Crowded into a theater on Oahu's famed North Shore were some of the world's best big-wave riders. They'd been invited to preview Hollywood's latest stab at a surf movie, and there were plenty of skeptics on hand.
Dating to the late 1950s, when Gidget first grabbed a board, the studios could never seem to get it right, populating their films with goofy stereotypes and implausible plots. But this one was different. When the lights went down, giant waves rose up on the screen -- peeling and pitching perfectly. White water exploded toward the sky as the translucent barrels crashed on coral reefs. A pint-sized surfer sliced across them.
Dazzled, the audience hooted and hollered. Whoa, those waves were unreal.
Literally.
Odd as it may seem, "Surf's Up" -- an Academy Award nominee for best animated feature -- has been embraced by the surfing community as arguably the most authentic studio offering about wave riding since "Big Wednesday" in 1978. This, even though its marquee stars are penguins and a laid-back (stoned?) bird named Chicken Joe, who was picked by Surfer magazine as "the most intriguing surfer of 2007."
Veteran watermen brought their experience to play in virtually every facet of the movie, which mimics the documentary style of countless DVDs stacked in surf shops, from Bruce Brown's classic "Endless Summer" to his son's soulful "Step Into Liquid."
The lead wave animator is a hard-core surfer, as is the film's editor. Recruited as consultants were surfing greats Kelly Slater and Rob Machado, who later gave voice to a couple of penguin sports commentators of the same names and general appearance. And then there's Jeff Bridges, who plays an aging and reclusive penguin, once the greatest surfer of all. Bridges has been paddling into Malibu's swells since he was 14.
The actor says he was sold the minute the producer and directors let him peek at their waves. "You look at it and go, 'I know this isn't a photograph, but it looks so damn real.' They showed me those waves, and I got hooked."
Blame the birds?
Although reviews of "Surf's Up" were mostly good, the movie was a box-office disappointment for Sony Pictures Animation, making only $17.6 million domestically in its opening weekend in June.
Some studio executives say that by the time "Surf's Up" debuted, moviegoers were suffering from penguin fatigue. Their picture had been in development for years but was a step behind the Academy Award-winning documentary "March of the Penguins" and the animated "Happy Feet."
Oscar prognosticators expressed surprise, even shock, when "Surf's Up" received a nomination alongside Sony Pictures Classics' "Persepolis" and Pixar Animation's "Ratatouille," the favorite to win. It trumped two Golden Globe nominees, "The Simpsons Movie" and "Bee Movie" with Jerry Seinfeld. But the arched eyebrows had less to do with the movie's merits than with its apparent invisibility among industry insiders.
"I don't know anyone who's seen it," says one Academy Award consultant for a rival studio.
Sony Entertainment chief Amy Pascal, who calls "Surf's Up" a "love letter to surfing," says the film was swamped by a summer of big movies but did ride a wave of acclaim among one appreciative audience segment -- animators, many of whom help pick Oscar nominees.
"There's incredible love for it in the animation community because it's something you haven't seen before," Pascal says. "The water is amazing."
In fact, weeks before the Oscar lineup was announced, the animation society's Hollywood branch nominated "Surf's Up" for 10 of its Annie Awards, just behind "Ratatouille," with 13.
"Surf's Up" is, of course, a longshot to win an Oscar. But if the surfing world could vote, the movie would likely paddle off with the statue.
Initially, the sport was simply a backdrop for a "very cartoony" love story between two penguins living on a tropical island, says producer Chris Jenkins, who, as an animator, specialized in ocean scenes. Jenkins says the more he learned about the spiritual nature of surfing, the more potential he saw for a film with deeper meanings and metaphors.
"There's an eternal quality to the ocean," he says. "There's always going to be another wave and another opportunity. The lesson is: Don't look to what you've missed, look to what's coming your way."
With the original concept scrapped, "Surf's Up" was turned into a "mockumentary" about the quest of a headstrong young penguin (Shia LaBeouf) to win the Penguin World Surfing Championship. Along the way, he encounters a huckster promoter (James Woods), a cutthroat rival (Diedrich Bader), a winsome lifeguard (Zooey Deschanel) and a surfing legend named Big Z (Bridges), who teaches the upstart competitor that winning isn't everything.
The new plot required a greater need for authenticity, Jenkins says. "It was important that we weren't painting another parody of surfers."
