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ANIMATION 12 ■ CGW M a r ch / A p r i l 2 014 The story in Mr. Peabody & Sherman revolves around three main characters: the two title characters and Sherman's classmate Penny. "Mr. Peabody is the most interesting person in the world, who happens to be a dog," says Jason Schleifer, head of character animation. "When he was a puppy, he was sur- rounded by dogs, but he didn't see the point in fetching a stick. He wasn't sniffing butts. He used his mind to under- stand science and art, and he was really good at it." When Mr. Peabody adopts Sherman, the little boy changes his world. It turns out that the dog is an excellent father. "Sherman is an optimistic ball of energy," Schleifer says. "And Mr. Peabody always helped and encouraged him. Now, Sherman sees the world as a place of opportunity. So, we had to look at how a child with no real fears would approach the world. If someone would say, 'Look, there's ice cream,' Sherman would say, 'I love ice cream.' If someone mentioned George Washington, Sherman would say, 'Tell me more about George Washington.'" Because Mr. Peabody believes that the best way to teach a child is through experience, and because he's a genius scien- tist, he invents a time machine to teach Sherman about his- tory. "He takes Sherman on adventures until he's about seven years old," Schleifer says. "Then he decides Sherman needs to experience things on his own, and sends him to school. This is the first time Mr. Peabody hasn't been with him." It doesn't turn out well. Sherman corrects Penny when she gives a wrong answer in class. She bullies him, and Sherman doesn't know what to do, so he bites her. Mr. Pea- body is called to the principal's office, and a woman from child protective services threatens to put Sherman with a human family. So, Mr. Peabody invites the girl and her family to dinner to convince them that Sherman is OK. It doesn't turn out well. "Sherman and Penny hate each other," Schleifer says. "But, Mr. Peabody tells him he must solve the problem. Sherman tells Penny about the WABAC machine." When Penny gets stuck back in time, the time-travel ad- venture begins. – Barbara Robertson Setting the Stage Rob Minkoff of Lion King and Stuart Little fame directed the film, and approximately 300 DreamWorks artists and anima- tors worked on it, many for more than two years – most at the PDI/DreamWorks facility in Redwood City, California, with sup- port from crews in Glendale, California, and Bangalore, India. Philippe Denis, the visual effects supervisor, managed the production – overseeing everything except story and anima- tion. "The first thing we did was look at the original piece," he says. "It's very graphic, and we definitely wanted to keep some aspects of the original. But the world of CG is more complex. That was our main challenge and opportunity: Bring- ing the original to the next level." Working with the art department, modelers created char- acters with simple lines and caricatured shapes. "Sherman is a short boy with a big head," Denis says. "We followed the original look, pushed the shapes, and found a balance between simplicity and caricature." Similarly, as in the original cartoon, Mr. Peabody has a huge snout. Although he is a dog, the modelers built him to be a biped, but one that could walk on all fours. Central Control To bring these models alive, animators used controls created by the 24 character technical directors who worked in the rig- ging department. Leading the effort was character TD supervi- sor Lucia Modesto, whose long list of rigging credits extends back to PDI's 1998 film Antz and extends forward through 14 PDI/DreamWorks animated features. Thus, Modesto has engi- neered many cartoony characters. Mr. Peabody and Sherman, though, presented unique challenges. "We built on what we had, but this was a very cartoony movie," Modesto says. "So we added two important things: A lattice and multiple limbs." The lattice helped the animators squash and stretch each character's head and hands, including anything attached to the main model. "The thing is, the Madagascar characters didn't have extra stuff, like glasses," Modesto says. "They were simpler. Mr. Peabody and Sherman have glasses. The problem is that when you want to warp the head, the glasses don't move. And Sher- man falls on his face a lot." Because animators wanted to squish everything simultane- ously – hair, glasses, head, hats, and so forth – the TDs put the lattice around the head, and also provided one for the hands. "With the lattice, they could do whatever scaling they wanted," Modesto says. "The animators could pose the character and then do smear shapes that would encompass the glasses. They could squish the character around wherever they needed. We added the lattice to all the characters, although they prob- ably didn't use it on everyone." The second addition to the rig for this film was the pos- sibility for a character to have multiple limbs. The extra arms and legs helped animators mimic the motion in traditional animation. "Animators could add three more arms or legs to a