To create the dragons, Neil Glasbey and his team had to marry images of the big flightless birds of today with dinosaurs, and also use their own imagination. All images courtesy of Framestore CFC/Darlow Smithson.

Bringing life to ancient creatures is the forte of Framestore CFC, the largest visual effects and computer animation company in Europe, based in London. Its 1999 miniseries, Walking with Dinosaurs, became a sensation leading to more specials, including The Ballad of Big Al (Allosaurus in the U.S.), Walking with Beasts, Land of Giants, Search for the Giant Claw and Sea Monsters. Now, Framestore CFC has applied its technical wizardry to creatures whose presence has been noted by cultures throughout the world — dragons.

If they were real, what were they like? How did they breathe fire? Fly? Mate? Did they encounter dinosaurs? (That is, other dinosaurs, since the term “dinosaur” was invented in 1841. What were dinosaurs called before 1841? Dragons!)

These questions are explored in Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real, a 90-minute docudrama that sees its U.S. premiere on Animal Planet on March 20, 2005, at 8:00 pm EST, followed by Dragons: The Magic Behind the Scenes at 9:30 pm. A 100-minute version of the special was first broadcast in Germany on Dec. 1, 2004, called Dragon’s World — Unglaubliche Entdeckung im Reich der Drachen. In the U.K., Channel Four telecast the special as The Last Dragon on March 5. A Region 1 DVD edition will be released on April 5, 2005 as Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real.

For Dragons, a team of seven animators were managed by lead animator Neil Glasbey, who discussed his contribution to the project in a phone interview.

Bob Miller: Please tell us about yourself.

Neil Glasbey: Well, I’m a lead animator at Framestore CFC. I was the lead animator on the Dragons project, which was sent here about five years, now. I originally started working on Walking with Beasts many years ago [2001], which was just after Walking with Dinosaurs, then progressed on to the two specials, which were Land of the Giants and Search for the Giant Claw. We then did Sea Monsters. I then worked on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We did the Hippogriff on that one, which was great fun. And then on to Dragons. I’m presently working on another project, Walking with Monsters. Of course it’s going to be great, but I can’t tell you too much about it, I’m afraid.

BM: Of all your projects, what is the most satisfactory animation that you’ve done?

NG: Certainly the most exciting, and satisfying would be Dragons, simply because they’re such interesting creatures. I’ve never really seen anything done like that before. There’s been lots of dinosaur [films], which have all been fun, but the dragon side has been wonderful — especially like having a dragon fight a T.Rex. It’s everyone’s dream to do something like that. To be able to do it was fantastic.

BM: In terms of personal satisfaction with dragons, is it your favorite because you’ve advanced enough in skill to bring something to life more convincingly — something different than the subject matter?

Last year, Framestore CFC’s Neil Glasbey led a team of seven animators in the making of Dragons.

NG: There were two things. One was, I had been animating for a few years now. I was capable of making them more believable than perhaps what I had done in the past. Experience, and shared knowledge and so forth. And two, we had developed very quickly a relationship with the director [Justin Hardy], who gave us fairly free reign, to allow us to [manipulate] the characters in a way we felt appropriate. And to have that freedom was unusual. It was great. To think of these things in your mind and to give them the life that you thought was appropriate, rather than being, you know, overly-directed (as sometimes happens), to have that freedom was unusual and wonderful.

BM: What was your training background? What school did you attend?

NG: Many years ago I was a technical illustrator at Bournemouth College of Art and Design. And that was doing technical-based drawings for things like car manuals, maintenance manuals, that sort of thing. That doesn’t sound too related to 3D. But the good thing about that was I was able to pick up the idea of how objects worked in 3D space, which was obviously useful for animation purposes. A few years later, I started gaining an interest in computer animation and then all things based on the 3D side of the computer, to work on FX coming from film, inspired by films like Jurassic Park. I taught myself to a certain level. Then I managed to get a place at Bournemouth University and the NCCA, which is the National Centre of Computer Animation. Did the Master’s Degree in animation there, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and then went from there working at a company called Pepper’s Ghost, in which we did a children’s TV series, which was Tiny Planet. From there I went straight to Framestore CFC. Framestore CFC was my first real job in the animation industry and I’ve been here ever since and thoroughly enjoying it.