Over The Hedge
Spring has sprung, and Verne and his woodland friends awaken from their long winter’s nap to discover that a tall, green “thing” has mysteriously cropped up right through the middle of their home. Enter RJ, an opportunistic raccoon, who explains that the world beyond the hedge is the “gateway to the good life” where peculiar creatures called humans live to eat, rather than eat to live. Suspicious and even a little jealous of RJ, the ever-cautious Verne wants to keep his blended family safely on their side of the hedge. But, proving the adage that one man’s garbage is another man’s—or rather animal’s—treasure, the manipulative RJ tries to convince the woodland band that there is little to fear and everything to gain from their over-indulgent new neighbors. Eventually, RJ and Verne form an unlikely friendship as they learn to co-exist with—and even exploit—this strange new world called suburbia.

Over The Hedge
Official Site

Heading up an all-star voice cast, Bruce Willis (the “Die Hard” franchise, “Sixth Sense”) is the voice of the mischievous con-artist raccoon named RJ, and Emmy winner Garry Shandling (TV’s “The Larry Sanders Show,” “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show”) voices the overprotective turtle named Verne in the computer-animated comedy OVER THE HEDGE. Rounding out the voice cast of OVER THE HEDGE are: Steve Carell (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” TV’s “The Office”) as a hyperactive squirrel named Hammy; two-time Emmy winner William Shatner (TV’s “Boston Legal”) as Ozzie, a possum who excels at playing dead with a melodramatic flair; chart-topping recording artist Avril Lavigne as Ozzie’s daughter, Heather; Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy (both “A Mighty Wind,” “Best in Show”), who are paired as the porcupine couple Penny and Lou, with a brood of little porcupine mouths to feed; comedienne Wanda Sykes as a sassy skunk named Stella; two-time Oscar® nominee Nick Nolte (“Affliction,” “The Prince of Tides”) as a bear named Vincent; and Omid Djalili (“Casanova”) as a spoiled housecat named Tiger. On the human side, four-time Emmy winner Allison Janney (TV’s “The West Wing”) plays Gladys, the president of the local homeowners’ association, who isn’t about to see her neighborhood overrun by wildlife; and Oscar® nominee Thomas Haden Church (“Sideways”) as “the Verminator,” whom Gladys hires to rid the area of our woodland heroes.

Based on the popular comic strip by Michael Fry and T Lewis, “Over the Hedge” is being directed by Tim Johnson (“Antz”) and Karey Kirkpatrick (“Chicken Run” screenwriter), making his directorial debut. Bonnie Arnold (“Toy Story,” “Tarzan”) is producing. The screenplay is by Len Blum and Lorne Cameron & David Hoselton and Karey Kirkpatrick.

FUN FACTS:
“Over the Hedge” follows what happens to RJ, Verne and their wilderness friends
when a suburban housing development encroaches on their home in the forest. Verne's
first instinct is to retreat into his shell, but the opportunistic RJ sees a treasure trove to be
had from his unsuspecting new neighbors in the strange new world known as suburbia.

GENERAL PRODUCTION FACTS:
• There are 32 sequences in the film.
• There are over 1427 shots in the film.
• There are over 110,880 frames in the film.
• It took a crew of 237 over three years to make the film.
• In total, close to 52,000 storyboard panels were drawn over the course of
production.
• Gladys used to be a realtor, not a homeowner’s association representative.
• The character Dwayne used to be a neighbor that dabbled in taxidermy.
• Director Karey Kirkpatrick’s son Sami voiced Bucky the porcupine kid.
• During the course of production, the editorial department recorded 12,226 scratch
lines. Scratch voices are usually performed by the crew and stand in for the actors
until the story is approved and they get the official recording.
• In an early version of the film a weasel character named Ratso was squished by a
pizza truck and buried in a pizza box.
• In an early version of the film the two main characters, RJ and Verne, fed a
laxative to the villain’s poodle to keep him “busy.”
• The early version of the film contained over 200 characters and involved an
“over-crowded forest.”
• RJ originally had a side kick, a fast talking blue jay, named Rufus.
• Nugent used to be a standard poodle named Waffles.
• Miscellaneous character Barry is used in every BBQ scene.
• Everyone that lives in our suburbs drives an SUV.
• There are no birds or bunnies or any other animals in the forest except for the one
dragonfly.
SET DESIGN:
• 170 color keys were designed for the film.
• The interior hedge is based on the hedge in front of the DreamWorks Animation
studio. The exterior of the hedge is based on the vines growing on the parking
garage.
• The movie is set in the following locations:
- Suburb street, houses and yards
- Woodlands, the hedge
- RJ’s home
- Gladys’ living room
- Gladys’ kitchen
- Vincent’s hill, rest stop, cave
- Nugent’s backyard
- 9 miscellaneous backyards
- 9 miscellaneous interiors
• A blend of 2-3 different housing developments in Middle America and California
were used as a model for Rancho Camelot Estates, including suburbs/housing
developments in Indiana and North Carolina, as well as Southern California.
• Indiana and North Carolina rural areas were used as reference/inspiration in
designing the look of the forest.
• In the forest the sky always has fluffy clouds. In the suburbs the sky only has
contrails.
PROP DESIGN:
• Extensive research was done in order to create such props as:
- The vending machine -- the art department went to a bowling alley to take
pictures, sketch, and to write down information. Everyone at the bowling
alley thought the artists were insane!
- Food products -- one of the artists was kicked out of a grocery store for
taking pictures of food items to be used as inspiration.
• Nearly all of the food packages have the same nutritional information, weight, and
ingredients.
• Lamps, gutters and suburbia signage are all based on research done in a suburb of
Southern California.
• RJ’s golf bag was so intricate that the animation team had to consider it its own
character. Each time it was on RJ’s shoulder, it required a lot of man power from
the animation and character effects teams to pull each hair out of the way of the
strap. Most of the props that go in RJ’s bag would not actually fit inside the bag.
• 8 different wagons were designed for the film.
ANIMATION & CHARACTER EFFECTS:
• The animators used the following as influences when animating the characters in
the film:
- The personalities and nuances of each of the voice actors were used to
create their animated counterparts.
- RJ's quick thinking and confident, smooth attitude were influenced by
Fred Astaire and characters such as Bugs Bunny and Harold Hill from The
Music Man.
- Verne's initial inspiration was Jack Lemmon’s character from The
Apartment, giving him that awkward, uncomfortable-in-his-own-skin (or
shell) type of spirit.
- Hammy has an innocent child-like mentality with the speed of Road
Runner.
- Stella's personality was influenced by Sandra Bullock’s character from
Miss Congeniality with combat boots (before makeover), and the
confidence of Jane Russell’s character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (after
makeover).
- The porcupines weren’t influenced by any particular actor’s personality,
but their mid-western "golly jeepers" bubbly-ness translated into a water
balloon type motion.
• An animal expert visited the Glendale campus of DreamWorks Animation with a
variety of animals to be used as reference in developing the characters in the film.
Some of the animals brought in included raccoons, porcupines, turtles and
opossums.
• The model of the little boy named Timmy was stretched and distorted and given
an extra set of arms to become the Alien. He was colored green because green
butts are funny.
• For each main character, the face systems have about 300 controls each.
• The body has about 500-700 controls (depending on extra parts such as tails,
movable ears, turtle shell, etc.)
• These numbers include multiple axis of rotation or translation on a single joint.
• 44 key human characters were designed for the film, but only 23 stayed in the
picture (not counting generic humans)!
• Verne’s tail comes off with his shell.
• Each animal has a different length of fur:
• For example, there is short fur on Hammy’s body versus long quills on
Lou and Penny.
• RJ’s fur is more dense than any other character’s fur.
• Stella has multiple hair styles. She goes from being “Messy Stella” to
“Cat Stella” to “Beautiful Stella.”
• Hammy also has a rabid variation.
• All of the characters have very short fur on their faces.
• When we first started the film, Verne had 3 hairs on the top of his head,
but they got shaved off in the filmmaking process.
ANIMATION & CHARACTER EFFECTS (continued):
• Animators use magnets to move groups of fur around, like cheek tuft. They also
simulate the dynamic motion of the fur with guide hairs for things like overlap
and secondary motion on the fur.
• Some of the hardest fur movements came when the animals hugged. It was so
difficult to control and so expensive to fix that the animators had a quota of how
many hugs they could have per sequence (2). Learning to hide fur contact
became an art form; the animator that did the best job at it got a prize.
• Stella’s fur is so dark and shiny that the dynamic motion is very visible in
lighting. As a result, the motion of her fur had to be greatly reduced so that it
wouldn’t be distracting.
• The porcupine quills were actually rigid hairs. They were difficult to control
because they were so long. They often would impale themselves and those
around them.
• The opossums’ fur has two lengths, a shorter layer underneath and long hairs on
top. This gives it a good look and the fur wasn’t too difficult to control except in
the neck area where the opossums would penetrate themselves every time they
looked up.
• “Squash and Stretch”
- All of the key characters had body parts with the ability to squash and
stretch. One of the traditional 2D animators drew “squash and stretch”
extremes for each animal and the Character Technical Directors used these
drawings as a benchmark to aim for with the rigs.
- If the animal’s arms stretched too long, extra hairs had to be grown on its
skin.
- “Squash and Stretch” was more restrictive with the human characters
because of the realistic nature of the clothing.
• The animators have control of Verne’s belly button and can make it either an
“inny” or an “outy.”
• No human character can wear a skirt because of the camera angle.
• An Associate Professor in Vertebrate Paleontology gave tutorials to the animators
on animal movement and on “how women walk.”
• Approximately 20 character sculpts (maquettes) were created during the design
phase of production.

MODELING/SURFACING:
• Lisa Gunn, a professional makeup artist who was also working on the film, gave
tutorials to the surfacing team to teach them how to apply makeup to the human
characters in the film.
• 113,400 square feet of simulated cloth is in the movie, which is equal to 2.6 acres!
In essence, each character gets a brand new outfit every 1/24th of a second.
• RJ has 1,656,680 hairs on his whole body.
• Verne has the lowest amount of hairs out of all the animals. He has 1,844 which
are just his eyelashes!
• Ozzie has 477,037 hairs compared to his daughter, Heather, who has 403,649.
• Tiger, the cat, has the most hairs of all the animals at 9,899,784.
• Nugent has 4,842,793 hairs.
• Vincent has the 3rd highest amount of hairs at 4,178,450.
• Hammy has 3,620,849 hairs.
• Stella, as a cat, has 1,851,839 hairs. Beautiful Stella has 997,037. Messy Stella
has 1,812,765 hairs.
• The porcupine family: Penny (481,059 hairs) has more than her husband, Lou,
who has 360,322. She has 379 long quills, and he has 571 long quills. The
porcupine kids each have 332,713 hairs and 585 long quills.

VISUAL EFFECTS:
• The effects team shot reference footage for about 10 different key effects.
• The directors participated in silly string and orange peel video shoots that were
used as reference.
• Effects artist Lawrence Lee participated in a video experimenting with whipped
cream used as reference for the Cookie Heist sequence and spray cheese used as
reference for “RJ’s Tour.” Lee became a “hedgehold” name after his infamous
whipped cream reference footage!
• The effects team was inspired by classic cartoons for the rapid, zany movement of
the characters.
• Live-action reference of fountains, willow trees, hedges, bottles shattering and
umbrellas were also used in designing the looks for the movie.
• Web research of heat distortion, snow, water spray, and dynamics was used.
• The Hedge, in total, has about 25 million leaves.
- It is 7’ high x 3’ deep x 2160’ wide (made up of 24 90-foot-wide sections).
- The leaf layer is about 3-4 inches thick.
- The hedge is, for the most part, single-sided.
• Other than the Hedge, the tree with the highest leaf-count is a saggy tree, which
has 193,044 leaves.
• The effects team has built over 70 different kinds of trees and plants; of these,
there are 15 different types of big trees in the woodlands, 22 types of shrubs in the
woodlands, and 7 types of ground covers.
• There are 337 trees and 1350 shrubs in the woodlands.

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