The visual effects reel of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was uploaded to YouTube on March 11.

Making-of Video of the Barrel Escape Scene Revealed

The clip features digital doubles of the characters and CGIs of the monsters and beasts in various scenes --including ones where the Dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) confronting Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), and the barrel-escape scene,

WETA, the visual effects team that worked on the second film in the trilogy and will also be working on the third, also revealed a clip featuring Cumberbatch capturing the motion of the dragon.

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Cumberbatch not only voiced the fictional dragon in the The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug, but tried to embody the character as well.

The actor told Vulture that he asked director Peter Jackson if he could be involved in motion-capture, where he could simulate the dragon's movements during filming and have it mimicked on screen rather than merely providing a voice-over for the deadly creature.

Desolation of Smaug DVD and Blu-Ray Release Date Announced.

Cumberbatch studied lizards to properly nail some reptilian action, but found some complications he encountered while trying to embody what he observed.

"I spent a lot of time studying iguanas and Komodo dragons and other reptiles at the London Zoo, to get that reptilian movement in my body. But Christ! It's pretty hard to articulate that," he said. "In fact, it just has to be an ideal or a reference to it. They used a lot with my face and my hands, as the claws. "

"But obviously I don't have a tail, can't breathe fire, don't fly, and I'm not made of scales or cold-blooded. If you try and [move] horizontally, squeezing your legs together, with your shoulders hunched, and crawling on your hands, it syncs up with what you can do with your voice, which obviously with Smaug is very awesome. It got to the point where it was killing my voice."

The Hobbit: There and Back Again will hit theaters on Dec. 18.

Watch the clip here:

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The hobbit: desolation of smaug