“A tremendous amount of research goes into creating these digital environments,things like, recording everything that you can; research through still photography; and also high dynamic range photography, to understand how different surfaces react to light.”
Jon Favreau – Director: The Lion King, The Mandalorian, Iron Man
My Role
Client
Year
My challenge
Helping to develop the environments and the look of the iconic landscapes of Africa.
Parts of the movie:
- Mufasa Death
- Pride Rock
- Hakuna Matata
The artistic process was to blend traditional drawing techniques with digital tools. From 2D tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, to fully 3D environment with Maya, Zbrush and Nuke. I harness both analog and digital mediums to create visually captivating VFX.
Furthermore, I assisted with my graphic design skills, in marketing activations including online campaigns, printed posters, and out-of-home advertising.
For a year and a half, I worked alongside talented professionals in the fields of animation and CGI technology, contributing to the creative process that brought this unforgettable cinematic masterpiece to life.
Collaborating under the artistic direction of Jon Favreau, we leveraged cutting-edge technologies to create a visually stunning and realistic world, while still maintaining the essence and spirit of the original film. We built the entire world in CG, which spans an area of 150 square kilometers. That’s 11 times the size of LAX or 28,000 NFL football fields.
Through this experience, I’ve learned invaluable lessons in teamwork and have optimized my methods and workflow, ensuring efficient and effective contribution to the project.”
Francesco has a great eye and he is such a team player. Audrey Ferrara - Lion King MPC Set Supervisor
Francesco has a great eye and he is such a team player. Audrey Ferrara - Lion King MPC Set Supervisor
R&D with acrylic colors, to simulate how a monkey can draw a lion's hair bare hands.
Below there are some shots, where I worked on the sets environment. You can see the behind the scene from MPC / Disney with the before and after.