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n n n n VFX•CG Films Madagascar 3. Rex Grignon, who helped de- fine the cartoony style of the first Madagascar, was head of character animation, as he was on the first two films, and he was one of many on the crew who returned to make Madagas- car 3. Production Designer Kendal Cronkhite and Art Director Shannon Jeffries defined the look for all three. Koo was story lead through the series. Darnell and McGrath directed all three; Vernon was creative consultant on the first, voiced a character on the second, and was one of the directors on the third. "We've been working together on these films for 12 years," Darnell says. "We could push each other, play off each other. We know these characters. It was great that we were all free and could combine efforts on this film. It was a great advantage." that involve things interacting with the envi- ronment," says Mahesh Ramasubramanian, visual effects supervisor. "But our effects are also stylized. Even our smoke is graphic." During the chase, the penguins create an oil slick in an attempt to stop the oncoming Vespa force. It's Madagascar, though, so the oil is fish oil, complete with flopping fish. For reference, Ramasubramanian gave the artists bendable, segmented wooden fish. "The bendable fish is a good way to explain how we created the fish," says Scott Peterson, effects supervisor. "We simulated thousands of these fish exploding out of the LARV, landing on the ground, and wiggling. They didn't look right, though, until we put a thin film of oil on them and ran a little ripple simulation. When we could see the buildings reflected into the oil, they were more believable." To create a super stereo moment for this Cartoon Effects The chase through Monaco sends the LARV and the Vespa-riding animal control officers careening around corners and causing spec- tacular damage on the way. A car explodes. DuBois crashes through buildings. It's an action-packed sequence powered by visual effects. Cartoon visual effects. "Usually, effects are things like explosions ing at the fish and forgetting about DuBois." The artists did get a chance to implement slo-mo for a "bullet-time" series of shots near the end of the chase. DuBois has leapt from one rooftop to another and landed not far from where the Zoosters are climbing a lad- der up to the penguins' super-plane. When the monkeys spot her, they fire bananas at her. Like Neo in The Matrix, DuBois dodges the flying bananas, and the bullet-shaped fruit lands with a splat, thanks to fluid simulations. To have reference for what bananas shot out of a cannon might look like, Peterson created a sort of banana cannon out of a long tube. To the crew's surprise, when they shot a banana with Peterson's "cannon" at a piece of Plexiglas, the banana broke the glass. For muzzle flashes, the visual effects artists Zooster Alex the lion and circus performer Gia the leopard perform Trapeze Americano in the brilliant new circus's neon-lit environment. used a banana peel that appears and disap- pears. "It makes no sense," Ramasubramanian says. "But it's cool and crisp." first stereo 3D film in the series, the artists hand-placed and hand-animated some of the fish. "The movie has squash-and-stretch char- acters that naturally poke their heads out of the screen," Ramasubramanian says. "The fish were flying toward the camera, but not with the impact we had hoped for. So, we animated some hero fish that didn't follow physics. Then we thought maybe we could do even more, so we animated some in slow motion. That didn't make it into the film. People were look- 60 June/July 2012 Circus Lights The Zoosters evade the villainous DuBois, but the super-plane doesn't get far. It crashes in a train yard, and the monkeys, realizing there's no hope of repair, run away. The Zoosters hear sirens, and they lose hope, too. Where could they possibly hide? And then, they see a cir- cus train. With great effort, they persuade a fearsome Russian tiger named Vitaly (Bryan Cranston) to let them board. Onboard, they meet the beautiful Gia (Jes- sica Chastain), a jaguar, and the irrepressible Stefano (Martin Short), an Italian sea lion. When Stefano reveals that the circus will be traveling to New York if they win backing from an American agent, the Zoosters want to tag along. Vitaly is not amused. He throws daggers at the idea—and at the Zoosters. But, once again, the penguins come to the rescue, using their casino loot to buy the circus. In Rome, the Zoosters see a dismal performance from the disenchanted circus animals, and none at all from Vitaly. So Alex, fearful of los- ing his ticket home, inspires the animals to reinvent the circus, and it is here, in the new circus, that the visual effects really soar. The new circus is graphic, colorful, and sur- real. The Zoosters and the circus animals per- form amazing acts, swinging between rings of neon lit against a dark background, dancing on brilliantly glowing wires, and much more. "Stylistically, we wanted to do the circus from the characters' point of view of being in the circus," Vernon says. "We didn't want to show it from the audience's point of view. That freed us up to show the wires. We wanted to get more surreal. To outdo Cirque du Soleil."