Preparing to Shoot: Coyote vs. Acme

The visualisation process went beyond traditional animatics. Whenever the production team finalised a storyboard animatic complete with temp audio and score, Framestore translated the sequences into 3D previs using Unreal, utilising motion capture and virtual camera workflows blocking out environments and animating Wile E. Coyote in the layout to push the creative and technical bar.

From there, the production's animators and story artists created "sketch-vis", hand-drawn 2D cartoon overlays stacked directly on top of the team’s 3D animation. This hybrid pipeline established clear boundaries between physical live-action elements and future animation, allowing the team to refine lighting, camera positioning, and blocking well ahead of filming.

By exhaustively mapping out character timings and camera movements during previs, Framestore provided an essential roadmap for the live-action shoot. On set, actors such as Will Forte could directly reference the previs to understand the exact tone and physical interaction of their unseen animated co-stars, avoiding the challenge of acting blind against a tennis ball. In several instances, for example Buddy Crane’s desert interrogation of Tweety Bird, the previs translated shot for shot into the final sequence.

"Framestore did incredible work on our previz for Coyote vs. Acme. For the better part of a year, Framestore worked with our sketchviz and storyboard team to build the very earliest version of the film... long before cameras rolled in Albuquerque. It also gave our entire production team a clear guide of what would later be live action, and what would be animated. The movie as it exists today could not have been made without the wildly talented Framestore team."

— Dave Green, Director