The festive season is well and truly under way and one modern retelling of a Christmas classic is set to dazzle young and old alike this year.
But cinema-goers often forget how much work goes into the seamless visual effects which keep watchers hooked and completely captivated.
Here, we take a look at MPC Film, a London-based visual effects studio, and before and after stills of its work in Disney's The Nutcracker And The Four Realms, starring Mackenzie Foy, Keira Knightley and Morgan Freeman.
The production studio, led by VFX supervisors Max Wood and Richard Clegg, crafted more than 1,000 shots for the film. The experts created everything from palaces, forests and rivers to extensive digital character builds and animation.
The huge visual effects task for MPC involved creating more than 100 items in total, which were broken up in distinct areas, which included a majestic Russian-inspired palace, and the realms of snow, flowers, and sweets.
For the Fourth Realm, ruled by Mother Ginger, the visual effects team built polichinelle clowns, an army of tin soldiers, a giant Mother Ginger mechanical puppet, the mice, the Mouse King and several environments and animals.
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One of the stand out characters in the film is Mouserlinks – the small hero mouse of the story and the leader of the Mouse King's army.
MPC said one of the challenges it faced while creating him was ensuring a balance between having human-like characteristics and natural mouse behaviours in order to maintain his "cute" appearance.
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