BRINGING THE BOOKS TO LIFE

Bright moonlight filters through the branches of a giant tree in the Forest Kingdom of Tyto. Three young Barn Owls are nestled in the family hollow: Soren, his little hatchling, Eglantine, and their older brother, Kludd. They are listening to their father tell Soren’s favorite story: the Legend of the Guardians, an ancient order of knightly owls that live in the magical kingdom called Ga’Hoole.
Listening once again to the beloved myth, Soren’s imagination takes flight. Soren has not yet learned to fly, but he imagines himself soaring with the Guardians through dark skies, across deserts and oceans. He can almost see the Great Tree—home of his warrior heroes—rising from the mist in the Sea of Hoolemere. Could these noble creatures, who once kept all owl kingdoms safe from evil, possibly be as real as they feel in Soren’s heart?

His brother, Kludd, tells Soren his head is filled with useless dreams. “I only like stories that are true,” Kludd declares. But their father explains that legends are stories felt in “the gizzard,” where all owls feel their deepest emotions. “Over time,” the father intones, “such stories become true in the heart.” Soon, Kludd and Soren will discover the truth for themselves, as they journey to magical and dangerous places far from the safety of their forest home.
And so begins Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, a new animated family fantasy adventure from director Zack Snyder. The film draws from the first three books—The Capture, The Journey and The Rescue—of Kathryn Lasky’s best-selling 15-volume series, Guardians of Ga’Hoole, which were adapted into screenplay form by writers John Orloff and Emil Stern. Lasky’s imaginative stories captivated Snyder, but his decision to helm his first animated film was a personal one.

“Family really was a motivator for me,” Snyder says, now in the midst of post-production leading up to the film’s Fall release. “My kids are always saying, ‘Dad, when are you going to make a movie we can see?’ Also, I love archetypal epics. A young owl wants to find these legendary Guardians that have been part of his personal mythology since he was a child. That, to me, is really powerful, timeless stuff.”
“Soren’s father has told him these stories about the legend of the Guardians, and not many people know if they’re real or not,” adds producer Deborah Snyder. “They’re a myth. But to Soren they are real. And he embarks on this journey to find the Guardians because he believes that basically they’re the owl kingdom’s only hope for survival. His journey is really a personal one. It’s about him really having confidence and believing in himself, believing that he can do these things. It starts off with him believing that he could fly. But it’s also about believing in something bigger than himself, believing that these Guardians do exist.”

To open a window to Soren’s world—stunning vistas that looked and felt completely real—a creative team assembled around the project. Producer Zareh Nalbandian, whose company Animal Logic created the singing, dancing penguins of Happy Feet, assembled a crew of more than 500 digital professionals, including a team of computer animation specialists.
“The unique world of owls was really fascinating and the worlds of the books are so rich in imagery,” comments Nalbandian. “But first and foremost, it’s a great story about a young person who believes in himself, and believes in what’s right. He goes on this journey in the context of this world of owls where there are no people. There are natural landscapes, and lots of opportunity for fantastic visuals. Add to that, the experience of flying above the clouds in a 3D movie in a very naturalistic environment. Through every step, it became more and more compelling for us to make this movie because it had to be made.”

The filmmakers assembled around the project, including executive producers Donald De Line, Deborah Snyder, Lionel Wigram, Chris deFaria, Kathryn Lasky and Bruce Berman, were excited about the prospect of Snyder’s vision of the world Lasky created. “We wanted to capture the feeling of the books and give the movie the same sense and tone of a grand adventure, something that would take on a life of its own,” says executive producer Wigram. “He is also a real visual artist,” adds De Line. “Big action, creatures that fly through the air, huge battle scenes—combine all of those things with 3D animation and a 3D film and he’s a kid in a candy store.”

The film follows the classic arc of the hero’s journey, yet its hero is anything but typical. “Soren is not a hero from day one,” Zack Snyder describes. “His big obstacle is that in a world of realists, he believes in the dream. That's his journey—finding out that what he believes is real and making us believe it too.”
English actor Jim Sturgess has played the leading man in films like Across the Universe and 21. In voicing the heroic owl Soren, he sees the young idealist as the moral compass of the film. “Through the story, he learns to sort of trust what’s called his gizzard,” says the young actor, “which is basically your sixth sense, your instinct. And through the film, as he learns to trust it more and more, he starts to seek out good to combat evil.”

The evil he is fated to encounter comes in the form of the Pure Ones—a band of owls who believe themselves the superior species and are plotting to take over all owl kind. After falling from their tree in the Tyto Forest, Soren and Kludd are snatched up by the Pure Ones. Separated from Kludd, Soren is imprisoned in the stone canyons of St. Aegolius (St. Aggie’s), where the stolen owls become soldiers.
“Soren is a good-hearted, well-brought up young owl,” Sturgess elaborates. “He knows that what the Pure Ones are doing is wrong. And he makes the decision to try and escape from St. Aggie’s, to try and seek out this mythical group of owls called the Guardians. So, the journey is really about finding these owls in this mythical tree.”
Kathryn Lasky felt Sturgess captured the essence of this young owl. "What I love about Jim Sturgess's performance is that there is no bluster,” she says. “Sturgess has managed to capture - and I'm not sure how - Soren's vulnerability. He makes Soren a believable hero."

On the way to St. Aggie’s, Soren meets Gylfie, played by English-born Kiwi actress Emily Barclay (Suburban Mayhem), a feisty Elf Owl. The two orphans are forced to work in the Pelletorium, where the Pure Ones gather their ingredients for creating weapons from owl pellets. Through his work on the film, “I’ve learned that owls don’t digest their prey; they yarp ‘em back up in these little pellets,” Zack Snyder laughs. “‘Yarping’ is what Katherine Lasky calls it.”
Soren soon enlists Gylfie to escape St. Aggie’s, and she becomes the first to join his small band of owls that will seek out the Guardians of Ga’Hoole to help save their world from the Pure Ones. “Gylfie is Soren’s best friend,” Barclay explains. “She’s a tiny little thing, but she’s witty and fun and not afraid to stand up for what’s right.”
Elf Owls like Gylfie are found largely in high desert and canyon areas. Gylfie, therefore, has developed a unique talent from living beneath the immense desert sky. Her encouragement helps Soren develop the courage he will need to make a daring escape from St. Aggie’s. “She’s given the role of navigator since she has grown up studying the stars,” Barclay says. “She steers the team.”

Along the journey, they encounter two more owls who become part of their band and join their quest to find the Guardians: Digger, played by David Wenham (The Lord of the Rings film series), a Burrowing Owl, and Twilight, played by Anthony LaPaglia (Happy Feet), a Great Grey Owl. Twilight and Digger make a striking pair. Burrowing Owls are only about nine inches high, while Great Grey Owls are among the largest species of owls.
David Wenham sees his character as naively self-confident. “Digger’s a bit full of himself,” says the actor. “He’s just this little Burrowing Owl and Twilight is this huge presence, but Digger isn’t afraid to stand up to Twilight—although he’s trying to figure out how to tell Twilight that he’s too fond of his lute playing.”

Twilight is a rare combination in the owl or human world: both warrior and wandering minstrel. “He’s a warrior, but fancies himself a poet and a singer, and he struggles quite a bit with both things and everybody has to suffer through it,” jokes Anthony LaPaglia. “He’s funny and sweet. A protector.”
As comic foils, Digger and Twilight balance out the intense and serious Soren and Gylfie in their little band. “Digger and Twilight are incredibly eccentric,” says Zack Snyder. “They have their own take on everything that they confront. They are very Shakespearean—very big personalities. Their outlook is light and fun, so it’s good to have these two characters to play off Soren, because he’s a little pensive.”
The four owls form something of a family. “They’re all looking for that connection,” says Deborah Snyder. “And as they go along their journey, that connection becomes a family. They really truly look out for each other. They’re all different sizes and shapes, and what’s great is that each of them has a skill and they use that skill. Although Gylfie is small, she’s a great navigator. And Digger is a burrowing owl, so he kind of looks for clues along the way. They all use their skill set.”

Ezylryb, played by veteran actor Geoffrey Rush (the Pirates of the Caribbean film series), is a Whiskered Screech Owl who comes to mentor Soren in his quest. “Ezylryb is a crusty old sod,” Rush laughs. “I suppose that’s not too flattering to me since I’ve put a lot of myself in the character. He’s got a powerful past as a leader and former warrior. Ezylryb wants to help Soren on his path to adulthood. He wants to pass on his life experiences to someone he feels will be receptive.”
Another unusual character in the film is a blind snake named Mrs. Plithiver, voiced by veteran character actress Miriam Margoyles (Happy Feet), the nursemaid in Soren’s family hollow. While this detail seems more fantasy than fact, biologists have often discovered that Eastern Screech Owls, for instance, will bring blind snakes back to their nest to use them as housekeepers. Since owls store their primarily rodent food supply in their nests, the snakes are needed to protect them from insect raiders. And Soren’s family is desperately in need of a maid—Barn Owls store more food than any other breed.

“One might assume snakes are evil,” Margoyles notes, “but Mrs. Plithiver is adorable. She takes care of the baby owls and loves them. She is soft-voiced and humorous, but she’s a strict disciplinarian, and somebody that the family relies on. She is a confident, loving nursemaid.”
“The film is not only about your true family, but the people you discover in life, the family you create, like the friends Soren meets on his journey,” says Zack Snyder. “Maybe they didn’t grow up under the same roof as you, but when you finally find them, you want to fight for them, to protect them at all costs.”
The relationships in Soren’s traditional family are a bit more complex than the loyal camaraderie he finds with his orphan band. While Soren vows to defeat the Pure Ones, Kludd has chosen to serve them.

One of the leaders of the Pure Ones is Nyra, a barn owl, voiced by Helen Mirren. “Nyra is ambitious and powerful,” Mirren states. “She’s very smart, but her thinking is twisted. She could have been part of the owl parliament of Ga’Hoole, but she doesn’t like the idea of democracy. She prefers to rule by dictatorship.”
Mirren sees how easily Kludd could be converted to the Pure Ones’ plans. “Young people sometimes think themselves the lords of the world, so they are very open to these dangerous ideas. They’re easily manipulated into believing they’re the chosen ones.” She laughs. “Most teenagers think they’re the chosen ones anyway.”
Zack Snyder views Kludd and Soren’s relationship in the tradition of Biblical brothers Cain and Abel, “What I was interested in was these two characters, one's inherently bad, and the other’s inherently good. They're brothers, there’s love between them, but in the end, Kludd's ambition outstrips any love he has for Soren. The betrayal runs deep.”

Yet Ryan Kwanten (TV’s True Blood), who voices Kludd, believes his character is not so much pure evil as he is a young owl dealing with his personal demons. “Kludd’s dilemma is partly his vulnerability,” Kwanten reveals. “Kludd is a very tortured individual. He doesn’t quite have Soren’s natural abilities, yet he feels like he has to set an example. I know that feeling because I’m also an older brother. Things come to a tipping point when the darker side approaches Kludd. The Pure Ones believe in him or at least tell him that they do. Kludd is easily seduced because he’s been shot down so much. When he’s given the opportunity for a new life, he takes it.”
In stark contrast to the diversity of the owl world, the Pure Ones believe the only worthy owls are those born in Forest Kingdom of Tyto. “The Pure Ones want everyone to be the same,” says Deborah Snyder. “No one can think for themselves. And the Guardians they believe in celebrating everybody’s individual skills and celebrating one’s differences. Everybody has their place; they need to find what they’re good at, and it’s all different and that’s okay. That is more than okay, it’s great.”

That, says Emily Barclay, is the essence of learning how to “trust your gizzard”—owl-speak for listening to one’s instincts. “It’s really important to trust yourself and believe in yourself and follow your instincts,” she says. “There will always be people telling you to do different things or telling you what they think you should be. All this different information comes in from the outside world, but only you know what the best thing is for you, and we all have that ability inside us.”
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is both a personal journey for Soren and an epic odyssey for his band of heroes. But nonetheless, Soren and the others, Lasky asserts, are not super heroes. “Soren doesn't have x-ray vision, or phenomenal strength,” she says. “Like the characters in many heroic stories that I loved as a child, he is rather ordinary. Yet these characters possess something that makes them responsible in spite of themselves, and sets them apart. At the same time these heroes—Soren, Twilight, Digger, and Gylfie—are not totally on their own. A history of owl wisdom exists out there that can be of great use to them if they believe in this place that many think is simply a legend—The Great Ga'Hoole Tree. It is the source of all that is good. It represents a past and a future worth preserving, worth fighting for. This legend inspires Soren and his band and is the ideal that Soren must take to his heart and must make his own. Thus he becomes a hero - a true hero."

This hidden strength is at the heart of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. “It’s really a story about good versus evil,” says Deborah Snyder. “It’s about doing the right thing. And sometimes doing the right thing is a difficult thing to do. But if you follow your instincts and do the right thing, it really pays off in the end. And I think it’s also a message that we’re all different and we all have different things that we can bring to the party of life. Sometimes we might feel a little lost because we’re too small or too big or a little eccentric, but everybody has their place in this world. And if we look inside ourselves and find the thing that we’re good at, then we’re going to be happy. And I think that’s a great message because a lot of times, growing up is hard. It’s hard to figure out who you are and to learn to trust in yourself. “

MAKING THE WORLD OF OWLS REAL

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole balances electrifying action sequences—tumbling, swooping in-flight battles, plunges into dark seas, flying through fire, breathtaking chase scenes—with serene images of Soren gliding through a dazzling shower of rain. And the picture is just as much about family relationships and loyalty as it is about the triumph of good over evil. Comments DeLine, “There might be an action scene, a chase and a battle—it’s thrilling. You’re on the edge of your seat. But around the corner is a funny scene. And the visuals are stunning. We’re going through forests, across skies, night and day in the most incredible landscapes. The 3D makes it all the more amazing.”

The secret at the heart of Soren’s transformational journey is his ability to imagine. Soren is captivated by the Ga’Hoolian legends and he remains open to the possibility that the Guardians exist, and, as his father explained, a legend is no longer a mere story when it becomes true in the heart. Similarly, the director, actors and crew of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, as well as the visionary team at animation/visual effects house Animal Logic, had to make imagination reality by bringing the legends of Ga’Hoole to life on the big screen.
“We don’t think about our movies as animated,” says Zareh Nalbandian. “We think of them as movies; Zack didn’t come on board to make an animated movie, he came to make a great action fantasy adventure, tracking a hero’s journey, which happened to be in an animated world. It was about creating a visual feast for audiences that would be unique.”

Creating a rich fantasy world—what Zack Snyder calls “a stylized reality”—requires an incredible amount of research and work. “When you’re making a film like ours, you’ve got to do your homework,” he reflects. “You have to know what an owl does, how it turns its head, how heavy it is, what it looks like with no feathers. Featherless owls actually exist.”
In the early stages of animation, Featherless owls were among the anatomic models that went into the creation of the film’s menagerie of owls. Nalbandian explains the film’s creative philosophy, “We worked really hard to make an owl world that had integrity. We didn’t want to create a cartoon universe where owls would grow fingers at the tips of their wings. We considered all aspects of the owls in this film, from their language to their weapons.”

The fantastic yet familiar world of the owl kingdom was wholly invented, with real world landscapes used as both model and touchstone. The island of Tasmania, near the southern end of Australia, became the setting for much of the Tyto Forest.
Production designer Simon Whitely, digital supervisor Ben Gunsberger, and art director Grant Freckelton traveled to Tasmania and Australia to film the landscapes that would become the basis for the Tyto Forest and the other owl kingdoms. Utilizing the real imagery the team captured, the art department created matte paintings for the backdrops and other scenery in the film. “We flew across the crater lakes, out over the ocean, then Cape Raoul on the other side of Tasmania, which is a coast full of columns of rock,” Whiteley recalls. “We tried to tie in the landscape closely with the story.”

Originally, Kathryn Lasky had planned on writing a non-fiction book on owls. As her project evolved into a fantasy series, Lasky wove many factual details about owl breeds, behavior and habitat seamlessly within her stories. Following through on this wealth of details, the production sought to likewise include most of the major owl species in the film. While small details might change from book to screen, the mandate for every department was to make everything about the owls as close to real as possible, taking into consideration every aspect, from owl habits to anatomy and movement, so that the film’s owls would fly, blink, eat and relate to each other like real owls. To further enhance their study, Whiteley and Grant Freckelton traveled to owl sanctuaries and natural history museums throughout England and Australia to study the animals.
“Owls are probably the most like humans of all birds,” Whiteley notes. “Working with the owls in the sanctuaries, you could tell immediately that they’ve got personalities just like humans—I met happy owls, grumpy owls, and angry owls. There was an owl named Fluffy in the UK sanctuary who was just like a pet. You could stroke him and scratch him.”

Whiteley catalogued the unique habits of real owls to match the individual movements and personalities of the movie owls. “We filmed about 20 or 30 species of owls, doing all sorts of things—flying, running, eating, bathing—and, of course, yarping up their pellets. We wanted to create owls that were realistic and did all of the owl-y things that Kathryn Lasky had written into the books. Our owls had to be close—if not better—than real owls.” In his catalogue of movements, “I had owls taking off, landing, flying fast, flying slow, pivoting, hovering, waiting to attack their prey.”
Once the extensive research had finished, the animators and artists at Animal Logic attended “owl school.” First, the creative teams studied Whiteley’s owl footage and learned all the moves from attacking and perching to flying. The riggers worked with the animators, surface artists and model-makers to create the look and movement of the characters. Riggers must have a strong sense of anatomy and motion to create and control the 3D movements of the characters, which in this case meant creating CG owls that fly and swoop and dive. The character effects department then made sure every detail worked in unison—that every feather on each bird flowed correctly in the wind.

Contrary to popular legend, owls can’t “turn their heads all the way around,” but their mobility is quite impressive. Some species can rotate their heads up to 270 degrees. They can also rotate their heads upside down and backwards. So if something is coming from behind, they can flip their heads back and protect themselves.
Ben Gunsberger recalls the challenge of replicating that trademark owl characteristic on film. “It’s an amazing thing to watch them spin their heads around, but to do that at a technical level is incredibly difficult. All the feathers needed to intersect properly and the joints need to move. We studied owl skeletons at the natural history museum to see how the joints moved, but it took months and months to get that looking right. People might think, ‘Oh, what a cute behavior!’ but it takes a lot of effort to make it convincing.”

Eyes may be an owl’s most defining feature, and replicating the birds’ eyes was among the most challenging jobs of the CG wizards bringing them to life. Owls’ eyes have a slightly “tubular” shape, which allows them to focus on prey from far distances. And owls, like reptiles and sharks, have a nictating membrane. This ingenious feature functions like a third eyelid that keeps the bird’s eye moist without blocking its vision. The membrane allows the owl to see while protecting their eye from the beaks of their chicks during feeding time, or shielding the owl from flying debris when they’re hunting.
Deborah Snyder emphasizes that beyond realism, the owls of the film were created to express the emotion of the characters. “What kind of emotion does an owl have?” she muses. “What can they do when they are fighting? These owls fight in battle claws and helmets.”
This emphasis on dreaming up a world created by owls extended to every aspect of the film, “a world that we’ve never seen before,” Snyder continues. “Zack always said, ‘I want the world to not feel like there were humans there at all.’ And that’s really exciting. But because it’s a fantastical world and doesn’t exist, there’s a lot of research and development into what that world looks like. So, it was quite challenging. Zack is coming to it with a live-action perspective. So, I think, the film looks and feels quite different.”

One of the most important settings in the film is the Great Ga’Hoole tree. Home to the Parliament of the Guardians (“parliament” is the actual term for a group of owls, not just the Guardians’ governing body), the Ga’Hoole tree symbolizes both the wisdom of the noble protectors as well as their deep connection to the nature. Rising from a lush island in the Sea of Hoolemere, the tree is the natural opposite of the cold stone pits of St. Aggie’s. Environment Supervisor Greg Jowel says, “If the Ga’Hoole tree were to exist in our world, it would be about five times bigger than the largest redwood. In the movie, the tree just dwarfs the tiny isolated island where the Guardians live.”

All details of owl culture have been painstakingly researched, created and imagined by the designers and animators. But the actors who voice the characters must also bring the personality of each owl to life. Although the actors may not appear on screen, there is much more to their performance than reading lines. To fully inhabit their roles, the actors must bring a sense of physicality that will inspire the image on the screen. Ryan Kwanten talks about creating the character of Kludd. “I’m such a physical actor anyway. I love to express myself with my hands, so in some ways this movie has been no different than non-animated ones I’ve done. Even when there is no dialogue, when I am just flying from branch to branch, I still have to create the right sound. We’ve done some mountain climbing scenes in hours of ADR (automated dialogue replacement) sessions and I can happily say that I’m exhausted by the end of it. But it’s a good feeling. I feel like I was right there on the branch with Kludd.”

For his portrayal of Ezylryb, Geoffrey Rush drew on his experience in a puppetry workshop in Melbourne, Australia. “You can be anything and do anything you want as a puppet. Even if you’re playing a life-like human figure, its limbs can come off. It can fly or it can do things that are physically impossible for human beings to do, which is very liberating. So I can be a screech owl that’s only 20 centimeters tall. I can have molting feathers and a really cute beak. My eyes can be huge. It’s fun to figure out how you turn all of that into a voice.”
Jim Sturgess, the voice of Soren, relied on his imagination. “There were moments when I was flying, in full battle, fighting owls from every direction, when in reality I was standing in a dark room with a microphone, doing all the actions as I said the lines.”

He attributes much of his success at finding the character to working with Zack Snyder, “Zack is so expressive with the way he describes things. He’s so passionate about these characters and these owls in this story. He made it very easy.”
The actors also collaborated with supervising sound editor Wayne Pashley at Animal Logic, who infused the sound mix with an approximation of the complex worlds in Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. “Most people think that owls just hoot, but hooting is only a territorial sound,” Pashley describes. “Owl sounds are really varied. They can purr, growl or whisper. They can click or buzz. They can do all these wonderful things. I’ve incorporated the attributes assigned to each of the species—from Desert Owls (Gylfie), Barn Owls (Soren, Nyra and the other owls of the Tyto kingdom) to Great Greys like Twilight or Whiskered Screech Owls like Ezylryb.”
Like so many other creative processes in Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, the blending of the real and imagined creates a magical texture and depth. “I’ve used the real sounds of owls,” Pashley continues, “and combined them within the dialogue. Geoffrey Rush has actually done his own version of owl noises for me—a cry from a battle sequence, or the sound of an owl being threatened. Helen Mirren and Sam Neill contributed too. We’ve taken the real sound, layered that on top of the actors’ lines and morphed them within each other. So hopefully it will sound like a seamless transition from dialogue to the actual bird and then back again.”

It has taken teams of dedicated artists, writers and actors years of hard work to create the unique world of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, but, as Ryan Kwanten reveals, the process is also a lot of fun. “If someone from the outside world came into the studio and saw this mad young man flapping his arms like they were wings, and talking to a screen, they’d probably put me away,” Kwanten grins. “But as an actor, you’ve got to put yourself in that character’s space. In this case, that means right into the talons of the owl. As strange as it might seem, that’s how I have chosen to make a living.”
“The really interesting part of this movie has been exploring these characters and meeting new people and working with the great people in the cast,” Zack Snyder relates, “like David Wenham, who is hilarious as Digger. Geoffrey Rush as the crusty, Yoda-like owl Ezylryb is awesome. Helen Mirren, whom I’ve always been a fan of, as Nyra is sexy, scary and really cool in this part. And Jim Sturgess is amazing as Soren—and it’s a difficult role because it’s really Soren’s movie and he has to overcome so much. But Jim manages to become that hero. He makes us feel that it’s possible for us to trust ourselves, and to overcome our obstacles too.”

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole will be released in Real D, 3D and IMAX-3D on 22nd October 2010.