing was far easier than if we had used multiple companies, as well as giving us more of a chance of consistency in the look of the finished work.
“Glen and I reviewed work with the teams every day — from animation to FX tests and final comps — which we would then show to Dean and Wyatt Smith, our editor, to get their notes. To get a show of this scale and complexity done efficiently and to a high level relies on a lot of clear communication between us and the VFX and animation supervision teams, with support from multiple producers, line producers, coordinators and production assistants.”
Which software programs and tools were the most important for this project’s VFX workflow?
Christian Mänz: “On a film like this one, the VFX department uses various tools and software on the production side and in post. Our VFX production team, led by production manager Sam Girdler, created a bespoke FileMaker database which — as well as tracking shot notes and statuses — also automated a lot of tasks, such as packaging up the multitude of set data for Framestore on the multiple turnovers.
“Our on-set data wrangler team used Blackmagic Pocket Cinema cameras, as well as GoPros, for witness cameras, alongside SLRs (single-lens reflex cameras) to take HDRI (high dynamic range imaging) photos and other devices to measure camera data.
“All of the sets were 3D scanned via LiDAR (light detection and ranging) by Clear Angle Studios, with textures captured on SLR and Roundshot cameras. We also used their full-body photogrammetry rig to scan all of the cast in their multiple costume variants, as well as their ‘Dorothy’ head-scanning rig to capture the high-resolution data required by Framestore to create digital doubles for the flying scenes.
“Framestore, of course, was using multiple software and hardware (tools) to create the nearly 1,500 shots they finished on the film. The main ones included Maya, Nuke and Houdini, but they also used plug-ins and proprietary applications. This included Freak, Framestore’s custom path tracer, which it uses to render all of its images.”
Tell us about bringing the character of Toothless into the real world. What was the development process like, and what challenges did you encounter along the way?
Christian Mänz: “When Peter Cramer, president of Universal Pictures, had been discussing with Dean about making a live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon, he wasn’t convinced that Toothless would work in the real world. His touchstone was Buckbeak — the Hippogriff in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — as it was clearly a fantasy creature, but in the film felt like a real animal from the natural world.
“Before the film was greenlit proper, I worked for three months with Framestore’s global director of animation, Michael Eames, and the Framestore visual development team, led by Owen Jackson, to create the imagery showing that a live-action Night Fury would work.
“Working in Photoshop, ZBrush and Blender, the team was able to freely explore multiple options of how he could look before getting involved in the intricacies of the full VFX asset pipeline. We referenced real-world animals — snakes, lizards, salamanders, black panthers, etc. — as we started playing with his overall proportions, eye size and thickness of scales. Even at this early stage, anatomy was really important to delivering a believable creature that at the same time retained the key traits of the beloved original design.
“The result of this initial work was a Toothless who was much bigger than in the original films, but with a proportionally-smaller head and longer neck. His bat-like wings were also much larger.
“That was just the start, though — the heavy lifting of creating the Toothless that would be seen in the final film fell to Andy Kind, Kayn Garcia and the asset team in London.
“One of the biggest challenges were his eyes — being so large, they really needed structure and depth to connect with Hiccup and audience. In the end, though colored like cat eyes with a feline pupil, the anatomy and structure was actually based on the human eye, where the iris has a lot of shape and depth, as well as texture.
“There was also an incredible amount of work in his overall anatomy, from the skeleton outward, that went through a lot of iteration and finesse. As with most of the dragons in the film, their proximity to camera and fairly long shots meant there was nowhere to hide.”
How did you blend detailed artistry and ground-breaking technology to create unique features, behaviors and flight patterns for each dragon?
Christian Mänz: “Much like Toothless, the brief from Dean for the other dragons was for them to be as grounded and real world as possible, but always with a hint of character and whimsy. We also had more freedom to explore their appearance versus the animated feature versions, which were quite caricatured.
“We did some concept design with the Framestore art department — Rob Bliss, Paul Catling and Sam Rowan had all been key collaborators during my time on Fantastic Beasts — Rob and Paul also being responsible for the design of multiple creatures for the Harry Potter franchise. It felt to me that both their visual aesthetic and ability to create iconic characters would be a perfect fit for the task ahead.
“Reference from the natural world was key to the believability of all of the dragon designs — be it crocodiles for the Monstrous Nightmare or ostriches for the Deadly Nadder. Giving the creatures characteristics in look and behavior that the audience sees in the real world would help us embed them into the live-action photography next to the actors.
“Once we had a set of concepts that Dean was happy with, we then moved these into visual development — the same as we had done with Toothless. The aim was to answer questions about anatomy, form and surfacing, so that we were able to show photographic stills and turntables to Dean, the other filmmakers, and the studio, to lock in the overall designs and sizes of all of the dragons. We did this well ahead of the shoot, as we needed to build representative puppets and SFX (special effects) gimbals for the flying scenes.
“The final asset builds were launched from all of this work in prep, fleshing out all of the detail and anatomy. Every block animation submission Glen and I looked at was always accompanied by an appropriate animal reference, which helped hone the final performances, while natural world cues also influenced everything from scale layout to nictitating membranes.”
How did you utilize puppetry and ride-on ‘bucks’ on set to create more believable interactions between the film’s actors and their dragons?
Christian Mänz: “With this type of creature VFX work it doesn’t matter how good the animation or final render and comp is - if the interaction isn’t created authentically on-set, the final shots just won’t work.
“I have collaborated with Tom Wilton and his puppetry team since Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in 2015. Stitches and Glue did great work for us on the third of those movies, fabricating the puppets, so this felt like a great opportunity for all of us to build on what we had learned together and do something even better.
“We had a puppet for the whole of Toothless, minus his wings, based on the digital sculpt Framestore had created. This could be separated into sections depending on what the shot required. Often it would be just Tom and the head, which had a movable mouth and ear plates, as well as posable eyes. All of the other dragons were represented by heads, which were either handheld or mounted on backpack rigs, to mimic the long necks of the Zipplebacks, for example.
“The interactivity they created with the actors was so important. As a performer, Tom was able to imbue the Toothless puppet with character that Mason Thames, as Hiccup, could react to, and build a performance between them, as you would do normally between two actors in a scene. It is very much like watching a live theatrical performance on-set, and everyone soon realized that what they were creating was pretty special.
“There was obviously a large amount of clean-up required in post, but we were always very careful not to occlude the actors, and the shoot crew got very used to shooting clean plates. This extra work was far outweighed by the authentic connection between human and dragon that the puppeteers created for us.
“For flight, a different approach was required. Working with SFX, we created bespoke articulated bucks (that) sat on top of a six-axis gimbal for each of our key dragons. The overall body motion came from the gimbal, while the buck was separated into a head, neck and shoulders, whose movement matched the animated flight cycles created by Framestore.
“The innovation with the dragon gimbals was the ability to not only play back a flight cycle accurately, but also to blend between different ones, live on-set. The gimbal and buck motion could be separated and driven by different cycles, or be puppeteered via a Waldo control system. For every setup, we could rehearse with a selected cycle and then tweak the action by either changing to a different cycle, altering its speed or, most importantly, working off what the actors were doing. If Mason pulled at Toothless’ collar, we could follow him and make the rig bank.
“The result was hopefully more authentic and organic because of the happy accidents that happen in performance or camera choreography naturally during filming, which gave us a strong foundation for the final VFX shots in post production.”
Tell us about crafting the film’s environments. Why was it crucial to perfect the coastline of Berk for the epic flight sequences?
Christian Mänz: “Early in pre-production, we scouted locations in Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. Those helicopter flights gave us a real-life exhilarating experience that we wanted to try and replicate on film, with Hiccup flying on Toothless around the coastline of Berk. And it was real-life reference that we looked at with Dean and [director of photography] Bill Pope to find out how we wanted to photograph these key scenes — everything from motorbike chases and FPV (first-person view) drone footage, to speed parascending and wingsuit GoPro footage. Films like Top Gun: Maverick were an inspiration and aspiration because of the lengths that the filmmakers had gone to shoot as much as possible for real, but also because of the dynamic photography that put the viewer in the cockpit with Tom Cruise and co.
“Very early on I realized that one of the things that made all of these references so dynamic was that the camera was driven by the subject. Dean and Bill also very much liked the aesthetic of the camera operator always being behind the action, rather than anticipating it too perfectly. Therefore, the environments for all of the flight sequences would need to be digital to allow us complete freedom with the photography. The plates we shot were our absolute reference of what ‘real’ looked like —not only the photographic look of the landscape, but also things like the sheer number of birds flying around the coastline of Faroe, and the surprisingly aquamarine colour of the coastal water. Using this footage as well as the 30-odd locations we had captured as photogrammetry, Framestore’s London team started look development on these landscapes from very early in production.
“The background environments involving ocean simulation, volumetric cloudscapes and atmosphere, plus countless birds, were lit to match the foreground plate elements, while we had more freedom to art direct the lighting in the full-CG shots. Another rule was never to be too religiously consistent with the lighting direction. Each shot had to look great in its own right — exactly the same issue you’d have if it was all shot on-location.
“This work was repeated for other areas of Berk Island and, of course, the third act scenes on Dragon Island. The incredible work the Framestore environments team did made the final shots as immersive and exhilarating as those helicopter flights two years earlier.”
What did you enjoy most about working on this project?
Christian Mänz: “How to Train Your Dragon has been a highlight of my nearly 28 years in VFX thus far. It was extremely challenging. We all worked really hard. But, we had a lot of fun at the same time.
“Having supervised a lot of large-scale VFX-driven movies, working with talented teams from multiple VFX facilities, it was great to have Framestore take this one on as the sole vendor. The love and care that has gone into every frame is clear when you watch the film.
“I am really pleased that our reinterpretation of Toothless has been received so well by fans and the general audience alike, but I most enjoyed the journey of dragon flight, and it was amazing to hear the audience cheer and applaud at the world premiere after the ‘test drive’ sequence.”
Do you have any advice you can share for up-and-coming VFX artists?
Christian Mänz: “My biggest bit of advice is to have a love and passion for what you do, and for the world of film and television. There are so many disciplines in VFX, and all of them contribute to the success of a project.
“One of the things I love about my role is collaborating with so many people and departments during the shoot and post production to get the best possible result for the film. So, I’d also advise people not to work too much in isolation, which it’s easy to do these days. I learned, and still do learn, by getting the advice and experience of the people around me every working day.”