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Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Wolf Pack Special Effects in Breaking Dawn CGI!

30 Comments December 11, 2011 by Filed Under: Breaking Dawn Special Effects, Wolf Pack

Breaking Dawn brings larger-than-life wolves to the big-screen, and here’s a peek at the movie magic that made the wolf pack a reality.

A pivotal scene has the Twilight Saga wolves intimidating Bella/Kristen Stewart due to her marriage and child with Edward Cullen/Robert Pattinson.

Breaking Dawn director Bill Condon asked Tippett Studios to bring this difficult sequence from script to screen.

“The lumberyard sequence was great,” recalled visual effects supervisor Eric Leven. “It was first time in any of these movies that it was just the wolves in wolf form doing their wolf thing.”

As we know, the wolves communicate telepathically, but in order to create this scene they took a dialogue-based approach. Lead animator Hans Brekke explained that “we got into a recording room and assigned roles, Then we took the dialogue track and started designing shots, which were loosely based on a storyboard sequence.”

Taylor Lautner, who plays Jacob Black and serves as the main voice of the pack for the showdown, needed to stay front and center, so a rough 3D rendering was created to visualize how the sequence would ultimately play out.

The scene was filmed over three days in a lumberyard with cardboard cutouts to represent the placement of the rendered wolves. Once the animation began, Tippett took great care so details like the texture of the fur and positioning of ears for each wolf told a story on their own.

Check out the video above for an interesting interview about the process!

[TheDaily via ScottBroock]

Category: Breaking Dawn Special Effects, Wolf Pack

  • LF – Twilight´s my life now!!!

    I loved that scene!!

  • DearJacob_I_Win_SincrlyEdwrd

    Awww. That makes me so sad. “Tippett took great care so details like the texture of the fur and positioning of ears for each wolf told a story of their own.”
    This man worked so hard to make this scene great, and everyone makes fun of it. 

  • Vhs_blak_dul

    that scene made me LOL 

  • Olgakk

    PFF, the scene was fine people! You know techonology isn’t as advanced as we all want it to be! People put serious effort in it, it’s not polite to just make fun of it, i’m sure you wouldn’t like it if someone did that to you.

  • DearJacob_I_Win_SincrlyEdwrd

    -.-

  • Laura Scully

    My best friend and I loved that scene because it was funny, but really cool!

  • super-human-teeth-baby!

    i loved this scene, but just wished that they didn’t change the wolves voices… in my opinion it would have been better just with their normal voices

  • ihatejane

    i liked that scene but i think they should have used their normal vocies. i couldnt tell what they were saying and it was really distracting… why would they sound like that if it was their thoughts anyway? If it was talking i would understand but being in wolf form should not change the sound of their thoughts..

  • Jite4vanquish

    It was the echo in their voices that I didn’t like…and Jacob’s voice did not sound anything like Taylor Lautner.

  • Anonymous

    That was interesting!!

  • Anonymous

    I really liked that scene.  I thought it was very cool to hear exactly what Jacob was hearing going through.  It’s unfortunate that some fans of the saga think it was “funny.”

  • Hedy_grossman

    Great work when explaining the wolves.  I only wish they had the names of each wolf
    above. It was hard to define some of them.

    Hedy

  • Anonymous

    This scene didn’t make me laugh it made my mouth fly open!! I couldn’t belive how they looked like regular wolves when they are suppose to be big as horses, u think their voices would be big too. I just didn’t like the wolves, and I’m so Team Jacob I was very dissapointed with them & with the way Jacob was in this movie, I mean come on how the hell did he leave the pack & boom fully clothed LOL with shoes & everything!!!

  • Jar1221946

    What bothered me the most about the most is that they didn’t use the actors actual voices. Other than that the scene itself was great.

  • klayrahx7

    I really liked this scene too! i thought the wolves looked amazing, especially when they were growling at each other. but i think people are laughing at the voices, rather than the visual effect! because the voices did seem a litte transformers like! BUT, i did like how bill showed the wolves communicating like that because that is how they talk in the book! so i was happy with that!

    either way it must be such a hard process for them to get everything perfect, like the ears of the alpha! :]

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/laramasen Mary Masen

    My thoughts on the wolf telepathy: The Alpha voices were different than the actors’ normal ones. I’m good with that, it’s just like in the book! But, the voices of the other wolves, I thought they were supposed to sound the same as when the actors were in their human forms. It’s just how I imagined it while reading the book. I hope they’ll do something about it for Part 2.
    Other than that, the job the special effects team has made to make them look as real as possible deserves an applause. They should be given more credit for what they’ve done over the years. :)

  • Yari10995

    I agree with you people were laughing at the voices (personally I think they sounded like Robots maybe?) except my grandma she was a little scared of Sam and why deny it me too :S. The part when Sam was growling at Jacob was amazing, I think this were the best wolves it was a combination of the sentimental puppy/human eyes wolves in NM, and the animalistic wolves in eclipse.

  • Anonymous

    I must say, CGI wolves looked so much better in NM and Ec. Why did they change? But okay, they don’t look that bad. But this was the first time I felt ashamed in the movie theatre for loving Twilight. The dialogue’s were totally ridiculous. I couldn’t (and noone I know or was in the cinema that day) take that scene seriously. It was completely weird and funny. It was a bad idea to do it as they are talking to each other.

  • Kingburrows

    Visually, the scene was fantastic. I didn’t think the telepathy was funny….I was covering my face in embarrassment! Is it a difficult thing to put telepathy in film without being absolutely hokey? Sure it is. Could this have been handled better? Absolutely.

  • Unique Jenique

    I really liked it too! It showed how frightening the wolves were in the movie. I thought it was a little loud and thought the voice-overs could have been done better, but I didn’t find it funny at all. Bill tried hard to create something that was otherwise only in our heads. I thought it showed the uniqueness of the wolf telepathy.

  • Bmr66

    I loved the scene too; it was a great portrayal of them and really brought it to life. The animation, effects and hard work that went into it really paid off. I do have to agree that it was the voice over that hit me; it was just so wrong. Maybe it was the echo as a result of the theater’s surround sound and will not be as off in the DVD. We’ll have to wait and see … and hope?

  • Natnatbrady

    I’ve always imagined the wolves like bigger than horses. The CGI was amazing but I agree, it was very distracting when they started talking because of how different there voices were. Jacob sounded like a demon with how deep and weird it was. But I think the way these wolves look in this movie is amazing and the best out of all the other ones. 

  • D. Martin

    The movie companion is being released tomorrow and they are already posting some photos on the web…

  • D. Martin

    I like this one.  I remember this scene in the BOOK (with Renee and Charlie holding hands) but I don’t recall seeing it in the movie.   Personally, I think Charlie is better looking than Phil.   Not trying to be mean just love that Charlie!

  • kerbear585

    i really liked it too! my friends are all it was weird and stuff and i am like i think it is awesome! showing what they hear and how they communicate, so glad we got to see that finally! i think they looked awesome!

  • Shalista

    I agree. They did a great job. Could it have been  done a bit better in places, maybe. But it’s easier to crititize than to do all the hard work to design it. Just enjoy it guys or go learn how to do it yourself.

  • erin

    I very much enjoyed that wolves scene when I saw breaking dawn in theaters. I found it better to do that voices in their heads the way it was done alot better than having their mouths move.

  • Breakingdawn2shouldwin
  • Fatima

    I thought all of that was awesome! Especially this scene! I thought Bill did an outstanding good job! ‘Cause on the book they do speak all jumbled up, and they were talking inside their minds, so I thought it was awesome! I’m pretty mad that Jacob Black as a werewolf talking didn’t sound the same as his real voice! :)

  • Gabriels_girl5035

    The wolves looked GREAT in the movie but i must say that the way the audio was done when they were talking was kinda heard to listen to.  It just got a bit irritating cause it sounded drowned out and their voices were a bit off.  But my hat goes off to Tippett for their work on the animation and effects from this movie and the other :]

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