Although the commercial looks like a penguin ‘hombre’ is walking through the Aquarium and checking out the various exhibits as the new guy in town, he never actually left his exhibit,” says Newberry. Sub-Antarctic penguins like gentoos and macaronis must stay in their climate controlled environment, so a special technology was used to give the illusion our black and white buckaroo was wandering around both the River Journey and Ocean Journey buildings.

Blue Is Not My Color – Or Is It?
One week before filming was to begin Atomic Films in Chattanooga delivered 15 feet of blue screen material to Aquarium penguin keeper Amy Graves. Amy placed the material in the back-up room where most of the commercial would be filmed so the penguins could get used to the new blue floor covering. “It took a couple of days before any of the penguins would even touch the blue. They would stretch their necks out and look at it, but they wouldn’t actually touch it. At the end of the second day one penguin finally went in, touched it and turned back around and headed out,” remembers Graves. But penguins like to play follow the leader, so once the “ice was broken” the rest seemed to think nothing of wandering into the back-up room and walking around on the blue material.

That’s A Wrap
Once the penguin blue screen filming was complete, the various galleries at the Tennessee Aquarium were filmed on the second day of the shoot. Background scenes of the toothy sharks, alligators, butterflies and leafy sea dragons were carefully set up and shot from angles that would match the penguin action in the foreground. Each location had to have special lighting and coordinated action such as releasing butterflies into the scene. The rest of the magic was performed in the editing suite where the birds were electronically dropped in front of the Aquarium scenes.