Reading, writing, critical thinking, critical viewing, computer skills, speech and other communication skills are embedded in Animalia's storylines.

"PBS is a great network and they are very rigorous in their requirements for specific educational content in every children's television series," Johnson says. "While Animalia is based on Graeme Base's characters, the series is also based on a 'language arts' curriculum and it embodies the National Standards for the Teaching of Language Arts as published by the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association, two widely respected professional teaching organizations in the U.S."

Reading, writing, critical thinking, critical viewing, computer skills, speech and other communication skills are embedded into the storylines. "[Story editor] Tom Ruegger was able to guide the writers to make the scripts highly entertaining, but also maintain the 'language arts' content in every episode," Johnson adds. "We also had a great pair of consultants, Harvey Daniels and Elaine Daniels, professional educators with a specialty in language arts, who read and provided notes on every script."

Animalia revolves around the 11-year-olds Alex and Zoe, who slip through a portal and arrive in a land of talking animals. There they learn that the Animalians had an ancient language, that their civilization is based on principles of literacy and that the very essence of Animalia is tied to the animals' ability to communicate with each other. All of those skills are housed in what Animalians call the Core -- a large orb at the center of their Great Library.

"When the series begins, the Core has ruptured, and certain communication skills are one-by-one disappearing," Johnson explains. "As the series progresses -- there's a series arc -- the kids help Animalia get restored to its 'proper' running order. Along the way, the kids also learn how to get along with each other and how to deal with the unique (and sometimes volatile) personalities they encounter when meeting the animals.

"The series is structured around a series arc beginning with Alex and Zoe arriving in Animalia, and ending with their return to our world. There's a half-way point at the end of Episode 20, and plenty of twists and turns from 21 through 40. And as Alex and Zoe discover... there are some shadows in Animalia's past. I can only tell you that once you start watching, you will keep watching."

The series captures the unique and whimsical style of author Graeme Base's original characters, including G'bubu Gorilla and the heroic iguana Iggy.

Big-Budget Techniques
The making of the 40-episode series spanned some eight years, and, from an industry perspective, has set a new benchmark as the first series to use a variety of 3D animation techniques typically reserved for big-budget feature films.

"We set up a design team for the show in Sydney in early 2006," recalls Burberry's Burnett. "It comprised a number of people who had been working on Happy Feet at Animal Logic and other conceptual and character designers who were experienced in CG animation. This team worked with our director, David Scott, and with Graeme Base, who thoroughly enjoyed watching his characters rise off the page and come alive in 3D. When preproduction started at the Warner Roadshow Studios in Queensland, the key members of the design team relocated for the duration of production."

All of the executive producers and production partners had input into the character, location, set and prop designs, but Base was very closely involved in the process. "The key was to take Graeme's beautiful illustrations and make them work for series television," Burnett says. "When we started preproduction, the book had already been in the market for over 20 years and had sold over three million copies around the world. So, it was critical that the series looked like Graeme's work with its rich colours and whimsical characters."

Burnett says that lifting the characters off the page required many modifications and enhancements to achieve the range of motion and emotion required for animation. "The design teams did extensive ROM studies of each character, which served as a base for all builds and rigging," Burnett says. "We also had 3D maquettes created of all the lead characters to assist in the build and rigging processes.

"Our lead boy, Alex, is recognizable as the boy who appears on the title page and is hidden on every other page of the book. Our lead girl, Zoe, is a new character created especially for the series, so that Alex had someone to share his adventures with. With the human characters, we deliberately decided to use a simpler, almost 2D look to avoid the 'uncanny valley' effect of human characters in animation -- not to mention the extra time it would have required to animate them."

Burnett notes that the lead animals were created to be engaging and attractive and to provide the animators with all possible opportunities for characterization. "Facial and body rigs of all lead characters were very complex and detailed. We were unable to afford follicle accuracy on texturing due to the processing and rendering times it would have required. David Scott did however devise a process of using 2D cards in selected places like Livingstone's mane and G'bubu's head and shoulders to give a fur effect.