AQUARIUM "MISSION: HOPPABLE: Penguins

This is a very fun spot...sort of a spoof on Mission: Impossible!
Penquins invade an aquarium....popping out of sewers, darting around corners, climbing steps, etc...
In reality, things were quite a bit different. These are birds..wild animals, they do what THEY want! So, we first shot many many penguins on a green screen. Easier said then done! We had to build a make-shift green screen studio inside a frozen meat locker where these little guys were staying..they 'deposited' all sorts of treats on that greenscreen for us :-)
Then, the director Greg Newberry, with editor Mark Cretcher, sat thru the hours of footage and pulled the best penguin action..and Greg wrote a script around that!
This really is the way to do this! Brilliant!
Then, we shot all the background plates for the already shot action. We used life-sized photo cut-outs of the Penguins to assist in framing these shots and we always rolled a few feet so the editor knew the correct perspective and animal size per shot. We had to base our initial camera setups on the specs from the original greenscreen shoot: focal length, lens height, tilt angle, etc...
In the end, it became a fun piece!
Animal Instincts was the production company, Greg Newberry directed, I was the DP, Mark Cretcher cut it.
I will say, penguins do not have a sweet aroma!