War Horse VFX Breakdown | Framestore

As Framestore celebrates our 40th Anniversary, we’re taking a look back at some of our favourite projects. War Horse is an incredible example of a huge film production, massive set pieces, with scores of horses on location, with their welfare and safety prioritised at all times.

Clever filmmaking and sleight of hand was used for multiple shots: replication passes turned 60 riders into a cavalry 300 strong when comped together or a small field of reeds with hiding soldiers extended as far as the eye can see.

War horse Joey was built in CG for a carefully planned trench jump too dangerous for a horse and stunt rider to negotiate, with the digital takeover of a real horse and rider, delivering maximum impact.

Safety regulations also require horses to be mounted during on-set explosions. In some instances, the ‘patches’ left after erasing the rider to achieve a bolting, riderless horse, were cleverly covered by CG horses to mask them.

But one scene, the tank jump, captured in camera was under scrutiny in post-production reviews, the shot not quite working for Spielberg. Our team swapped in a CG Joey and at a following review, happy with the shot, Spielberg asked where the rushes had been found. On revealing Joey was digital, now he had the shot he wanted, Spielberg was happy to give it his seal of approval.

Read more in our case study: https://www.framestore.com/work/war-horse

???? Subscribe for more behind-the-scenes VFX content: @FramestoreOfficial
???? See more of our work: https://www.framestore.com

???? Follow us:
Twitter/X: @Framestore
Instagram: @framestore
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/framestore/