Australian VFX and Animation Studio Relies on Colour Management Technology for Academy Award-Winning Film
Animal Logic, the Australian visual effects and animation company behind the feature film HAPPY FEET, relied on FilmLight’s Truelight technology for colour management during the production of the Academy Award®-winning animated feature film. Truelight, the world’s only complete film colour management system for pre-visualising film images on electronic display devices, allowed Animal Logic to maintain accurate colour management across its entire workflow so that its team of animators, visual effects specialists and other artists could work collaboratively in crafting the film’s amazing characters and spectacular visuals.
HAPPY FEET was not only the largest project undertaken by Animal Logic, whose previous credits included THE MATRIX: RELOADED, THE LORD OF THE RINGS and MOULIN ROUGE, it was also the first digitally-animated film produced in Australia. The film, which tells the charming story of an emperor penguin who tap dances to the beat of his own drum, captivated audiences worldwide with its incredibly lifelike animation and superbly realistic recreation of the polar environment.
Animal Logic employed Truelight software and the Truelight Monitor Probe to achieve pinpoint accuracy in calibrating monitors employed by hundreds of artists at every step in the animation process from modeling through film output. By characterising each stage in the workflow, Truelight was able to achieve the closest possible match between preview screen and the final film image. The Truelight probe was also used to keep two digital projectors used for dailies and digital intermediate screenings calibrated.
Additionally, the Truelight Library and API were used to create a toolkit for generating custom sets of 3D cubes for transforming colour from the CG pipeline to film colour space.
“Truelight played a number of crucial roles in getting the stunning imagery of HAPPY FEET to the big screen,” explained Animal Logic Director of Research and Development Guy Griffiths. “The depth of knowledge that FilmLight has in colour is evident in the sophistication of the Truelight Library. With the Truelight Library as part of your toolkit, you can solve any colour pipeline problem. It’s like having your own colour scientist on staff.”
Truelight’s reliability, ease of use and adaptability to an immense variety of workflows are quickly making it the industry standard for colour management. “FilmLight worked with us at each step of the HAPPY FEET colour pipeline,” observed Griffiths. “We gave it a good work out and it ensured that we got those gorgeous images on film.”
Contact – Deepa Parbhoo ([email protected]) +44 20 7292 0400
About Animal Logic
One of the world’s most highly respected digital production companies, Animal Logic produces award-winning design, animation and visual effects solutions for the film, television and advertising industries. The company has a studio in Sydney, Australia and a production office in Los Angeles. Information about Animal Logic is available at www.animallogic.com.
