Performance was key in Happy Feet, built around Mumble’s tap dancing. Animal Logic created its own “Creative Hub.” © 2006 Warner Bros. Ent. Inc. All rights reserved.

For all of those cynics that have bemoaned the glut of 3D-animated movies with animals this year, take note: it's all a matter of storytelling, as George Miller (the Babe movies and Mad Max) so persuasively reminds us with Happy Feet (opening Nov. 17, 2006, from Warner Bros. Pictures). And that goes for penguins, too, for that matter. Because there's room for all kinds of different stories revolving around those furry, cuddly, funny and engaging birds.

Ultimately, though, what's so wonderful about Happy Feet is that it transcends any boundaries between live action and animation with its photoreal aesthetic and naturalistic performances. The odyssey of Emperor Penguin Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood), who tries to gain acceptance as a tap dancer from his disapproving singing community in Antarctica, is the stuff of pure drama. And that's how Miller approached it.

"Animation was like shooting in slow motion," Miller says affectionately about his first experience with the CG format. "Babe alerted me to the potential of this form of storytelling." And what was the biggest learning curve for the self-described "Synch Nazi"? "To be honest, apart from just caring more about the mysteries of storytelling, the revelation to me was camera. I fancy myself as pretty good with a camera, but I just had no idea what it would be like and they built a special tool for me. But in this case it was no big deal to take a camera and go anywhere. As [Roman] Polanski said, 'There's only one perfect spot for the camera.'

"I sort of knew that but never so much as before making Happy Feet. As an experiment, I took exactly the same animated performance and set and the only things I changed were the camera angle and cutting pattern. And you could seriously influence how it played because of those variables. The other big thing about animation is that it gives you time to reflect because you're doing it bit by bit, whereas live action is all from the gut because there is no time to think."

Tony Award-winning dancer Savion Glover provided the fancy footwork for Mumble.

To help him realize this very special vision about the importance of individuality, community, nature and song and dance, Miller called upon Animal Logic, the visual effects studio based in Australia, from where he hails. Having never before made an animated feature, this was naturally a large leap for Animal Logic.

"Four years in the making... this has definitely been a big transition for us," remarks Zareh Nalbandian, exec producer/md/co-founder of Animal Logic. "But from my perspective, a natural one. I think we're in an industry that's very young and we'll look back and see just how young we were. And four years ago, the company was just under 10-years-old. We've grown from broadcast design to commercials to visual effects to films, as well as developing software and pipelines. I guess we were looking for something that would take us to the end of the line where we were more of a participant in the filmmaking process.

"We had the knowledge, the experience, the tools and the talent to take on something bigger -- the holy grail would be to produce an entire film and to tell a good story. The prompting was looking for next steps rather than doing more of the same. Having said that, we continue to work on major visual effects and our commercial division has been in the most successful years since Happy Feet."

Having collaborated previously with Miller on the Babe movies, Animal Logic first agreed to do a workshop approach and proof of concept. Warner Bros. then green lit Happy Feet on the basis of this really cute test of a tap dancing penguin in the snow.