Concept art showing a flying pirate ship against pink and orange tinted clouds

Pan: Art Department

For Director Joe Wright's 2015 feature film Pan, Framestore's Art Department were drafted in at the initial concept stage, creating stunning bespoke concept art for the initial pitch and later developing their ideas for use by VFX and animation artists.  Find out more about the designs:  

Concept Design
Creature Design/Art Department
Visual Effects Supervisor
back view of captain hook's ship the jolly roger floating above clouds amongst giant bubbles of water

Journey to Neverland

Peter’s journey to Neverland was perhaps the most difficult conceptual sequences of the show, combining as it does a space setting, flying against a sky, and zero-gravity balls of water, which in turn play host to various pirate ships. The look and overall feel of the other-worldly cloudscape background had a huge part to play; becoming the backdrop to this fantastical voyage. The Art Department were involved from an early stage, providing cloudscape concepts for the initial visual pitch which resulted in a new system being developed which allowed the wider teams to create volume-based clouds.

Neverland is vibrant, with very saturated colours and a real playfulness. There are fantastical fish within the bubbles, flying fish skimming off the bubbles, it’s all incredibly beautiful.
Stuart Penn
CG Supervisor
concept art of a battle scene from pan

concept art of captain hook's ship the jolly roger floating in air as pirates jump off the ship

Going deeper underground

The pirate ship soon sweeps through the voluminous cloud into a tunnel, landing in a mine environment created by Framestore’s Montréal team.  The primary challenge in designing what the environment should look like was sheer scale and depth. The space then had to be filled with miners - thousands and thousands of them - but it was also key that they didn’t look lost. The team created an endless caverous space which still manages to feel claustrophic. A hub of activity; buzzing with life.

aerial view of captain hook's ship the jolly roger inside of a cavern like area full of people

Making Pan has taken us to extraordinary places. It has been a pleasure working with Framestore to bring our ideas to life.
Chas Jarrett
VFX Supervisor
a fancy portrait of captain hook

Making a splash

Once the plates were shot, Framestore were in for another year’s worth of work creating Wright’s vision of three visually similar, yet distinct, mermaids. Deemed ‘motherly, feral and flirty’, the differentiations helped the teams to finesse the build and performance of each personality. The Art Department delivered concepts to create the right feel for the mermaid forms.

side view of concept art of three mermaids facing an alligator that has a person in its mouth

We worked to define the textural details, the materials, and the quality of lighting needed to give Cara’s mermaids their magic and intrigue. She’s ethereal, but the colours are electric.
Brandon Norris
Art Department Production Manager

Capturing the Croc

The aquatic environment was crafted using references of Vietnam’s Halong Bay to inform the work. Framestore’s artists also designed the magnificent Nevercroc crocodile; an imposing and majestic creature who rises from the water with a flourish, and was a shared asset between the London and Montréal offices in the building.

concept art of nevercroc crocodile jumping over a dinghy boat as pirates fall out of it

Credits

Director
Joe Wright
VFX Supervisor
Chas Jarrett
Head of Art Department
Martin Macrae
VFX Supervisor (Framestore)
VFX Supervisor (Framestore)
Kyle McCulloch
CG Supervisor
CG Supervisor