Tag Archives: dragon

Dragon Wrap 360

An animated loop of the directors, producers and PDI-based crew of "How to Train Your Dragon", made from photos taken at the wrap party in March 2010.
Click the image to see the full animated GIF!

Here’s a thing that happened. Remember that crazy accidental stereo photo that we shot at the LA wrap party for “How to Train Your Dragon”, back in 2010? Well, not long after that, we had a second wrap party in Palo Alto, for the PDI part of the crew. At one point I was talking with Chris Sanders, and I showed him that stereo photo from the other party. His eyes got really big, and his inner ten-year-old, always very close to the surface but particularly so in that moment, looked at me very seriously and said “we have to do this again… right now… with EVERYBODY HERE!” Without any kind of plan, we just snapped into action, moving tables, herding animators, passing on instructions in a game of telephone as everyone gathered in a big circle with Chris, Dean, Bonnie and Bruce in the middle. Cameras and phones out and ready, on a count of three, we all snapped a shot– as simultaneously as a crowd of reveling filmmakers can manage (which turns out to be not simultaneous at all, but hey, we’ll fix it in post!) I got everyone to email me their photos the next day, and spent way too many hours truing them up over the following weeks. I even did some very bad morphing at one point. I never quite got it to a state that felt good enough to share, so this sat on my hard drive for the better part of a decade without anybody seeing it.

But the third chapter in the trilogy comes out today! So in honor of that, and all the amazing artists who were there in that room nine years ago, and the many others who have worked on these movies before and since, here it finally is, in the form of an animated GIF: Dragon Wrap 360!

Photos by: Jennifer Yip, Craig Rittenbaum, Kathy Altieri, Craig Ring, Gil Zimmerman, Andy Wheeler, Susan Hayden, Ronman Ng, Melanie Cordan, Jennifer Dahlman, Rebecca Huntley, Ben Andersen, Janet Breuer, John Batter, Andrew Pearce, Katrina Conwright, Toshi Otsuka, Lou Dellarosa, Nara Youn, Michel Kinfoussia, Kevin Andrus, Dave Torres, Michael Baula, Tanner Owen, Karen Dryden, April Henley, Kate Spencer, Cassidy Curtis, Ron Pucherelli, Scott LaFleur, Simon Otto, and Dane Stogner.

How to Train Your Dragon trailer

This is the movie I’ve been working on for the past year or so. I can’t say enough good about this film. By far the best one I’ve ever worked on, I can recommend it without hesitation. Yes, it’s that good!

The trailer is finally up, and it has a bunch of my shots in it! (The freeze frame you see below is one of them.) I have mixed feelings about posting the trailer here: on the one hand, compared to the previous teasers and leaked footage that’s been out there, this does a much better job at representing what the movie’s really like. But on the other hand, it takes a lot of sweet moments and shows them out of context, which could take away some of the surprise and enjoyment when you see it in the theater. So, if you don’t mind spoilers, watch the trailer below. But if you’d rather keep yourself pure and unsullied, just wait ’til March 26th and go see it on the big screen!

And here’s a link to the full-res trailer if you’d like to see it a bit bigger!