is the movie march of the penguin CG or NOT?

Question

I'm totally puzzled. I've done my research and couldn't find any information if they used real penguins or CG.

Now, however, the images look too "perfect" I would say and that leopard seal scenes make the movie look like it was done in CG.

I would say it's in CG, what do you guys think?

Answer 1

they record real pengins however in certain scenes they would use CG

Answer 2

What is it about the emperor penguin and its home in the bitterly inhospitable terrain of the Antarctic that makes us stare slack-jawed with wonder? Surely this is one of nature's oddest creations. This creature, a bird actually, is both comical and noble in appearance. Once it leaves its natural home in the coastal sea, the penguin must struggle to accomplish any task on the icy land. Yet the stoic, resolute heroes and heroines of Luc Jacquet's "March of the Penguins" captivate the viewer.

Warner Independent, which acquired the French documentary at this year's Sundance Film Festival, has added a new Alex Wurman score and an English-language narration by Morgan Freeman for the American market. (The film opened Jan. 26 in Paris.) Gone is the gimmick of actors providing dialogue for the penguins. Instead the American release reverts to the purity of the birds staring at each other or gazing silently on their precious chicks, leaving the viewer to intuit the emotional context. Wurman's upbeat music is a major plus, attentive to the humor and gravity of penguins' traditional mating ritual.

Jacquet insists upon viewing this almost suicidal ritual as a "love story." The anthropomorphic approach might put off a biologist, but who can deny the close bond between mates necessary to produce and protect a single egg or the agony suffered by a parent when a chick is lost?

After filming in 16mm over a daunting 13 months in conditions that only can be imagined, the director and his editor, Sabine Emiliani, shape the footage into a compelling tale of survival, an annual race against time on which the survival of the species itself depends. When the birds turn 5, they leave behind the relative safety of the food-filled sea as the polar winter descends each March. They trek single-file for more than 70 miles on their feet or sliding on bellies to their traditional breeding ground. Here males and females pair off. (The film never tells us what happens to those without a mate.)

As the weather worsens, the female produces a single egg. In a delicate juggling act that often fails, the female must transfer the egg to the male for safeguarding on the top of his feet and beneath a fold of warm flesh and feathers. The egg cannot otherwise survive as the temperature drops to 80 below and winds can exceed 100 mph. Starved and exhausted, the females trek back to the sea to fill their bellies for the newborn. Meanwhile, the males huddle together, going 125 days without food, waiting for the eggs to hatch and their mates to return with food. Many females do not return, falling victim to the exhausting march or predators such as the leopard seal.

If and when the females do return and a chick has survived -- both are big ifs -- it is now the famished fathers' turn to stagger back to the sea for food. This cycle continues until the young can make the journey to the coast and take their first dive into the Antarctic waters. Surprisingly, at least to those who buy into the "love story," the family unit now breaks apart. The young penguin might never see its parents again, and parents rarely mate a second winter.

Jacquet's crews, filming underwater and in a white wasteland that looks like a frozen Monument Valley, get amazingly close shots of the birds battling the elements. Only at the end credit roll do we glimpse the crew in action, clumsily setting up their tripods and being observed with curiosity by the penguins. Perhaps the film is a love story, after all. What else can explain the dedication of these crazy French filmmakers?

Answer 3

Nope, it's all real. Antartica really is that amazing. There's a "making of" trailer that showed the photographers all bundled up and following the penguins around with their fancy cameras. I think for the underwater scenes they had to use a remote submarine-type thing.

Answer 4

March of the Penguins. because it truly is truth and tutorial. satisfied feet is only a caricature, which I heard it wasn't that enormous in any case. that is magnificent what the adult men who filmed March of the Penguins went by skill of to convey us the lifestyles cycle of those penguins.

Answer 5

It was not CG. Though I imagine they used some basic cinematographic tricks to get things to look as awesome as possible.

Below is a link to the National Geographic interview with the director:

Answer 6

Ah, the magic of cinema.

Nothing is real, it's a film.

They filmed real penguins, but they spent a lot of time and money editing and color correcting, etc.

No CG in that film, however.

Answer 7

They used real penguins- it was sponsored by the National Geographic Society.

Answer 8

"March of the Penguins" is not computer animated but... "Happy Feet" is and there is a leopard seal in that movie.
Are you maybe confusing the two?

Answer 9

It,s real, the best documentary with Oscar Award

Answer 10

Are you nuts? It was a documentary. Then again, some people think the moon landing was filmed in a soundstage so who knows...