Framestore launched its feature animation studio with The Tale of Despereaux. The film boasts a color palette and lighting scheme worthy Vermeer and Bruegel. All images © Universal.

It's hard enough making a stylish animated feature with dark undertones, let alone starting from scratch with the launch of a new studio. But that's exactly what Framestore did in taking on The Tale of Despereaux (opening today) in partnership with Universal Pictures. London-based Framestore has certainly received acclaim for its CG creatures. Think of the Oscar-winning polar bears from last year's The Golden Compass, Aslan from this year's Prince Caspian or the hippogriff from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. But feature animation is quite different from visual effects, requiring a more robust and unified pipeline, along with different skill sets, among other things. And Despereaux, adapted from Kate DiCamillo's Newberry Medal -winning novel about a heroic mouse (Matthew Broderick) a conflicted rat (Dustin Hoffman) and a dispirited princess (Emily Watson) posed a host of artistic and technical challenges.

Drawing from a largely European talent base, the Framestore Animation team was led by Exec Producer David Lipman (Shrek 2), with Despereaux boasting a color palette and lighting scheme inspired from the Flemish school of painting epitomized by Vermeer and Bruegel.

"Building a feature animation arm is a ton of work," Lipman admits." It's very different from a visual effects division in the number of shots and how you track assets and deal with managing a show. First time pipes are really tough but we got there in the end. And visually the show is like nothing you've ever seen. It was challenging to do a kid's storybook come to life: it's very painterly and unbelievably detailed and the directors [Sam Fell and Robert Stevenhagen] allowed us to go really dark. There are a lot of blacks and things falling off into nothing. It's stunningly beautiful."

"Animation is a space we've always wanted to be in," adds Framestore co-CEO William Sargent, who also serves as an exec producer on Despereaux. "The thing about the company is, because it's private, the shape of it has been based on our aspirations and not on some sophisticated business plan. And feature animation is something we really, desperately, had a passion for but we couldn't find the right project for four or five years that had the criteria that I was looking for. At one end, I wanted it to be a major studio-backed one because I wanted to know that it was important to the studio and so the care and support would be there for the film and at the other end, the right script and people and character and all of that. I probably turned down at least 10 projects before the stars were in alignment, as they say.

Framestore built a data management system on top of a basic Maya/RenderMan pipeline, along with proprietary Framestore plug-ins to make it unique.

"We had the experience of making very large vfx things, but we were very clear from the beginning that we didn't take for granted that you merely transition from one heavy duty pipeline to another. We started with a very humble position and that this is a different creative process. And also the dynamics of the technology are different. I think where we've ended up is richer for the texture of it."

Framestore took advantage of a basic Maya/RenderMan pipeline on top of which they built a data management system courtesy of Shotgun, along with proprietary Framestore plug-ins to make it unique. "We maxed out at a crew of about 278," Lipman states. "We had some CG talent from Framestore, including the software and tools group. And a lot of imports: Australia, New Zealand, the States, France, Germany and Spain." They even recruited some recent graduates, including from the prestigious Gobelins, rounding out a team of CG, 2D and stop motion artists. "Part of my attraction for coming here was you could get a ton of European talent with no visa issues."

Lipman suggests that despite a first-time experience with animation, producer/screenwriter Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville) held the creative vision. "It was always easy to go to Gary to get grounded and centered. He brought a live-action sensibility and in terms of the cinematography it looks like a very traditional, beautifully shot movie. We used traditional camera lenses and mimicked depth of field. As far as lighting for animation, we mimicked real lighting on a real set. I think it made a big difference."

Ross believes that the startup experience of Framestore merely enhanced the excitement for him. "Obviously there were some bumps along the road, as there would be, and they handled them wonderfully. They'd done the character of Aslan in Narnia and that was one of things that gave me confidence as far as handling these CG characters. And they're very good at creating these universes in Potter and others with a lot of scope. But the mutual commitment was the biggest thing. They were really excited about this project to launch as an animation studio. Obviously they had the size and the scope and the infrastructure."