Creating, designing and producing DEEPO’S UNDERSEA 3D WONDERSHOW, a turn-key animated 4D attraction, was a significant triumph for the company and has already proven to be a hit with guests of all ages, donning 3-D glasses to see a colourful, musical story about marine life and the responsibilities of human kind.

Featuring more than a dozen oceanic characters including fish, sharks and sea turtles, the 12 minute Deepo plunges the audience into the deep-sea world of Pixar’s Finding Nemo. Digital Dimension, Montreal handled the storyboarding layout, modelling, animation, rendering and compositioning, while GGE created, designed and produced the wondershow.

Michael Heroux, VP of post production for the Montreal Studio comments on the intricacies of the production “The biggest challenge was working in 3-D stereoscopic, because it meant doing everything twice. Deepo has a stage/live show feel; characters know we are looking at them and they are looking at us, so it was important to get into a looking-at-the-camera kind if wink-wink, interact-with-the-audience animation style”

Deepo’s characters were modelled on concepts by character designer Phil Mendex and animation was completed using Autodesk’s 3ds Max, while Eyen on Digital Fusion is used for stereoscopic compositioning and Mental Images’ Mental Ray for rendering.

Following the success of Digital Dimension’s CG-animated horses for Warner Bros live action comedy Racing Stripes, the team were eager to produce a similar effect with an underwater completely animate project; the success with Deepo has been so immense it has led to a GC feature film deal with unnamed former Disney producers.

“Gary Goddard and his team provided some wonderful out of the box thinking and inspiration to the Georgian Aquarium” said Bernie Marcus, the Aquarium’s founder and benefactor, and also the founder of the Home Depot retail stores, “ They brought imagination and creativity to assist our team in developing entertainment strategies for telling the fantastic stories of the aquatic realm” he adds “We were certain that the Deepo 3D show would be entertaining and educational for all who sees it, and it has exceeded every expectation we had. I think that we expected the show to appeal to children over adults, but we have found it engages all ages.”

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