Jeff's Den

The wildly talented animators at Balance Studios are always ready to show off their skills, so when commissioned by National Geographic, the world leader of geography, nature, and exploration, it was an opportunity that just fit. Hoping to expand their Animal Planet market, NatGeo created a series geared toward the adult sketch comedy crowd, that would feature five animal-centric skits throughout its 30-minute episodes. In partnership with Lucas Telepicture, Balance created two, 3-minute animated shorts called Jeff's Den --a take off of the popular Wayne's World skit.

Working within an intense production schedule and an even tighter timeline, the animators made the wild project seem tame and created three super-fun photo-real 3D animal characters: an anthropomorphized lion and a panda, who host their own show and a special guest DJ bunny. The two banter back and forth as they host their hilarious talk show.

The challenge of creating 3D photo-real models with fur, is to maintain the reality, even in movement that is not natural for the animals. Utilizing Balance's real-time, proprietary facial recognition and tracking software along with extensive hand animation, the in-house character artists were able to record and sync up their voiceovers to the exact facial movements of the characters speaking. Once filming was complete, the team used their in-house rendering farm to complete the super-fun pieces that were featured in the National Geographic show's line-up.