Life of Pi

     I recently saw the Oscar nominated film Life of Pi.  The CGI in this film is amazing and incredibly difficult, since the CGI of a tiger on a boat had to be cross cut with shots of a real tiger.


     The company that created the CGI graphics, Rhythm & Hues, composed 690 shots of the 960 shots in the film, this includes 85 percent of the shots that involve one of the main characters, the adult Bengal tiger, Richard Parker.  over 600 artists in three countries worked on bringing the scenes to life, including 15 people on hair alone to place and comb all 10 million hairs on Richard Parker.  This company is not new to the art form however, they also did all of the animation on The Chronicles of Narnia and The Golden Compass, so they have a pretty good idea of how animals should move.  The animation is incredible, and the most impressive thing is that while you are watching the movie, you rarely think that the animals are computer generated.