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Surf’s up
As soon as there was the first wave, there was the first surfer. All you needed was a
piece of driftwood, or a block of ice - and you were off, you were riding. They were hooked,
man, they were hooked - they couldn’t stop. And they just passed it on and passed it on,
handed that surf gene down all the way through the days. Up ‘til recent times, you had your
old dudes, your “hang six” cats, these old guys that used to lay down with huge,
humongous boards. These guys were the pioneers. But nobody saw what surfing could
really be until Big Z did it.
Who was Big Z? You’re asking the right guy, you got that far. Z is everything. Big Z
is surfing. There may as well not have been an ocean before Z They invented the ocean for
him. He lived so hard because he wasn’t afraid to live, and he wasn’t afraid to die. He
came to Antarctica when I was just a kid. Man, it was the biggest thing that ever happened
here. And suddenly there he was. Just floating over the water, just hovering, like
weightless. He could have walked up to anyone...and he walks right up to me. And he
gives me this awesome, one of a kind Big Z necklace. Then he tells me, “No matter what,
find a way, ‘cause that’s what winners do.” He was the greatest. Everyone looked up to
him, respected him, loved him. And one day... one day I’m gonna be just like him.
- Cody Maverick, up-and-coming surfer and star of SURF’S UP
Synopsis
SURF’S UP is an animated action-comedy that delves behind the scenes of the
high-octane world of competitive surfing. The film profiles teenage Rockhopper penguin
Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf), an up-and-coming surfer, as he enters his first pro
competition. Followed by a camera crew to document his experiences, Cody leaves his
family and home in Shiverpool, Antarctica to travel to Pen Gu Island for the Big Z Memorial
Surf Off. Along the way, Cody meets Sheboygan surfer Chicken Joe (Jon Heder), famous
surf promoter Reggie Belafonte (James Woods), surf talent scout Mikey Abromowitz (Mario
Cantone), and spirited lifeguard Lani Aliikai (Zooey Deschanel), all of whom recognize
Cody’s passion for surfing, even if it’s a bit misguided at times. Cody believes that winning
will bring him the admiration and respect he desires, but when he unexpectedly comes
face-to-face with a washed-up old surfer (Jeff Bridges), Cody begins to find his own way,
and discovers that a true winner isn’t always the one who comes in first.
Columbia Pictures Presents a Sony Pictures Animation film, SURF’S UP. Directed
by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck. Screenplay by Don Rhymer and Ash Brannon & Chris
Buck & Christopher Jenkins. With a story by Christopher Jenkins and Christian Darren.
Produced by Christopher Jenkins. Music by Mychael Danna. Co-produced by Lydia
Bottegoni. Imagery and animation by Sony Pictures Imageworks, Inc. Credits are not final
and subject to change.
About the production
SURF’S UP is a fresh, fun animated comedy that immerses audiences in the
competitive world of surfing penguins. For producer Christopher Jenkins, that hilarious
starting point led to a breakthrough in how to present the story of up-and-coming surfer
Cody Maverick. “The notion of surfing penguins really got me thinking. What if, instead of
being a straightforward fantasy narrative, SURF’S UP went into the world of animation with
a hypothetically authentic camera, as if it were taping live interviews and ostensibly no
script?” says Jenkins. “What would these surfing penguins tell us if they were given a
chance? From there it was a short step to realizing the potential of this coupling - the
imagination of animation paired with the realism and immediacy of today’s real-life video.”
Directors Ash Brannon (co-director of Toy Story 2) and Chris Buck (director of
Tarzan) quickly realized the cleverness in the idea: relying on the conventions and style of
reality television and documentary filmmaking, SURF’S UP would have an immediacy and
relevance that set it apart from the pack. Using that technique, the directors brought into
focus the characters, story, and art direction - the heart of the film.
That intimate cinematic style perfectly supported the story that developed from the
inspiring concept of surfing penguins devised by veteran animation executives Sandra
Rabins and Penney Finkelman Cox.
At the centre of the story, the filmmakers placed the relationship between Cody, a
young, up-and-coming surfer who thinks that becoming a champion will bring him the
respect he feels he deserves, and Big Z, the onetime legendary surfer who everybody
thinks has passed on, but in fact has been living alone as a hermit for the past decade.
“Having lost his father, Cody is clearly looking for a father figure, and the legend of Big Z
had filled that void; because Z was a champion, that’s what Cody thought he wanted to be,
too. But when Cody enters Z’s life, Z is forced to come to terms with his past and face life
as a champion whose glory days are over,” says director Ash Brannon. “When Cody finds
out that Z is still alive, they naturally fall into those father-son roles - the good and the
challenging - and both realize that nothing could matter less than a trophy. It’s their passion
for being out on the waves that counts most.”
To absorb audiences into Cody’s world, every detail had to be appropriate to the
experience. “One of our main goals was to take the viewer to a tropical location,” said
director Chris Buck. “We wanted to recreate that feeling you get when you step off the
plane in a place like Tahiti or Hawaii, and you’re hit by that amazing scent and air and even
by how different the light is. You really know that you’re somewhere special.”
An ensemble of talented actors form the voice cast of SURF’S UP. Leading the way
is Shia LaBeouf, who takes on the role of Cody Maverick. He is joined by four-time
Academy Award-nominee Jeff Bridges, playing Big Z; Zooey Deschanel as Lani; Jon Heder
as Chicken Joe; James Woods as Reggie; Mario Cantone as Mikey; and Diedrich Bader as
Tank.
Because of the behind-the-scenes nature of the film, it was necessary that the
characters speak in a natural way - including improvised and overlapping dialogue. In a
typical animation voiceover session, actors are alone in the booth as they record their
characters’ lines. This allows the animators, editors and sound designers more flexibility in
splicing together different performances. For SURF’S UP, the filmmakers made the highly
unconventional choice to record many scenes with several actors in the booth at once. “A
performance is completely different when you have the other actors there in the room with
you - you get a sense of what they’re doing and react to each other in a natural way,” says
LaBeouf. “For a movie like SURF’S UP - which is supposed to go behind the scenes,
showing what happens in the natural environment - it was essential, and I’m glad we had
the creative freedom to find the magic.”
Jeff Bridges notes that when he was acting in the recording booth alongside
LaBeouf, the two could not help but mirror the relationship that their characters have
on-screen. “I have daughters that are Shia’s age - I think because of that, I naturally kind of
fell into that. Also, when I was his age, I was an actor - I had a lot of the excitement he’s
going through now. It was terrific to work with him; he’s a great improviser and he was
having fun doing it.”
This technique paid off in several scenes, especially when Big Z and Cody Maverick
cooperate on shaping a surfboard. “The actors were more comfortable recording dialogue
with other actors in the film, and it comes through in the performance,” Buck said. “Jeff,
Shia, and Zooey were brilliant in playing off of and working with each other. They really
took ownership of their characters.”
The result is a film that reinforces Sony Pictures Animation’s philosophy of
promoting the filmmakers’ creativity and vision. Following the division’s successful launch
last fall with the animated hit Open Season, Sony Pictures Animation has proven to be a
home for great talent. “As a surfer and a dad, I knew how much fun it would be to share
those experiences with an audience in our film’s unique style,” says Yair Landau, President
of Sony Pictures Digital and Vice Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. “Over the past
five years, we have built a story-driven animation studio powered by Imageworks’ 15 years
of visual effects artistry. That’s all on the screen in SURF’S UP, a beautiful demonstration
of who we are and where animation is headed.”
“SURF’S UP is a gorgeous production that enables audiences to share the lives of
delightful characters,” adds Sandra Rabins, Executive Vice President of Sony Pictures
Animation. “Every detail of their world can be seen and enjoyed, from the smallest grain of
sand to the magnificent beauty of the setting sun. It’s like going to the beach without getting
wet!”
SURF’S UP is an example of the symbiotic relationship between the filmmakers at
Sony Pictures Animation, which developed the project, and Sony Pictures Imageworks,
which brought their vision to life. David Schaub, the film’s senior animation supervisor,
points out that even though the animators of SURF’S UP use a computer instead of a
pencil, the film is no less hand-crafted. “What appears to be spontaneous in animation is a
result of creating each performance down to the last little eye-dart. Every little nuance and
detail is toiled over to assure that the message and performance come across clearly.”
About the story
Cody Maverick, the hottest (and only) up-and-coming surfer in Shiverpool,
Antarctica, has always dreamt of something bigger than a job at the fish factory, even as
his unsupportive family - mom Edna and older brother Glen - do not understand why he
has to be different from everyone else. But Cody has always wanted to be a winner at
something and he’s determined to take to heart the lesson that the late, great surfer, Big Z,
imparted before going out for his final wave: find a way, because that’s what winners do.
And Cody finds his way: hitching a ride on over-caffeinated shorebird surf scout Mikey
Abromowitz’s whale, Cody heads for Pen Gu island and the 10th Annual Big Z Memorial
Surf Off. Along the way, he meets Chicken Joe, a goofball surf nut hailing from Sheboygan,
Wisconsin, who learned the sport by riding the icy waters and small waves of the Great
Lakes.
No sooner have Cody and Joe arrived than Cody falls head over heels for Lani
Aliikai, the beguiling surf beach lifeguard on Pen Gu. After an awkward introduction and an
even more awkward request for a date, Cody escapes down the beach to save himself
further embarrassment... only to run into Tank “The Shredder” Evans, king of the nine
previous Big Z Memorial Surf Offs, who is using a monument to Z for target practice. Cody
is about to start a fight with the enormous bully when Reggie steps between them and
turns the fight into a mini surf-off... which Cody quickly loses in an embarrassing wipe-out.
Lani brings the embarrassed (and unconscious) surfer to the home of her friend,
Geek, who quickly revives Cody. Soon after, Cody discovers the truth: this weird dude is
his idol, Big Z
The questions come quickly: Why is he alive? How did he get here? What really
happened on that last wave? But none of that is important now; the bigger question is: Can
Z help him win the championship? Z, frustrated by Cody’s poor surfing, blurts out, “You
want to learn to surf the right way, you gotta make your own board.”
Cody’s impatience gets the better of him once again - and despite Big Z’s guiding
hand, Cody makes a terrible board. Cody, unable to admit his mistakes, misses the point of
Z’s lessons. Needing a break from his mentor, Cody heads off into the jungle - and runs
smack into Lani, the pretty lifeguard who rescued him. She invites him to one of her
favourite places - the lava tubes that run underneath the island. After an exciting, playful
afternoon exploring the tubes, Cody returns to Z’s beach and repeats the steps that Z
taught him earlier. This time, ready to heed Z’s lessons, Cody creates a perfect board. Z is
pleased with what Cody has created, but Cody, still preoccupied with the need to win, asks
only how many points you get for being “in the tube” - inside the curl of a wave.
Z continues his teaching - first making Cody practice his surfing on land, and then finally! - in the water. For the first time in 10 years, Z takes a board and dives into the
ocean. Z is happier than he’s been in years - until Cody asks Z to watch him surf during the
competition the next day. Z is disappointed - if Cody still wants to compete, has he been
listening at all? But Cody is convinced this is just an excuse for whatever happened ten
years earlier. And it’s true: Z says that he couldn’t win against Tank, and couldn’t face
going back to the beach as a loser, so he chose to disappear. The young penguin, angry
with Z, walks off, not caring what his mentor thinks about the competition.
Cody returns to the surf beach to compete - and shocks the crowd as he shows he
is no longer the “wipe-out kid” (in Reggie’s words) that he was three days ago. With the
confidence from his lessons with Z, he is simply taking the waves as they come. As the
finals near, he will need to rise to the challenge and prove to Big Z, Lani, and himself what
a true winner really is.
About the characters
Cody Maverick
Shiverpool, Antarctica native Cody Maverick is an undersized Rockhopper penguin
with an oversized yearning to be a winner. Because he thinks a surfing trophy will bring him
the love and respect he knows he deserves, Cody is determined to do whatever it takes to
win the 10th Annual Big Z Memorial Surf Off.
Cody’s idol is Big Z, a renowned surfer who once had everything Cody wants. Big Z
was popular, successful, and adored by millions. Even though Z never returned from his
final wave in a competition ten years ago, his legend has only grown in the young
penguin’s mind. Still, Cody has a lot to learn - including that being a winner doesn’t
necessarily mean taking home a trophy.
Shia LaBeouf leads the cast as the 17-year-old Cody. He notes that while the
ultimate moral of SURF’S UP may be “follow your dreams,” the emphasis should be on the
follow and not necessarily the dream. “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey,” LaBeouf
says. “It’s a happier way to live.”
The heart of the film, according to LaBeouf, is the relationship between Cody and
Big Z, the onetime great who took his chance to disappear from the rest of the world.
“They’re two loners who become best friends when they’re forced together,” he says. “It’s
reciprocal; Big Z can teach Cody about the joy of surfing, but Cody can also show Z the
path back to the life he’s missed out on.”
That onscreen relationship was mirrored off-screen by LaBeouf and Jeff Bridges. “In
the booth, Jeff is all about creating the scene, as if he were on a live-action set,” says
LaBeouf. “He’ll mime the scene - he’ll say, ‘OK, here’s the coconut, so don’t come over
here; if you step in the wrong place, you’re going to trip’ - and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got to
remember that’s there.’ And at first, you think it’s insane, but then the scene begins and
Jeff will say two or three words and we have a rollercoaster of emotion, all spawned by
Jeff.”
“Creating a character that’s fifty percent me, fifty percent the animator, was an
interesting experience,” says LaBeouf. “I’m proud of how Cody came out - and it’s
completely a dual effort. To see him move - with detail from feather to feather - he comes
to life.”
Ezekiel “Big Z” Topanga
The world of surfing had no bigger star than Big Z With his chiselled physique,
self-confident air, and sense of fun, he rode the crest of the surfing world, bringing the sport
into the mainstream. His name was synonymous with surfing until his last competition ten
years ago, when he went out for his final wave and never came back.
Since then, Z has grown from a star into a legend, thanks to the marketing genius of
scheming talent manager, Reggie Belafonte. Under Reggie’s greedy eye for attention, Big
Z’s legend has become a veritable industry of trinkets and tchotchkes that couldn’t be
further from the life of surfing he stood for.
“I surfed quite a bit in high school,” says Jeff Bridges, who plays the legendary
surfer. “Then I stopped for about 20 years. I’ve just started to take it up again. I’m fair; my
chops are coming back. At first, the thing that I feared was the temperature - the water is
so cold out there - but with the wet suits they have today, the cold is no problem. It’s the
paddling - I have about 10 paddles in me and I have to rest for awhile.”
When Big Z went out for a final wave, he took his opportunity to disappear rather
than disappoint the fans who expected him to win every time. “He’s dead to the world almost as if he’s spending his whole life asleep,” says Bridges. “From out of nowhere
comes this kid - and at first, he’s irritated, but he can’t help but find himself waking up to life
and all the wonderful experiences out there. Cody gets him out on the water, which is what
Big Z loved first.”
SURF’S UP presented a special opportunity for Bridges to collaborate with a close
friend. “There was a scene set around a campfire, and I thought, ‘Well, maybe Z’s got a
ukulele,” says Bridges. “The directors thought that was a great idea, so I threw it to my
buddy, John Goodwin - he’s my oldest friend; we go back to fourth grade - and a half-hour
later, he’s got the song. Boom - it’s in the movie, and I’ve got a huge smile on my face.”
“Ash and Chris were very much in sync,” adds Bridges of the film’s directors.
“Because they complemented each other so well, it made for a great flow of ideas - any
input you had was encouraged.” Working with his fellow actors also aided the creative
process: “I’ve done animated films in the past, and usually you’re in front of a mic alone,”
he says. “For this film, we got to play together.”
Lani Aliikai
Lani is a beguiling young gentoo penguin whose expressive eyes can scold or
soothe without a word being spoken. An excellent surfer in her own right, she doesn’t
squander her abilities proving herself to others. Instead, as a lifeguard on the world’s best
surfing beach, Lani loves her job rescuing little wipe-outs and big show-offs, including
Cody. Also, as Big Z’s niece, she is the only one who knows that he is still alive and has
helped keep his secret for 10 years.
Like the rest of the cast, Zooey Deschanel, who plays Lani, enjoyed the unusual
recording sessions. “For the scenes where Lani is carrying Cody, the directors had
sandbags for me to carry - you can hear the exertion in my voice. It was very aerobic.”
Deschanel’s favourite contribution to the film may be her role as the inspiration for
Arnold, a baby penguin that’s constantly falling in the water just so he can be rescued by
Lani, the object of his crush. At first, the character didn’t exist - Deschanel had one line
about rescuing a penguin chick. “I ad-libbed his name - Arnold,” she says. “Chris Jenkins
asked me why he was named Arnold, and I said, ‘He just looks like an Arnold.’ Then I said
something about too much passing out too often not being good for the brain... and the
next time I came in, there was a whole character - and it flourished without me being there!
The seed of the idea sprung forth from magic.”
“One of the things that made me so excited about the movie was how real the
waves looked,” adds Deschanel. “It’s so fresh - it reminds me of Step into Liquid and
Endless Summer and the other great surfing documentaries. I’ve never seen anything like
it in animation.”
Chicken Joe
Chicken Joe just might be the only Midwestern farm rooster with a shot at winning
the 10th Annual Big Z Memorial Surf Off. The humongous crashing waves of Pen Gu
Island are a far cry from those lapping against the Great Lakes shores, but this lovable
oddball is happy anywhere there are friends and surfboards. Chicken Joe and Cody
Maverick become fast friends, recognizing in each other the shared experience of being
the outsider in their respective home towns.
Jon Heder takes on the voice of this light-hearted surf nut. Despite his laid-back
demeanour, Chicken Joe’s the one who’s got it all figured out. “There’s much more than
meets the eye to Chicken Joe - he’s a smart chicken,” says Heder. “He’s got his act
together - he’s there to have fun. He just loves to surf - he doesn’t really care about
competition.
“There’s a certain carefree feel to Chicken Joe that I relate to,” he adds. “I remember
being a kid on the basketball court - I just wanted to goof around and have fun shooting the
ball, but all my friends just wanted to win. They all got mad at me.”
“Chicken Joe definitely has Midwestern family values,” Heder continues. “He loves
that feeling of family and he’s friendly to everyone. He forms a fast brotherly bond with
Cody, whether or not Cody sees it that way. Chicken Joe sees a guy who’s a little bit lost
and realizes that they’re going to need each other while they’re on Pen Gu.”
“When you voice an animated character, not only are you voice acting, you’re also
practicing your improv skills,” Heder continues. “It’s always a weird experience to sit in a
booth with the headphones on and imagine yourself in a place as serene as Pen Gu... and
as a chicken.”
“The great thing about animation is that anything you can imagine, you can bring to
life,” concludes Heder, who is very familiar with the medium. His brother was an animator
with Sony Pictures Imageworks until recently and the actor himself studied the subject in
college before focusing on his acting career. “It was like the designers just thought, ‘What
would be the perfect place to go surfing and relax?’ - and they designed exactly what they
wanted: the beaches, the waves, the jungle, just the place you want to go for vacation.”
Reggie Belafonte
Manipulative otter Reggie Belafonte didn’t shed a tear when his surfing prodigy, Big
Z Topanga, disappeared into the Pen Gu Island waves. The scheming manager who
turned Big Z into a goldmine was starting to make even more money from heir apparent
Tank “The Shredder” Evans, and the big bucks keep rolling in as Big Z’s fans turn their
devotion into commemorating the legend. He’s already got his eye on young
up-and-coming surfer Cody Maverick’s earning potential, but meanwhile, he’s happy to
take credit for things he had nothing to do with creating. Two-time Academy Award
nominee James Woods plays the role.
Mikey Abromowitz
Mikey Abromowitz is a small, stressed-out shorebird with a rapid-fire punchline for
every mess thrown at him by life and his boss, Reggie Belafonte. Originally a talent scout
for the dryer and more flamboyant world of musical theatre, Mikey is always just one ulcer
away from discovering the next big thing in competitive surfing.
For Mario Cantone, the chance to play the hapless shorebird was “a blast. He’s
impatient and miserable and hilarious - a great character to investigate.”
Cantone describes the process in the recording booth: “First you run through it as
written, and then you start branching off. And then you branch off the branch - it just keeps
building. Ash and Chris were very encouraging - they just let me go and they sat there and
laughed for three hours, which is great when you’re a sick, conditioned comic like me who’s
always looking for approval.”
As the comic foil to James Woods’s Reggie Belafonte, Cantone spent a lot of time in
the booth with Woods. “He has so many stories,” says Cantone. “You just want to sit there
and listen, even though it’s intimidating.” Why intimidating? “Because it’s James Woods! It
finally got to the point where I was comfortable, but he has a presence, he’s brilliant, and
he’s James Woods - intimidating.”
Tank Evans
Winning is everything to the swaggering emperor penguin known as Tank “The
Shredder” Evans. Of course, he’s a genuinely great surfer, which he’d have to be to win the
Big Z Memorial Surf Off nine times in a row, but there’s no room for anything else in the
brawny athlete’s life - except for making special time for polishing his trophies.
Actor Diedrich Bader says, “SURF’S UP is a tragedy about the greatest penguin
surfer in history - Tank ‘The Shredder’ Evans - and the challenges that befall him. A
handsome emperor penguin, enormous and threatening, he experiences a fall from grace.”
How does that fall come about? Perhaps something to do with one Cody Maverick?
“Never heard of him,” says Bader.
He kids, but Bader took his role seriously - to the point of attending surf camp in
Malibu. “I learned just how difficult surfing is,” he says. “I was up for maybe two or three
seconds. That was good enough for me - been there, done that! Now I’m just like Tank,
‘cause I was up for two or three seconds,” he says, sarcastically.
Bader says despite the fact that it’s easy to call Tank a bad guy, his son showed him
a different way to see the character. “I described the story to him, and he asked me which
character I played. When I told him I played the bad guy, he said, ‘No, Daddy - he’s not a
bad guy, he just wants something else.’ All he wants is to be left alone with his trophies. I
think if somebody told him that there was such a thing as a trophy shop, surfing would be
over.”
“When we started production, Tank was a stereotypical bully,” says Buck. “We had
to keep pushing and pushing to find something different. Our head of story, Jeff Ranjo,
cracked the weird side of Tank and took him to another place.”
Edna Maverick
Life in Shiverpool is hard for a widowed mother penguin, left to raise two sons in a
town where the only aspiration is a job higher up the fish pile at the factory. Edna loves
both of her children equally, but she finds it a lot easier to raise Cody’s older sibling Glen
than the high-spirited Cody. She lives in hope that Cody will outgrow his surfing phase so
he can settle down and get a proper job, just like Glen and every other penguin.
The film’s script Co-ordinator, Dana L Belben, first voiced the role as a scratch track
- a temporary track to lay over the storyboards as a means of seeing how a scene might
play. “She just nailed the character; she hit it out of the park,” says director Ash Brannon.
“It was so real that when it came time to cast the role, we just said to her, ‘Well, it’s got to
be you.’”
Glen Maverick
Glen is Cody’s older brother in the Maverick’s Shiverpool household. The two
Rockhopper penguins are separated by a mere 14 seconds, but that’s more than enough
to give Glen license to bully his undersized sibling. When they were kids, Glen always
gobbled down more than his fair share of regurgitated fish. Now that they’re almost adults,
Glen belittles Cody’s dreams of getting anything more from life than the small comforts of a
warm igloo and something smelly on the table when he comes home from work. Brian
Posehn, perhaps best-known for his recurring role as Kevin on “Just Shoot Me,” takes on
the role.
Arnold, Katey and Smudge
Arnold is a mischievous little penguin chick whose calculated “drownings” say more
about his desire to keep getting “rescued” by Lani than his inability to swim - especially
since penguins can swim almost from the time they hatch. Six-year-old Reed Buck, son of
director Chris Buck, provides his voice.
Katey is Arnold’s best friend. She is a precocious and strong-willed penguin who has
very firm opinions about Tank Evans, Reggie Belafonte, and why the world of competitive
surfing is not just for boys. Reese Elowe, the eight-year-old daughter of producer
Christopher Jenkins, plays the role.
Smudge is Katey’s younger brother. His near-constant silence belies the fact that
Smudge, like all little kids, is taking in much more information than those around him
realize - until he blurts things out at the most inopportune times. Jack P Ranjo, 6, the son of
head of story Jeff Ranjo, takes on Smudge.
The Pen Gu-Ans
Known for their ability to set clever traps in the jungle, the Pen Gu-ans are the native
clan of penguins on the island of Pen Gu. This hyperactive species of birds move a little
faster than your average penguin, a characteristic accentuated by their erratic, staccato,
and incomprehensible way of talking. They also have a fondness for eating chicken.
Rob Machado, Kelly Slater and Sal Masekela
Champion surfers Rob Machado and Kelly Slater, along with renowned sports
commentator Sal Masekela, appear in SURF’S UP as themselves in penguin form. Artists
captured their personalities and mannerisms, but Rob, Kelly, and Sal provided their own
voices for total authenticity.
About the animation
As any member of the voice cast would say, creating the character only begins with
the voice. When the actor has laid down the track, the torch is passed to the talented team
of character animators at Sony Pictures Imageworks, the digital production studio where
SURF’S UP was made.
David Schaub, the senior animation supervisor, says the film’s conceit - that it is a
documentary or reality-television show - informed the characters’ performances. “The
illusion in SURF’S UP is that the camera just happens to be there to capture the moment,”
he says. “In animation, we rarely get the opportunity to play out such long, extended
performances, where characters carry the shot completely. It is an animator’s dream come
true!
“The animation style of SURF’S UP is caricatured reality,” Schaub adds. “The
real-world dynamics are pushed to caricature without breaking the fundamental rules of
physics and gravity.”
Art director/character designer Sylvain Deboissy was inspired by the same idea.
“When you think about it, penguins are a caricature of humans - we share the same
silhouette,” he says. “Audiences identify with them. In designing the overall look of our
characters, it was our goal to strike a balance between a realistic look and
anthropomorphizing their characteristics. We gave our penguins just enough unique
qualities to make them stand out in a crowd.”
Deboissy says that one of the greatest challenges from a design point of view was
Lani, the beguiling lifeguard. “She’s smart and tough, but very feminine,” he says. “The
gentoo penguin has a much more elongated silhouette than the others. In addition, we
wanted her to have very expressive eyes.”
Another challenge solved by the eyes came when designing Big Z “Because we see
him as both Geek and Big Z, we couldn’t give too much away, but we also had to make
sure that there was an unmistakable match.”
Other characters had direct inspirations. “Chris Buck knew exactly what he wanted
Chicken Joe to look like,” says Deboissy. “He provided the template and we stayed true to
that vision throughout the process - though his torso is a little more elongated, to make him
believable as a surfer.”
With the design in place, four supervising animators took the lead on SURF’S UP Peter Nash, Renato Dos Anjos, Chad Stewart, and Chris Hurtt and their teams were
responsible for animating entire sequences rather than specializing in a particular
character. Working closely with each other and with Schaub, the directors, and producer,
the four supervisors met every day to compare notes, watch each others’ scenes, and offer
suggestions.
“Each of us comes from a different perspective and naturally looks for different
things in the performances and animation,” Stewart says. “We meet together and look over
the work and sometimes one will notice something that another didn’t. The animation is
stronger for it.”
Nash was responsible for a portion of the Shiverpool sequence of the film and got to
know Cody very well. “A lot of the subtlety of SURF’S UP is a character saying one thing
but meaning another - it’s all about the subtext,” he says. “We’ll have a character position
his body a certain way, or perhaps give it away with their eyes - maybe a left-right eye dart
that shows they’re thinking about something while trying to be composed. Even something
like a few quick blinks can show that the character is off-kilter.”
One example of this idea comes during the Shiverpool sequence, when Cody puts
on a brave face when talking about his father, who died when Cody was a small penguin.
“He’s confronted with a deeply emotional feeling for him and he’s trying to play a tough
guy, so he overcompensates,” says Nash. In addition to the vocal inflection given the lines
by Shia LaBeouf, Nash’s animation gives several telltale clues that belie his façade.
“Cody’s taken off-guard by the question and raises his eyebrows, then quickly goes back to
being stern. Something even more subtle I did was to dilate his pupils just at the moment
that he’s hit with the question.” Finally, after giving his answer, Cody, who had been looking
away, gives a quick glance back at the camera, as if to see if the interviewer bought his line
- and gives away his game.
To come up with these moments that bring the scene to life, Nash - like all character
animators - videotaped himself saying the lines and trying different facial expressions. “You
don’t have to be a good actor, but you do have to do several takes to find the nugget you
can take,” he says.
According to Nash, the animators went out of the way to animate Cody at the end of
the film differently than they did at the beginning. “At the beginning, Cody is headstrong,
confident, a strong personality - a good kid, but a typical teenage kid,” he says. “At the end,
there’s a scene where he’s being interviewed - if you watch Cody, everything about him is
relaxed. There’s no overcompensation, no front he’s putting up. Actually, he’s so subtle, he
was hard to animate - it seems like the character isn’t doing much, but you have to make it
convincing.”
Animating the otter Reggie Belafonte - who fancies himself as the puppeteer who
pulls the strings - required a completely different approach. While all the other characters
play their cards close to the vest, Reggie is loud and emotional - while thinking he’s a
master manipulator. “He projects everything three times as much as everybody else, but
thinks he has a poker face - that’s what makes him so funny,” says Nash.
Deboissy, the character designer, says, “Looks are very deceiving with Reggie. We
purposely designed our villain to be very cute and cuddly.”
That kind of subtext is woven throughout the film. For Renato Dos Anjos, one
particularly memorable scene is the “making the board” sequence, in which Big Z
encourages Cody to shape his own surfboard. “That scene is all about Cody and Z,” says
Dos Anjos. “Cody is getting frustrated by waiting, and Z is taking his time to carve the
board slowly. Z is trying to teach him to take it easy and enjoy the process, but Cody is
impatient to get to the end result.”
“One of the hardest things to do in animation is to make sure it looks like the
character is listening,” says Dos Anjos. “We used all the techniques on that shot - it’s so
long, and Cody has to do so much listening, that we pulled all the rabbits out of our hat.”
One example from the scene: Cody keeps trying to make eye contact with Z, who is
engrossed in carving the board.
“When I was storyboarding the sequence, I based it on real experiences with my
grandpa,” says story artist Jason Lethcoe. “The scene brought back memories of working
with him in his garage. I would fool around with the tools and the wood scraps and he
would give me advice on how to build something the right way.”
For editor Ivan Bilancio, listening to the recorded voices of Jeff Bridges and Shia
LaBeouf brought home the fact that he was editing a film that was, in some ways, very
much like a documentary. “The paradigm of recording the actors was to let the actors
improvise. From there, we would find the pieces to help create the sequence. When I heard
Jeff and Shia playing off each other, I couldn’t wait to cut it. It was all in the performance,”
he says. “Just like a team shooting a documentary, we didn’t know what we were going to
get before the performance. That was the first sequence we were able to do that way, and
once we did that, we found that the technique lent itself to the rest of the film.”
On the other hand, not every character is about subtext and hidden emotion:
Chicken Joe wears his heart on his sleeve. “He’s totally sincere,” says Dos Anjos. “He’s an
innocent. Even when the Pen Gu-ans put him in a pot to cook him for dinner, he says,
‘These guys are my friends,’ and he means it. He’ll do anything for his friends.”
“When we started on Chicken Joe, I think we all thought that he wasn’t too bright,
but Ash and Chris changed our focus and went towards innocence,” says Nash. “He’s not
dumb; he’s got old-soul wisdom.”
The animator who spent the most time getting to know Chicken Joe was Chad
Stewart. “When we first got started, we were trying a bunch of walks for all the different
characters,” he remembers. “It was a challenge for a long time to make the penguins
distinctive, since they are so similar in their colouring. When we got to Chicken Joe, it was
a chance to cut loose. About halfway through production, we started working with Chicken
Joe surfing, and that’s when things got really different. It was a blast.”
In fact, Stewart was the character animator who headed up all of the surfing
sequences, regardless of which character was on the board. “I think it takes three things to
do great surfing animation: a good physical animator who really understands weight,
motion and physics; someone who is very technical and understand all the ins and outs of
the amazing wave rig that we have; and someone who knows how to surf,” Stewart says.
“While we’re not really surfing, we had to make it look like our characters can surf at the
pro level. In order to do that, we had to spend many hours pouring over how Kelly Slater
can launch himself into the air, how Rob Machado can seemingly float over the face of the
wave, and any number of other surfing do’s and don’t’s.”
With regard to the physical animation, Stewart says each character was given a
distinctive surfing style, usually based on a real-life master of the sport. For example, the
animation team looked at footage of legendary big-wave surfer and board shaper Greg Noll
as a reference for Big Z - going so far as to mimic Noll’s style in Z’s character animation.
Similarly, shades of Kelly Slater can be seen in Cody Maverick’s surfing, as can elements
of Sunny Garcia’s riding in Tank’s.
On the other hand, Stewart found an unusual inspiration for Chicken Joe’s surf style:
roller disco. “I looked at the movie ‘Roll Bounce’ and thought it would be fun if Chicken Joe
was dancing and grooving along on the waves,” he says. “That movie and other clips gave
us the feel for his style at the very beginning.”
Of course, this meant that in order to be a good animator of surfing, the animators as Stewart indicated - had to be good surfers, too. “I used to surf quite a bit and I still surf a
decent amount,” he says. “We went out a couple of times with the crew and just being out
there gives you a different perspective.”
Of course, that’s just the physical animation. As Stewart mentioned, the animators
also had to have particular skill at technical animation - how the board moves with the
wave. “Since the waves are moving at 10 or 20 miles an hour, the stage is moving through
a space,” says Stewart. “Of course, not only is the character surfing, but performing there’s a scene taking place on the board. You have to emote as well as perform physical
moves on the water. You had to be technical enough to use the tools of the wave rig knowing that what you did would affect the water. We had a lot of interaction between
layout, animation, and effects - even a simple wave could have enormous challenges.”
About the waves
From the very beginning, it was clear that in order for SURF’S UP to catch its wave,
it was essential that the waves be just as believable as Cody and the other inhabitants of
Pen Gu Island. Dozens of creative talents, including visual effects supervisor Rob Bredow,
senior animation supervisor David Schaub, head of layout James Williams, editor Ivan
Bilancio, and digital producer Chris Juen, analysed videos, studied scientific references,
and even took surfing lessons while they applied their own considerable artistry to this
daunting task. They also tapped champion surfers like Kelly Slater and Rob Machado to
add expert authenticity. “Animating a surfer is inherently tricky, because you have to take
those moves and put them on top of a moving environment, often chasing the surfer
through the wave,” Schaub said. “Everything the surfer does is driving the surfboard and
the surfboard is tracking on the wave but the wave is moving through space. So, there are
a lot of variables.
“If we were dealing with a ski slope or a snowboarding hill, it would be tricky
enough,” adds Schaub. “But we took those moves and then put them on top of a moving
environment, so we’re chasing the surfer through the wave throughout the shot. You don’t
want to make the two feel like they’re disconnected, because everything the surfer does is
driving the surfboard and the surfboard is tracking on the wave, but the wave is moving
through space.”
“Since the surfers and the water affect each other, a lot of our work was a
chicken-and-egg situation where neither one could really come first,” said Visual effects
supervisor Rob Bredow. “To manage that, we built tools much earlier on than we normally
would - things like a primitive version of the wake after the surfboard, crude white water, a
whole set of tools to block the shots - and then went back to perfect everything.” Artists in
each department developed a much broader scope of familiarity than usual, often providing
expertise honed on live action elsewhere within Imageworks. “The entire team did an
outstanding job, and I think it really shows when you see it on the screen.”
Since the waves are just as central to the action as they are to the characters’ lives,
production designer Paul Lasaine determined that the waves should deliver an emotional
impact beyond what photorealism could convey. “With the title of SURF’S UP, we knew we
had to create a wave that will make surfers ache to get back into the ocean,” he says.
The process started with the Sony Pictures Imageworks crew studying the scenes
captured by such renowned artists as cinematographer John-Paul Beeghly and nature
photographer Frans Lanting to help determine what makes each wave unique. They pored
over videos of renowned surfers like Greg Knolls, Sunny Garcia, Rob Machado, and Kelly
Slater. They scrutinized such top surfing documentaries as The Endless Summer (1966),
Step Into Liquid (2003), Second Thoughts (2004) and Riding Giants (2004) to better
understand the sport and what characteristics those movies shared. They became so
familiar with legendary surfing spots - Tahiti’s Teahupo’o, Northern California’s Maverick’s
Point, Hawaii’s Banzai Pipeline - the lighting specialist teams named themselves after
famous waves.
To help capture what it feels like to take a board out, most of the SURF’S UP crew
also took surfing lessons and shot hours of reference video. Bredow even risked an outing
to Cortez Bank, where giant waves crash over a chain of underwater mountains 100 miles
out in the ocean from San Diego, California.
Bredow and digital producer Chris Juen were in charge of putting technology into
the service of the artists. Erick Miller, a wave setup lead at Imageworks, led the
development of the animation rig that made it possible to animate the surf environments, a
complex assignment that took about a year to complete. John Clark led the wave animation
that perfected the final result. “We wanted the waves to feel real as well as look real, so we
thought of the waves as characters in their own right and created them accordingly,”
Bredow said. “Each one can be controlled and lit through a combination of physically
correct and artistic controls over each element.”
For the final imprimatur of realism, champion surfer Kelly Slater visited the studio to
critique the animators’ version of his natural habitat. He was given a stylus to indicate his
points on the screen, and the artists incorporated his guidance for the finished product. “I
could see it for two seconds and tell it fits properly,” Slater says. “There are things that you
have a feeling for, and if you see it and it’s wrong, you’ll know it feels wrong even if you
can’t understand why.”
Bredow says the time with Slater was invaluable. “It was pretty informative to sit next
to him and let him draw, to show us exactly where we still had a couple things to work on.
That was in addition to it being just a fun time to sit next to Kelly Slater and look at our
waves and have him say, yeah, that’s looking pretty good.”
Much of the animation work required the creation of new technologies, since each
wave was built from the ocean floor up. “The waves meant the riggers had to create
basically a character that layout could animate and that effects could work with, so a wave
actually is a character that flowed over three departments before it got to effects,” says
supervising animator Chad Stewart. “That’s a little scary but it worked out very well in this
movie.”
About the design
The world of SURF’S UP extends far beyond the waves, of course. Sand has to
react as characters walk across it, and it has to do so in different ways depending on how
wet it is. Trees and leaves must gently react to the tropical breeze. And all of that has to go
on behind the main action.
Production designer Paul Lasaine says that unlike most animated films, the conceit
of SURF’S UP required a design of a nearly real world. “Many CG films go for a 2-D,
old-school animation look,” he says. “For SURF’S UP, we had to go the opposite way - we
had to create near-reality. We didn’t want people to wonder if we used real penguins, but if
the world of SURF’S UP is a documentary, getting the look of a documentary was very
important.”
Lasaine says that to achieve that stylized real-world look, as a rule of thumb, the
design team shot for “70% reality” - pushing the real world by 30%. “One thing we did was
to take a known object and push its shape a little bit, in a subtle way. For example, there’s
a lot of bamboo in the film. In real life, bamboo is pretty straight with a bit of a curve as it
comes to a joint; we pushed those curves a bit, but kept the texture.”
Another way the filmmakers achieve SURF’S UP’s reality show look is through the
use of “archival footage.” Imageworks accomplished this by manipulating the animation so
it would have the appearance of dating from 1920s black and white, through the early
colour of the 1950s and ‘60s, 1970s 8mm film, 1980s 16mm film and on to several looks
common today. “We added lens distortion, imprecise focus pulling, grain, limited depth of
field, and all of the other characteristics documentaries have because of how they’re shot,”
Bredow said. “There’s more grain at night, too, because that’s what happens when a
documentary crew uses the same film stock for day and night.”
Intriguingly, at least as much expertise and perfectionism went into degrading
footage as it did to create it in the first place. “It actually was a lot of fun to add all kinds of
things the visual effects business usually spends hours to remove,” Bredow says.
Natural camera angles were another way in which SURF’S UP was made to feel like
a documentary. The Imageworks crew tried to accurately reproduce the subtle and
unpredictable movements of a hand-held camera, but their efforts never quite met their
high standards for authenticity. So instead they devised a new live-action camera system a setup they nicknamed the “HandeeCam” in homage to the popular Sony video camera to “shoot” an animated scene. The camera operator would operate a physical camera while
a capture system recorded its movements which then directed the virtual camera for the
actual shot. To ensure the results had the right feel, they used a Sony DXC-M3A video
camera, the camera of choice for documentary filmmakers 20 years ago. That model hasn’t
been made since 1989, however, so Layout Supervisor James Williams bought one
through eBay.
“This was the first time in an animated movie that the camera motion was captured
from a real camera,” Williams says. “The process worked so well and looked so good that
we eventually used it on most of the movie.”
The layout department had to be very creative about the placement of the camera
and the choice of camera lens, just as a live-action crew has to be, but with the added
challenge of making sure all the animated parts melded together smoothly Once again, the
fluid relationship between animation and digital effects paid off since the backgrounds and
environments could be done in cooperation with the animators.
Even in the lava tubes, Imageworks developed a virtual track for the camera to
travel on separate from those Lani and Cody are zooming down. “The aim of this sequence
was to recreate the thrill and excitement of a roller coaster ride while still maintaining the
feel of a real camera shoot,” Williams explained. “To achieve this, first the path that Cody
and Lani take was roughed out by the layout department, incorporating all the thrills and
spills of the storyboards. Next came the placement of the camera. In order to make these
shots look as natural as possible, the layout department had to build rough tube shapes
that would give both the characters and the camera a surface to ride on - in other words,
the camera was riding right alongside the characters!”
“The Lava Tubes sequence is one that truly represents what we do with the camera
in CG animation,” producer Christopher Jenkins says. “The sequence is completely
unexpected, which is part of the fun - and as a viewer, you’re on the journey with Cody and
Lani from the moment they fall down the chute.”
Other visual innovations are even more subtle yet just as effective. One was to
simulate a camera in a waterproof housing, which could dip in and out of the water
however the layout artists wanted it to. Another mimics an inexpensive camera mounted
directly on a surfboard, bringing the audience right into the heart of the action.
Of course, even as Lasaine and his team designed the look of SURF’S UP to be as
real as possible, they also kept in mind that the world they created was populated by
penguins (plus the occasional shorebird and chicken). “We asked ourselves, ‘If you were a
penguin, what could you build?’ Of course, nothing - you wouldn’t have any hands.
Anything built could not be highly sophisticated. Also, being on an island, they’ve got
limited building materials - rocks, bamboo, leaves, shells, and wood, and that’s it. As a
result, just about all of their buildings are temporary structures.”
Of course, the animators did get the chance to stretch their creative muscles: on the
Competition Beach - seen only in the background - is a bar built out of the skeleton of a
shark.
“The visual development team gave us an extraordinary environment, full of colour,
perception and depth,” says head of layout James Williams. “We first built 3D environment
models and then the layout department ‘scouted’ them for shoot locations.”
Creating the jungle was a particular challenge. “The jungle environments were the
most complex environments in the movie,” Williams says. “Thousands of plants had to be
individually placed in order to make the sets feel organic and lush. So to prevent characters
walking into plants, most of the final set dressing was done after animation was
completed.”
Lasaine says that to achieve this, the design team built a “digital nursery” from which
the animators could mix-and-match trees, flowers, climbing vines, hanging vines, and ivy.
With just five individual plants, the animators could create a living jungle in which it
appeared that every tree was unique.
About the music
Music plays an important role in any film, and that’s especially true in SURF’S UP. In
making a film about a culture that has always been closely associated with music, the
filmmakers’ first task was to ask themselves what sound would best suit the story of Cody
Maverick.
“We wanted the music to be very much now,” says producer Christopher Jenkins.
“We didn’t want to have any kind of an antiquing quality to the movie. So we naturally went
towards pop, punk, surf, bands like Ms Lauryn Hill, Green Day, Incubus - bands that
represent that teenage feeling of rebellion and reaching for something. At the same time,
we knew that if we were going to have some ‘historical footage’ in the movie, we could
underscore it with music from the era.”
“We are thrilled to be a part of the return of Ms Lauryn Hill,” says Liza Richardson,
the music supervisor, who is known to the public as a popular host on Southern California’s
flagship National Public Radio station KCRW. “She has written and recorded a real
summer jam session for Surf's Up that's very celebratory. Apparently, she related to Big Z's
story of reaching the top, checking out for a while, soul searching, and then re-emerging
with joy. We're glad to have her back where she belongs!”
As an example of how songs are used to add power and nuance to the story and
help define the characters, Jenkins points out that Green Day’s “Holiday” perfectly
underscores Cody’s tenacious quality at the beginning of the film, “It exemplifies his
journey in the way that you might imagine young kids might listen to this song,” he says.
“We had been looking for the right song, the right opener, as we got to know Cody
Maverick. As it was getting late in production, I was at home one evening and my
16-year-old son was playing his guitar, playing along to a song I didn’t know. I said, ‘That’s
a marvellous riff - what is that?’ And he told me. It was ‘Holiday’ by Green Day. We tried it
the next day and we fell in love with it. From that point on, we had to have that track in the
movie.”
Different characters, of course, require different kinds of music. “Chicken Joe has
the strangest music - kind of a jungle jazz,” says Jenkins. “We were trying all kinds of
different music and nothing was landing. Liza Richardson, our music supervisor, was the
one who would say, ‘This is good, but we can do better,’ and she would come up with
something really great.”
Richardson was also responsible for getting Sugar Ray to write an original song for
the film. “It really connects,” says Jenkins of the song. “It puts you on the beach, it makes
you feel the sand between your toes and the warm water around you. It’s the kind of song
that gets you into the zone of ‘I’m on vacation and I’m going to have a great time.’ It’s really
cool.”
As he hinted, Big Z also required his own sound. “If he were in the real world, Big Z
would be a 50s kind of surfer,” Jenkins says. “So we thought about surf-guitar safaris. We
also thought about the very laid-back Hawaiian slack-keyed guitar pieces for Z - and our
composer, Mychael Danna, wrote some very cool pieces for the film.”
Jenkins says that Danna’s score is a key ingredient. “Like his score for ‘Little Miss
Sunshine,’ he writes fantastic, quirky music,” he notes. “He writes for the characters and for
the movie and never gives you the cliché. It’s like looking into a deep pool - his score has
many swirling elements and you can feel them all coming out. His score is the emotional
completion of our characters.”
About the cast
Shia LaBeouf (Cody Maverick) has quickly become one of Hollywood’s most
sought-after actors. His natural talent and raw energy are earning him a reputation as one
of the most promising young thespians. He can currently be seen starring in the hit thriller
Disturbia for director DJ Caruso. LaBeouf will next star in the action-adventure
Transformers for director Michael Bay and will soon begin production on the highly
anticipated fourth instalment in the Indiana Jones series, opposite Harrison Ford. He most
recently appeared in Bobby for director Emilio Estevez, starring opposite Demi Moore and
Elijah Wood. LaBeouf’s other credits include the lead role in The Greatest Game Ever
Played, about legendary US. open golfer Frances Ouimet, and A Guide to Recognizing
Your Saints, co-starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Rosario Dawson.
LaBeouf’s additional feature film credits include Constantine opposite Keanu
Reeves; I, Robot with Will Smith; HBO’s “Project Greenlight” The Battle of Shaker Heights;
and the hit action film Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. LaBeouf made his big-screen debut in
2003, starring opposite Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight in Holes.
On television, LaBeouf garnered much praise from critics everywhere for his
portrayal of Louis Stevens on the Disney Channel’s original series “Even Stevens.” In
2003, he earned a Daytime Emmy award for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series
for his work on the highly rated family show.
Jeff Bridges (Big Z) is one of Hollywood’s most successful actors and a four-time
Academy Award nominee. He earned his first Oscar nod in 1971 for Best Supporting Actor
in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show co-starring Cybill Shepherd. Three years
later, he received his second Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Michael
Cimino’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. In 1984, he landed top kudos with a Best Actor
nomination for Starman. That performance also earned him a Golden Globe nomination. In
2001, he was honoured with another Golden Globe nomination and his fourth Oscar
nomination for his role in The Contender, Rod Lurie’s political thriller co-starring Gary
Oldman and Joan Allen, in which Bridges played the President of the United States.
Bridges most recently starred in Stick It for Touchstone Pictures. He also reteamed
for his second film with director Terry Gilliam, titled Tideland, in which he plays Noah, a
drug addicted, has-been rock guitarist.
Bridges is currently in production on Paramount Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’
big-screen adaptation of Marvel’s legendary Super Hero, Iron Man. The film is directed by
Jon Favreau and will be released 2 May 2008. Bridges just finished filming A Dog Year for
HBO Films/Picturehouse, based on the memoir by Jon Katz. The film is written and
directed by George LaVoo and slated for a 2008 release. He will soon appear in The
Amateurs, a comedy written and directed by Michael Traeger. In that film, citizens of a
small town, under the influence of a man in the midst of a mid-life crisis (Bridges), come
together to make an adult film.
The actor’s multi-faceted career has cut a wide swathe across all genres. He has
starred in numerous box office hits including Gary Ross’ Seabiscuit, Terry Gilliam’s offbeat
comedic drama The Fisher King, the multi-award nominated The Fabulous Baker Boys,
The Jagged Edge, Francis Ford Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Blown Away,
Peter Weir’s Fearless, and Martin Bell’s American Heart, which earned Bridges an
IFP/Spirit Award in 1993 for Best Actor.
Bridges’ many other acting credits include The Door in the Floor (for which he
earned an IFP/Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor), Arlington Road, The Muse,
Simpatico, the Coen brothers’ cult comedy The Big Lebowski, Ridley Scott’s White Squall,
Walter Hill’s Wild Bill, John Huston’s Fat City, The Mirror Has Two Faces, K-PAX, Masked
and Anonymous, Stay Hungry, Bad Company, Against All Odds, Cutter’s Way, The
Vanishing, Texasville, The Morning After, Nadine, Rancho Deluxe, See You In the
Morning, Eight Million Ways to Die, The Last American Hero, and Hearts of the West.
In 1983, Bridges founded the End Hunger Network, a non-profit organization
dedicated to feeding children around the world. Bridges also produced the End Hunger
televent, a three-hour live television broadcast focusing on educating and inspiring action
to end world hunger.
Through his company, AsIs Productions, he produced “Hidden in America,” which
starred his brother Beau. That television movie, produced for Showtime, was nominated for
two Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Beau Bridges. Current
AsIs projects in development include The Giver, based on Lois Lowry’s Newbery
Award-winning novel.
One of Bridges’ true passions is photography. Bridges’ photos have been featured in
several magazines, including Premiere and Aperture. He has also had gallery exhibits of
his work in New York at the George Eastman House, in Los Angeles, London, and San
Diego. In the fall of 2003, powerHouse Books published Pictures: Photographs By Jeff
Bridges, a hardcover book containing a compilation of photos taken on numerous film
locations over the years, to much critical acclaim. Proceeds from the book are donated to
the Motion Picture & Television Fund, a non-profit organization that offers charitable care
and support to film-industry workers.
A few years ago, Bridges fulfilled a life-long dream by releasing his first album, Be
Here Soon on Ramp Records, the Santa Barbara, California label he co-founded with
Michael McDonald and producer/singer/ songwriter Chris Pelonis.
Bridges, his wife Susan, and their three children divide their time between their
home in Santa Barbara, California and their ranch in Montana.
Zooey Deschanel (Lani Aliikai) was most recently seen in the Walt Disney film
Bridge to Terabithia, based on the Newberry Award winning children’s novel.
She will next be seen in the Warner Bros film The Assassination of Jesse James by
the Coward Robert Ford, opposite Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck.
Audiences will also see Deschanel star in the independent films Live Free or Die
with Aaron Stanford; Flakes, also with Aaron Stanford, for director Michael Lehmann; The
Go-Getter, with Lou Taylor-Pucci; and The Good Life for writer/director Stephen Berra.
Both The Go-Getter and The Good Life premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.
Last year, Deschanel starred in Winter Passing opposite Ed Harris and Will Ferrell
and in Failure to Launch with Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Her other recent feature film credits include starring roles in the box-office hits The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, and John Malkovich, and
director Jon Favreau’s Elf, opposite Will Ferrell, for which she received critical acclaim for
her engaging performance and remarkable singing voice.
She has also starred in All the Real Girls, for which she received an Independent
Spirit Award nomination for Lead Actress; Abandon for director Stephen Gaghan; Big
Trouble for director Barry Sonnenfeld; The Good Girl with Jennifer Aniston; and Eulogy
alongside Debra Winger and Ray Romano.
Deschanel made her feature film debut in 1999 in Lawrence Kasdan’s ensemble
drama Mumford. She then co-starred with Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, and Frances
McDormand in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous.
Deschanel, who was named for the male character in J D Salinger’s Franny and
Zooey, spent much of her childhood on location with her actress mother, Mary Jo
Deschanel, and her father Caleb Deschanel, an Academy Award-nominated
cinematographer. She credits her father with instilling in her a keen visual sense and great
style.
Jon Heder (Chicken Joe) became an overnight sensation and gained an instant
cult following with his feature film debut in the title role of the offbeat comedy Napoleon
Dynamite. Heder’s endearing portrayal of the somewhat nerdy high schooler who helps his
friend Pedro get elected student body president was a huge financial success and brought
him two MTV Movie Awards, one in the category of Breakthrough Male and a second for
Best Musical Performance for his crowd-pleasing election night dance. Heder met
Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess while both were studying film at Brigham Young
University, The director first cast him in his short film, Peluca.
In SURF’S UP, Heder returns to animation after previously voicing a role in
Columbia Pictures’ Monster House. Onscreen, he most recently starred opposite Will
Ferrell in the hit comedy Blades of Glory, which has taken in over $100 million at the box
office. In November, he will star in Mama’s Boy opposite Diane Keaton and Jeff Daniels.
Heder also starred in the feature films The Benchwarmers and School for
Scoundrels.
Late last year, it was announced that Heder, along with his twin brother Dan and
older brother Doug, have formed production company Greasy Entertainment with a
first-look deal at Universal Pictures. The realization of a long-held goal for the brothers,
who all studied film at BYU, the company is developing feature film properties, both
live-action and animation (Heder and his twin brother both studied computer animation in
college).
James Woods (Reggie Belafonte) has been impressing audiences for over three
decades with his compelling performances. He has moved effortlessly from big box office
studio films to festival-celebrated independent features, in a wide spectrum from comedy to
drama. Woods was also just seen in Pretty Persuasion and the outrageous comedy Be
Cool, the sequel to Get Shorty. He currently stars on the hit CBS television series “Shark.”
The son of a US Intelligence officer, he earned a scholarship to the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, completed a degree in political science, and then headed off to
New York to pursue a career on the stage. After appearing in a handful of New York City
theatre productions, Woods landed his first film role in All the way Home and followed that
up with supporting roles in The Way We Were, and The Choirboys. However, it was Woods
cold blooded performance as the cop killer in The Onion Field that captured both
audiences and critics’ attention.
Other film work includes Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Casino, Nixon,
John Q, The Virgin Suicides, Riding in Cars with Boys, Northfolk, Contact, Any Given
Sunday, and Scary Movie 2. Woods has also starred on television in numerous projects,
including “The Rudy Giuliani Story,” “Indictment: The McMartin Trial,” “Citizen Cohn,” “My
Name is Bill W,” and “Promise,” all roles that earned him an Emmy Award or nomination.
Among his numerous stage, screen, and television awards, Woods has received
Oscar nominations for his work in Salvador and Ghosts of Mississippi. He was honoured
with the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture
Made for TV for his performance in “In Love and War”; he has been nominated for eight
other Golden Globes.
New York stage actor and stand-up comedian Mario Cantone (Mikey
Abromowitz), gained critical-acclaim with the Tony-nominated “Laugh Whore” from its sold
out run at the Cort Theatre on Broadway to the Showtime Networks special. The previous
theatre season saw Cantone starring in the Tony-winning “Assassins” by Stephen
Sondheim and John Weidman. Both hit shows were directed by four-time Tony-winner Joe
Mantello.
An accomplished stage actor, Cantone has appeared on Broadway in the role of
Buzz in Terrence McNally’s award-winning dramatic comedy “Love! Valour! Compassion!”
and Stephano in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” at the Public Theatre. Off Broadway,
Cantone was the original Terry in “The Crumple Zone,” Benny in “June Moon,” and Grumio
in the Shakespeare in the Park production of “Taming of the Shrew.”
Cantone recently appeared in the hilarious film The Aristocrats. On television,
Cantone went syndicated as Charlotte’s wedding-planner-with-attitude when “Sex and the
City” was launched on TBS and audiences can catch his frequent stints on “The View.” On
Comedy Central, Cantone’s performances have been featured on “The USO Comedy
Tour,” “Chappelle’s Show,” and “Premium Blend,” as well as his own special, “Comedy
Central Presents: Mario Cantone.”
Cantone has performed his irreverent stand-up comedy at a wide range of venues
including Carnegie Hall, where he warmed up for jazz great Shirley Bassey, to
performances at Resorts Atlantic City and Caroline’s on Broadway. Peter Marks of The
New York Times wrote of his work, “In the realm of outrageously joyful stand-up, there is
the shrieking, windup-toy sensibility of Mario Cantone, a comedian of extravagant tantrums
and extravagant gifts... he is a proponent of the comedy of outrage.” Over the years his
routines have included musical parodies of Judy Garland, Jim Morrison, Peggy Lee, Bruce
Springsteen, and Liza Minnelli.
Cantone got his start hosting the local New York children’s show, “Steampipe Alley,”
where the comic slipped in sly pop culture innuendo that adults could enjoy. His other
television credits include appearances on “Late Night with David Letterman,” “Martha,”
“The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” and NBC’s “Ed.” The actor was also featured in the films
Quiz Show and Mousetrap. Mr Cantone’s other film credits include Crooked Lines (Cannes
2003) and Last Request.
Diedrich Bader (Tank Evans) is best-known for his role on the hit television series
“The Drew Carey Show.” Bader played Oswald Lee Harvey from 1995 until the show’s
completion in 2004.
Bader was born in Alexandria, Virginia, but at age two moved to Paris with his
family. He returned to the United States for high school and attended North Carolina
School of the Arts. During spring break he was discovered by a casting director in Santa
Fe, New Mexico. That meeting led to an audition for a small role in a pilot; Bader landed a
starring role instead. He moved to Los Angeles and auditioned for other roles, landing
guest spots on several series, including “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “The Fresh
Prince of Bel Air,” “Cheers,” and “Quantum Leap.” Filmmaker Penelope Spheeris hired
Bader for her action-adventure spoof series “Danger Theatre” and again for the feature film
The Beverly Hillbillies, in which Bader played the dual role of twins Jethro and Jethrine.
Since rising to prominence on “The Drew Carey Show,” the versatile performer has
voiced characters in such animated films as Dinotopia: Curse of the Ruby Sunstone, The
Country Bears, and Ice Age, and in many animated series, including “Lloyd in Space,” “The
Zeta Project” (as Zeta and Zee), and “Buzz Light-year of Star Command” (as Warp
Darkmatter). Bader has also appeared in such films as Miss Congeniality 2: Armed &
Fabulous, Napoleon Dynamite, Office Space, Eurotrip, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
He will next be seen in the upcoming Balls of Fury.
About the filmmakers
Ash Brannon (Director/Screenplay) is a well-known creative force in the world of
animation.
He previously made his mark as co-director and co-developer of Pixar Animation
Studio’s 1999 hit feature film Toy Story 2, to which he also contributed his talents as an
animator and character designer. Brannon also served as story artist on Pixar’s A Bug’s
Life and directing animator on the studio’s first feature, Toy Story.
Brannon’s earlier career helped him acquire a broad range of experiences. He was
an animator on the compilation TV series “That’s Warner Bros.!” for Warner Bros.
Animation; contributed to Nike’s groundbreaking “Hare Jordan” Super Bowl spot’ and
honed his craft on Walt Disney Productions’ The Little Mermaid.
After studying at CalArts’ Character Animation Program, Brannon taught animation
there for two years.
Chris Buck (Director/Screenplay) has been a major creative force in the world of
animation for over two decades.
He most recently worked on Walt Disney Pictures’ 2004 feature Home on the Range
as a supervising animator. Before that, Buck made his feature directing debut with Disney’s
blockbuster animated feature, Tarzan.
Buck’s other credits at Disney include the 1995 animated feature Pocahontas, on
which he oversaw the animation of three central characters: Percy, Grandmother Willow
and Wiggins. Buck also helped design characters for the 1989 animated blockbuster The
Little Mermaid, performed experimental animation for The Rescuers Down Under and Who
Framed Roger Rabbit?, and was an animator on The Fox and the Hound.
His career also has included a stint at Hyperion Pictures, where Buck helped
develop several films and served as a directing animator on the feature Bebe’s Kids. He
joined creative forces with director Tim Burton to help storyboard Disney’s live-action
featurette Frankenweenie and worked with Burton again as directing animator on the Brad
Bird-directed “Family Dog” episode of Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories” and as director
of the subsequent primetime animated series.
Additionally, Buck’s credits include a number of animated commercials (including
some with the Keebler Elves) for such Los Angeles-based production entities as Film Fair,
Kurtz & Friends, and Duck Soup.
A native of Wichita, Kansas, Buck studied character animation for two years at
CalArts, where he also taught from 1988-1993.
Christopher Jenkins (Producer/Story/Screenplay) has contributed his talents to
an impressive roster of projects during his 20-year career.
Before taking on the story of Cody Maverick and his fellow surfing penguins, Jenkins
spent most of his professional life at Walt Disney Pictures where he served as artistic
Co-ordinator on Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Before that, Jenkins was visual effects
supervisor on The Hunchback of Notre Dame and supervising effects animator/designer on
Pocahontas, positions that were central to the overall look and atmosphere of those
popular movies. He also was an effects animator on Hercules, The Lion King, Aladdin,
Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Touchstone Pictures’ Who Framed Roger
Rabbit?.
A native of Wales, Jenkins has a degree in scientific illustration from Middlesex
University in England.
Don Rhymer (Screenplay), has written and produced numerous sitcoms including
“Coach,” “The Hogan Family,” “Evening Shade,” “Hearts Afire,” and “Caroline in the City.”
He also wrote and executive produced television movies for the Disney Channel and
ABC before moving to features, for which his credits include Carpool, Big Momma’s House,
The Santa Clause 2, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London, The Honeymooners, Big
Momma’s House 2, and the upcoming Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Rhymer is a graduate of James Madison University in Virginia.
Christian Darren (Story) previously wrote the teleplay “Hustle: The Pete Rose
Story” for ESPN and the television series “Something is Out There.” He is currently writing
the feature film Six Bullets from Now.
MYCHAEL DANNA (Music By) has been scoring films since his 1987 feature debut
on Atom Egoyan’s Family Viewing, for which Danna earned the first of his 13 Canadian film
award nominations. Danna is recognized as one of the pioneers in combining non-Western
sound sources with orchestral and electronic minimalism in film music. This reputation has
led him to work with such acclaimed directors as Egoyan, Scott Hicks, Ang Lee, Gillies
MacKinnon, James Mangold, Mira Nair, Billy Ray, Joel Schumacher, and Denzel
Washington.
Danna studied music composition at the University of Toronto, winning the Glenn
Gould Composition Scholarship in 1985. Danna also served for five years as
composer-in-residence at the McLaughlin Planetarium in Toronto. His work for dance
includes music for “Dead Souls” (Carbone Quatorze Dance Company, directed by Gilles
Maheu) and a score for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s “Gita Govind,” based on the
1,000-year-old classical Indian erotic poem, with choreographer Nina Menon.
His recent projects include Gregory Hoblit’s Fracture, Billy Ray’s Breach, Jonathan
Dayton and Valerie Faris’ Little Miss Sunshine, Bennett Miller’s Capote, Terry Gilliam’s
Tideland, and Todd Robinson’s Lonely Hearts.
Every Saturday night, Liza Richardson’s (Music Supervisor) radio show “The
Drop” on 89.9 KCRW rises like the tide, waxes and wanes like the moon, and pulses with
beats, storms, and sonic swells. She mixes hip hop-rock-reggae, dub-disco-punk, hi-tech
and lo-fi funk, and world flavoured party music as she surfs the airwaves of LA.
During the week, Richardson is a music supervisor and consultant with credits
including NBC’s critically acclaimed “Friday Night Lights,” the feature films Lords of
Dogtown, Y Tu Mama También (for which she was nominated for a Grammy), Nacho Libre,
Failure to Launch, and Wicker Park, and some of the early iPod spots. Since her passion is
surfing, it’s fitting that she found a dream job working on SURF’S UP.
In February 2007, Richardson became the Academy Awards’ first-ever DJ.
Whether she’s moving on the air, in the water, or through life, Richardson says she
goes with the flow.
Sony Pictures Animation identifies and nurtures fresh voices and dynamic visions
in the world of CG animated features for Sony Pictures Entertainment, under the leadership
of Sandra Rabins, Executive Vice President of Sony Pictures Animation.
Having achieved success with its debut title, Open Season, Sony Pictures Animation
currently has a full slate of films set for release including SURF’S UP, Cloudy with a
Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania.
The character animation artists and visual effects wizards at the Academy
Award-winning Sony Pictures Imageworks provide all CG animation for Sony Pictures
Animation. Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks are part of Sony
Pictures Digital Entertainment, led by Yair Landau, President of Sony Pictures Digital and
Vice Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc is an Academy Award-winning, state-of-the-art
visual effects and character animation company dedicated to the art and artistry of digital
production and character creation. The company has been recognized by the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with Oscars for its work on Spider-Man™ 2 and the CG
animated short film The ChubbChubbs!, as well as nominations for Superman Returns,
Monster House, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,
Spider-Man™, Hollow Man, Stuart Little, and Starship Troopers. Imageworks continues to
raise the level in the visual effects and character animation industry, becoming a major
force by providing leading edge technology to its world-class artists.
Imageworks is a division of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, which oversees the
digital production and online entertainment assets of Sony Pictures Entertainment.