Those Chocolate Factory Squirrels are Lively Posted by: Kim Lance    FilmLottm

In comparing the 1971 classic film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder, with the updated Tim Burton version of today, one noticeable difference is that the modern day version, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, contains several new and exciting factory rooms. Perhaps one of the most unique new additions to Wonka’s chocolate factory is the nut-sorting room full of intelligent and picky squirrels. What you may not realize is that in this version of the Chocolate Factory Burton actually used live, trained squirrels.

As Wonka leads the children into the nut-sorting room, the group is greeted by the sight of dozens of these furry rodents, all perched on their own tiny stool, intently examining each walnut, picking out the good nuts, tossing the bad ones, and removing the whole walnut from its shell each time. Wonka explains that no other creature on earth, including any man or machine, could pick out good nuts from bad with such accuracy and speed. Just as Wonka needed to use real squirrels to run work in his nut sorting room, the director of the film, Tim Burton, only the real thing would do for the movie. Burton’s wanted 100 real, live trained squirrels to appear in his film.

“When I found out what was involved, it was a bit overwhelming,” says Senior Animal Trainer Mike Alexander, of Birds & Animals Unlimited. Alexander had worked with Burton as a chimpanzee wrangler for Planet of the Apes, and was happy to work with him again, but he admits, “squirrels can be very tough, and training 100 of them was inconceivable.”

Burton and Alexander compromised on the number of squirrels and decided on 40 individual live animals. To give the appearance of more, the animals on screen were a combination of the live squirrels, skillfully crafted animatronics, and CG and multiple images. Alexander’s team of four trainers, in accordance with the Humane Society, spent 19 weeks participating in mostly one-on-one interaction with the animals.

While the little critters are intelligent, they can also be difficult to handle due to their independent and unpredictable nature. Alexander relates, “they’re not necessarily good at doing specific, intricate things. They don’t like to sit still. They’re hard to keep in one place. The first couple of weeks were spent in just getting the animals to come out of their crates and sit with us, nevermind any of the things they were supposed to do.

“We took baby steps,” he continues. “After they were comfortable sitting with us we introduced them to the props. We taught them to pick up a nut and put it into a metal bowl, which is not what they’d do in the movie but once they got the idea of picking the nut up and putting it into a bowl we could change the bowl to a conveyer belt. Once they grasped the basic concepts, they began to learn faster and things started coming together.”

Where Did Burton Get Those Smart Squirrels?
You may be wondering where Tim Burton and his crew were able to find 40 squirrels for training. Most of the squirrels came from local rescue shelters, but a few came from private homes in the United Kingdom. Because squirrels from a rescue shelter cannot be released into the wild, by law, for their own protection after being rescued, the squirrels from the shelter were adopted by Birds & Animals Unlimited after filming commenced. The squirrels from private homes were returned to their owners.

Every squirrel had its own name and its own personality and talents. “All of them are capable of learning, but some are naturally better at certain things than others,” says Alexander. “We found that some of them had no interest at all in picking up the nut, while others, once they had it, refused to let it go. Those that didn’t lend themselves to being ‘good nut squirrels’ were moved to a second group, being trained to run across the floor toward Veruca. Our smartest squirrels do the nut gag.”

A Little Movie Making Magic Helped the Furry Creatures Go Nuts On Screen
Because of potential dangers to the animals or their natural instincts, there was a limit to what the squirrels could and could not do. To help the Burton accomplish his true vision for the nut room, animatronic and CG experts were relied upon. Burton turned to film illusion experts to effectively articulate on screen what Burton wanted to express. The job of the experts was to make CGI squirrels as lifelike as possible. They needed to capture a squirrel’s energy, while still making their actions and interactions realistic.

Jon Thum, Visual Effects Supervisor for Framestore-CFC, was brought on to lend his expertise to the squirrel action, eventually contributing 88 VFX shots to the mix, “multiplying the real squirrels in about 15 shots as well as the much harder task of creating squirrels from scratch for another 64. Some shots of the squirrels on stools, turning their heads, had to be CG, and once they are on the floor they are mostly CG shots.”

In order to give the image of 100 squirrels, the film team had to capture the squirrels performing on cue individually and then join the images so that it looked like a group of squirrels working together. An example of this strategy can be seen if the exciting scene where the group of peeved squirrels jump from their work stations and run toward Veruca Salt. Thum explains, “They could jump, but not all at the same time. So we had to shoot each squirrel alone, jumping off its stool, and then synchronize them into one shot.”

Virtual Squirrels – Both Computer Generated Images and Animatronics
In order to create the virtual squirrels needed, Thum’s team had to examine the real squirrels very carefully and painstakingly render the computer images hair by hair to convey individuality. Thum explains that his team “took loads of reference footage of the real thing. We had them running, jumping, shelling nuts, tugging at bits of fabric. Animation cycles were built based on this reference to use in all the shots, then for any ‘hero’ squirrels the animators would go in and keyframe that squirrel individually. In some shots our job was to animate actions the animals could not do, like tap Veruca on the head, but the movements you see them doing right before and after that are referenced from real squirrels.”

For even more squirrels, animatronic squirrels were mixed in with real animals. Scanlan produced 12 animatronic models, plus some partials attached to hand-held poles. “In most of the shots there will be a live squirrel in the foreground performing an action and several animatronics in the background repeating it,” he says. “The advantage of animatronics is that they don’t mind doing things endlessly and they don’t complain; but they’re never going to appear as real, so mixing and matching is the way to go.”

The animatronic squirrels were animated by internal motor packs that allowed them to move their heads, hold, shake, and listen to nuts, and move their tails. Animatronic puppets were used along with live animals to help knock down Veruca when she attempts to kidnap one of the squirrels through the use of hand and mouth springs to grasp onto the fabric of Veruca’s dress. Add in a few CGI created squirrels to this seen and it really looks like Veruca is being covered from head to toe with angry squirrels.

Whether a squirrelly puppet, computer generated critter, or real life rodent, the kids, parents and the chocolate creator realistically interact with the furry animals in the nut room scene of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. With help from animal trainers, graphic experts, and animatronic developers, Tim Burton was able to effectively create the illusion of 100 busy squirrels, working hard in the chocolate factory to give Wonka the perfect whole walnuts needed for his delicious candy.