Kung Fu Panda Movie - Behind the Scenes Technology...

The Silicon Valley Moms Group last week had the opportunity to celebrate the Kung Fu Panda Movie with HP. At the party, we received questions on why HP is partnering with Dreamworks Animation. To answer that question they sent me some info including their press release:

"HP has helped DreamWorks Animation create groundbreaking animation features from Shrek to Bee Movie. For this latest project, HP technology helped animators solve artistic challenges to bring the story of Po the Panda to life. Audiences will see a wide variety of deeply intricate, organic environments that only exist because of the unprecedented power of HP workstations with multi-core processors."

Basically, HP put a bunch of computers to work with Dreamworks to create the complicated animation. The HP site also has a Kung Fu Panda craft page with that was created to "help audiences bring the Kung Fu Panda experience home", including templates to make Kung Fu Panda puppets and take out baskets.

I wanted more factoids so they sent me this Kung Fu Panda Fact Sheet (my 9 year old loves factoids):

HP Kung Fu Panda Fact Sheet

It Takes a Village to Create a Panda

• Including voice actors, 448 different people put more than 21,442 man-weeks into the film. That’s 107, 210 man-days or 857,680 man-hours.

• It took a total of 391 artists to create Kung Fu Panda (total crew minus production staff and voice talent). Kung Fu Panda was in production for 4.5 years (from Fall 2003 to Spring 2008).

• The Kung Fu Panda Animation department is comprised of animators from around the globe, including artists from the USA, China, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Philippines, Japan, Sweden, Belgium and Israel.

• Every time a scene was finalized in Animation, the animator received one fortune cookie (with a customized fortune inside). 

• The animators’ first pass shots of kung fu were choreographed in 2D before being animated in CGI.

• It took a combined 54 systems (including rockets, trails, lights and emitters) to create the single effect of Po riding the rocket chair into the stadium.

Bringing Po the Panda to Life

• The weirdest animation control was for Po’s uvula.

• Jack Black, the voice of Po, stood during recording session so that his physical activities would enhance the performance with subtle nuance.  The animators loved capturing and transferring his subtle vocal and physical work (breathing, exerting effort, fumfering) to Po onscreen.

• Po has a special “fighting fist” control that he only uses when he’s engaging in kung fu.

• Po’s cheeks were rebuilt during the film to allow him to stuff his mouth with more food!

Get Out Your Abacus

• The Jade Palace is made of 88,100 different surfaces/pieces.

• There are 22,388 scrolls in the palace scroll room.

• The prison is over 3,000-feet deep.

• Master Crane has 6,019 feathers on his body.

• Viper has 120 bones along the length of her body.

• The total amount of individual confetti pieces used in sequence 600 (the scene where Po is chosen as the Dragon Warrior) is exactly 1,040,229!

• Number of tiles Po sends raining down on Tai Lung, who climbs those tiles:  8,260 tiles total.

• Number of arrows that shower down on Tai Lung during his prison escape:  1,500 arrows.

• When Po and the Five eat together, there are 64 noodles in each bowl.

• Number of acupuncture needles in Po’s back while talking to Tigress:  133.

• Number of particles that compose the disintegrating chair that Po blows up with fireworks: 953,593 particles.

Kung Fu Panda ^TM & © 2008 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.