The Croods: Creatures Of The Croodaceous Era

Wonder how a animated film is created? On a recent press trip provided by 20^th Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation a group of bloggers were invited to learn about the process. The Croods is a 3D comedy adventure that follows the world’s first modern family though their journey of a lifetime. We got to learn firsthand about what goes into the making of this film. As you can see from the photograph below, the visual effects team was VERY serious about the Croodaceous Era. The created whole rooms centered around The Croods complete with mini models of all of the creatures and lands.

The visual effects supervisor on The Croods, Markus Manninen, explained to us about the creation of the Croodaceous Era, “The interesting thing with the New World for us, is it’s not just the New World that the family discovers — when they come out of their old habitat and this new world in front of them reels itself and they’re forced into But, for us, it was also a paradigm. We had to figure out how to create this time between time that the story took place in. It was important for the story that this felt like earth because we wanted this to be a family, a regular family that were trying to survive and go through regular life in their context of actually survival and eating. The design came out of trying to find a way to make an interesting earth that was also engaging but also acted as a story point, which is we don’t have a villain in our movie – really the world i to some degree, the villain, but it’s also, their place the live, it’s home.”

As The Croods venture out into the new world, you can feel the organic touch that the production designer, Christophe Lautrette, created with the shape language. Jeffrey Katenberg gives us an insight as to the breakthroughs in terms of the use of 3D, “The fact that we’re able to just keep building on top of it, I think we could certainly argue that there’s no place in the world today where there’s as much expertise and creative and experience knowing how to apply 3D in a way that really makes it an immersive experience. The goal always has been, if we can transport you into that world and really make you feel as though you’re in the center of it, that’s the best use of it.”  I just loved the use of color, and the 3D really made the trees and flowers bloom and seemingly come alive.

Creatures of the Croodaceous Era

The Creatures of the Croodaceous Era, as Chris Sanders tells us, were a huge part. “I really felt strongly that we should have a couple of animals that are your staples like saber tooth tiger and mammoth. So, we’ve got a giant mammoth, and our saber tooth, he’s one of the only animals I actually designed, the giant head; and we moved his big saber teeth around so they’re more like tusks, so we kept him a little bit fresh.”  He goes on to tell us, “One of our artists, Shane Pregmore, he came up with a really cool solution, which was to take animals and combine them, which gave a kind of a cool feel. You could almost imagine, a long time ago, animals were different combinations, and that maybe, as time went on, hey diverged into separate things.” I loved some of these creations, and we had a fun time trying to name the names of some of the created Croodaceous creatures of the land. Animals like the hippodillo, molar bear, sharadile, and more were created. You just have to see the movie to experience all of the wonders of the Croodaceous Era.

Connect With The Croods

You can visit the official website, like The Croods on Facebook, follow @DWAnimation on Twitter and more specifially the hashtag #TheCroods. But wait! You can also re-pin great DIY tutorials, printables & more from The Croods on Pinterest!

THE CROODS is a 3D comedy adventure starring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke and Cloris Leachman. This DreamWorks Animation film follows the world’s first modern family as they embark on a journey of a lifetime after the only home they’ve ever known is destroyed. Traveling across a spectacular landscape, The Croods are rocked by generational clashes and seismic shifts as they discover an incredible new world filled with fantastic creatures. Wouldn’t you imagine that their outlook on life is changed forever. The Croods hits theaters March 22, 2013.

I was invited on a press trip provided by 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation. My travel expenses were covered. All opinions are original.