Legend of the Guardians: Flying High

With Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’ Hoole, Animal Logic reaches a new stage in its filmmaking capabilities. Miguel Gonzalez spoke with Hollywood blockbuster director Zack Snyder and the AL team about this groundbreaking 3D animation.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’ Hoole is the second animated feature created by Animal Logic (AL) – the first being the successful Happy Feet, which the company helped make but was ultimately “George Miller’s film from beginning to end”, according to managing director Zareh Nalbandian. This time, things were different: “Guardians was conceived here, from its initial concept frames to the very last scenes of the movie,” said Nalbandian.

Like Happy Feet, Guardians was fully financed by Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures – and the  producers are currently waiting for a final certificate for the Producer Offset. It will receive a wide international release as a tentpole project for the studio, which optioned the rights to the 15-book series written by Kathryn Lasky and then partnered with AL to develop and produce a film, from a script by John Orloff and Emil Stern that covers the first three volumes.
The story is set in a world of owls. Young Soren dreams of the Guardians of Ga’ Hoole, the mythical warriors that epic stories say saved owlkind from the evil Pure Ones. Little does he know that soon he’ll be on a journey to find them and save the owl kingdoms. With a working relationship dating as far back as the tests that got the blocksbuster 300 green-lit, US director Zack Snyder seemed like a natural option for what Nalbandian describes as “a hero’s journey; unusual material for animation which lent itself to a visionary director”.
“AL showed me the artwork they’d done, like a pitch approach, and I thought it could make an amazing movie. I got really excited about making it,” recalled Snyder. “I feel an artistic affinity with AL; they have a certain aesthetic level that they need to reach with all of  their work, and that’s something that I really respect and trust.

Once you get that with someone, it’s  hard to replace it or substitute it, and that’s the main reason why I feel strongly about the work they’ve done and why I try my best to work with them whenever I can.”