Fred Claus was a big Christmas comedy starring Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti and Kevin Spacey, with Neil Corbould supervising the Special Effects.

A huge part of Santa’s Workshop and the Toy Factory was recreated at Pinewood Studios, spread across multiple stages and filled with working machinery, conveyors and production lines. With hundreds of elves working around Vince Vaughn, there was an enormous amount of mechanical activity to keep running and coordinate for camera.

I was responsible for the Special Effects on second unit, which eventually took us out to Chicago. It was absolutely freezing — I don’t think the temperature got much above -5°C for the entire time we were there — but what an amazing city to visit.

One of our main pieces of kit was Santa’s sleigh, mounted on one of Neil’s six-axis motion gimbals, allowing us to throw the sleigh around and create the flying movement practically for Vince’s sequences.

A fun job with a surprising amount of engineering behind it — huge Christmas sets at Pinewood, plenty of machinery and mechanical effects, then a very cold second unit in Chicago. Another memorable one.