Hogfather is a 2 x 120 minute mini-series written by Terry Pratchett’  The mini-series stars David Jason, Joss Ackland and Nigel Planer.  The team created character animation and visual effects for 315 shots and undertook a digital intermediate colour grade setting the atmosphere for the show.

‘It's the night before Hogswatch. And it's too quiet.  There's snow, there're robins, there're trees covered with decorations, but there's a notable lack of the big fat man who delivers the toys... He's gone'.

Hogfather was shot using an Arri D20 camera, as 4:4:4 HD to allow a greater dynamic range and a richer colour which was enhanced in the IQ during the digital intermediate colour grade setting the dark and sombre mood.    

The team was involved with Hogfather from the outset, during planning and pre-production the VFX Supervisor created a detailed pre-vis of the shots and along with the VFX Producer advised the production team on how to achieve the highest quality VFX.  After attending the 54 day shoot at East London’s Three Mills Studios, an intensive 4 month VFX production schedule was put in place.  Much of the work on the project involved creating the fantasy characters described in the book; - the sock eater, death of rats, 5 different types of hog and ‘discworld’ – a planet riding on the back of four elephants and a giant turtle.  Each of the different characters required different skin textures – whether fur, skin or clothes and the R&D team created plug-ins accordingly.  The team performed set extensions of collapsing buildings, which required the in-house shattering and bending software, and created fully CG environments - one shot, with a full length of 3 minutes, is completely CGI - which were enhanced by more than 35 matte paintings, all of these elements were composited together with the live action back plates in 2D software, Shake.  3D FX work was carried out on 4 long and complex shots of collapsing buildings.
 
Hogfather will air on 17th December 2006 on Sky One.