Happy Feet
(2006)
PG | 100 or 108 mins | Children's works, Drama, Musical | 17 November 2006
Director:
George MillerWriters:
George Miller, John Collee, Judy Morris, Warren ColemanProducers:
Doug Mitchell, George Miller, Bill MillerEditors:
Margaret Sixel, Christian GazalProduction Designer:
Mark SextonProduction Companies:
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
The film's credits state that it was dedicated to Nick Enright, Michael Jonson, Robby McNeilly Green and Steve Irwin. Many individuals are thanked throughout the closing credits, including the following: “Maxwells (Sydney) for the Nikon camera equipment, Optech Inc. (Toronto) for the Ilris-3D laser scanners; Special thanks to Lou Sanson and the many Antarctica New Zealand personnel who assisted the K310 project in Christchurch & at Scott Base.” After the list of Animal Logic studio credits is the written statement “In memory of Ivan Bastianich 1981—2005.” Voice-over narration is provided by Robin Williams throughout the film as “Lovelace,” but the character does not appear until about halfway through the picture, when the voice-over states that the audience has heard the voice and now will meet the character. “Norma Jean” is voiced by Nicole Kidman in a vocal approximation of Marilyn Monroe (whose real name was Norma Jean), while “Memphis,” voiced by Hugh Jackman, sounds like Elvis Presley and Roger Rose, as the leopard seal, imitates Arnold Schwarzenegger. Humans do not appear in the film until near the end, when the live-action human characters interact with the animated animals.
Happy Feet faithfully illustrates the life of the emperor penguins, which live on the ice in Antarctica. Each has a distinctive call that distinguishes it from the rest of its flock. They breed during winter, after which the female leaves for the open sea and the male balances the egg on his feet and stands for over two months, protecting it. Over-fishing and global warming have endangered most of the penguin species, with the emperor penguin colonies declining by about fifty percent over the past fifty years, as ...
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The film's credits state that it was dedicated to Nick Enright, Michael Jonson, Robby McNeilly Green and Steve Irwin. Many individuals are thanked throughout the closing credits, including the following: “Maxwells (Sydney) for the Nikon camera equipment, Optech Inc. (Toronto) for the Ilris-3D laser scanners; Special thanks to Lou Sanson and the many Antarctica New Zealand personnel who assisted the K310 project in Christchurch & at Scott Base.” After the list of Animal Logic studio credits is the written statement “In memory of Ivan Bastianich 1981—2005.” Voice-over narration is provided by Robin Williams throughout the film as “Lovelace,” but the character does not appear until about halfway through the picture, when the voice-over states that the audience has heard the voice and now will meet the character. “Norma Jean” is voiced by Nicole Kidman in a vocal approximation of Marilyn Monroe (whose real name was Norma Jean), while “Memphis,” voiced by Hugh Jackman, sounds like Elvis Presley and Roger Rose, as the leopard seal, imitates Arnold Schwarzenegger. Humans do not appear in the film until near the end, when the live-action human characters interact with the animated animals.
Happy Feet faithfully illustrates the life of the emperor penguins, which live on the ice in Antarctica. Each has a distinctive call that distinguishes it from the rest of its flock. They breed during winter, after which the female leaves for the open sea and the male balances the egg on his feet and stands for over two months, protecting it. Over-fishing and global warming have endangered most of the penguin species, with the emperor penguin colonies declining by about fifty percent over the past fifty years, as stated in modern sources. Emperor penguins were featured in a BBC/National Geographic documentary series entitled Life in the Freezer . As noted in press materials, the series, which ran from 18 Nov—23 Dec 1993, was an inspiration for Happy Feet .
As reported in a Nov 2006 HR article on the making of the film, Australian producer-director-writer George Miller conceived of Happy Feet in 2001 and showed an early version of the screenplay to Warner Bros. president Alan Horn, who immediately offered to fund it. At that time, the film was planned as a mix of live-action and animation, but Miller later became enamored of the animated motion-capture process after visiting Weta Digital during production of the 2001 release The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (see below). In addition, the film was not originally conceived of as a musical, but Miller decided on the musical genre after discovering that penguins attracted mates via personal songs.
The HR article also noted that Miller’s production company, Kennedy Miller Productions, then painstakingly converted the Animal Logic special effects company into a fully functional animation studio, a two-year process. Miller stated in a Nov 2006 interview in Los Angeles City Beat that the production spanned almost four years, beginning with the two years spent building the studio and assembling the music, and the bulk of the animators starting work in the third year of production. In Apr 2003, Var reported that Warner Bros. and Village Roadshows Pictures were teaming to produce Happy Feet , with some crew members to be hired from Weta’s ranks.
Miller strove for Happy Feet to achieve a new height of animation that he dubbed photo-realism, a term more commonly applied to paintings so highly realistic that they appear to be photographs. This involved the computerization of the Antarctic terrain as well as the anthropomorphizing of dancing penguins, attained through a process called motion capture. A 13 Nov 2006 LAT article reported that Miller originally planned to photograph live penguins in Antarctica and use the footage to animate the background penguins. However, Miller decided that the penguins were too unpredictable and the environment too delicate to disturb. Instead, crew members embarked on two research expeditions to the area, as explained in studio press materials and a 15 Nov 2006 LAT article, using digital gear to photograph the Antarctic sea, tundra, wildlife, skyline and light. One crew traveled by ship to see the icebergs while the other flew to the “deep ice” of the Ross Sea, and the images they captured were converted to data to map the textures, light and landscapes of the Antarctic in painstaking detail. The expeditions yielded over 80,000 images, used as reference materials for matte paintings and computer-generated imagery (CGI).
The details of the state-of-the-art motion capture process were laid out in a 12 Nov 2006 article in LAT : Choreographer Kelley Abbey created a “penguin school” for sixteen dancers, including renowned tap dancer Savion Glover. The dancers were taught to approximate the range of a penguin, with short legs and flippers, and fused dance styles from Zulu to Irish to Navajo to hip-hop. Antarctic bird expert Gary Miller gave further lessons to the performers in how to walk and gesture like penguins, press notes relate.
The motion capture process involved a performer donning a bodysuit with dozens of reflective sensors that then translated movement into light, which was captured on sixty cameras. The cameras then sent the data to a character model in a computer, allowing the animated character to be seen on a screen moving exactly like the performer. Glover’s tap-dancing was recorded with microphones placed under the floors, as noted in the Nov 2006 HR article. The LAT article added that “Mumble” was ultimately made up of Glover’s dance moves, Elijah Wood’s dialogue and performer Matt Lee’s facial expressions and gestures, as well as the work of dozens of technical artists and animators.
Press notes stated that only a small number of human dancers were used to create the image of tens of thousands of penguins dancing. Abbey divided the dance floor into approximately fifty grids, each the size of a tennis court, and choreographed dancers in one grid at a time. Onscreen, the grids were combined to form one mass of penguins. A system dubbed “Horde” by Animal Logic technicians then took the information from each grid and randomized the movement within, creating the illusion that each penguin was dancing similar steps but with individualized style.
In the Nov 2006 HR article, Miller asserted that he studied Walt Disney animated pictures with darker tones, such as Dumbo (1941, see above) and Pinocchio (1940, see below), to create Happy Feet ’s blend of drama and action. The film’s environmental themes were not a large element of the original screenplay, reported a Nov 2006 WSJ article, but Miller, concerned about the effects of global warming on his native Australia, added more “green” content. The article noted that the zoo scenes derived from a trip Miller took to the zoo with his children years earlier.
The film features a style of music referred to as “mash-ups,” in which two or more songs are combined, often in a completely new style. The technique, stemming from the use of samples popularized in hip-hop music, was used extensively in the 2001 release Moulin Rouge! (see below). Composer John Powell stated in a Dec 2006 interview in Animation Magazine that the story was originally planned to include many more mash-ups to explain the exposition, but after the success of the 2005 Academy Award-winning documentary March of the Penguins , it was deemed unnecessary to educate the public as assiduously about emperor penguin behavior. Press materials reported that, when approached for the rights to his song “Kiss,” Prince offered a new song, “The Song of the Heart,” for the closing credits. The film’s vocal stars sang their own songs. Brittany Murphy, who provided the voice of “Gloria,” had trained as a singer before becoming an actress but had never before sung onscreen. The soundtrack was released on Warner Sunset/Atlantic Records on 31 Oct 2006.
Although a 3 Jun 2003 DV news item stated that Robin Williams would play four roles, including “Noah the Elder” and an elephant seal, he played only two roles, “Ramone” and Lovelace, in the final film. Australian wildlife conservationist and television presenter Steve Irwin, popularly known as "The Crocodile Hunter," voiced his role as elephant seal “Trev” one month before his death, on 4 Sep 2006, of a stingray barb. Press materials explained that the dialogue for the “Amigos” was recorded in open-microphone group sessions, with copious improvisation. Some sources reported the film’s final budget at nearly $100 million.
The film was released simultaneously in standard and IMAX 3D versions on 17 Nov 2006. A Mar 2006 DV article explained that IMAX would use its newly patented DMR technology, which allowed a film shot on 35mm to be converted to 3D and shown on IMAX screens. Many reviewers compared the film to March of the Penguins , which detailed the life of the emperor penguins and also was released by Warner Bros. A Nov 2006 HR article stated that Miller, who, as noted above, first conceived of Happy Feet in 2001, considered the documentary’s success a good indication of the appeal of the subject matter.
Happy Feet proved a box-office hit, to the surprise of many industry analysts who had predicted middling profits. Reviews were universally laudatory, with the Var critic calling it “one of the very best directed animated films on record.” Its conservationist message, however, incurred the ire of some conservative journalists, including CNN's Glenn Beck, who called the film “propaganda” aimed at children to promote a “far-left” agenda. In addition to being named one of AFI’s Movies of the Year, the picture received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for Golden Globes for Best Animated Film and Best Original Song--Motion Picture ("The Song of the Heart" by Prince). The picture also was nominated for Best Animated Feature by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
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