"It put us in the same class as industry leaders like Pixar and Weta Digital." IBM helped Animal Logic select the best management tools to deploy and control the servers while in production.

These included software from IBM and an open source package for administering computing clusters. For Animal Logic, the obvious sign of the success of the project from an IT perspective, was that the entire rendering server farm of more than 2,000 computers was managed by a single person. "We are a creative company, not a technology company. Computers help us achieve our goals," he said.

"We have to make sure we choose solutions that aren't overly complex to set up or manage, so our focus can stay on realizing the creative visions of our clients." Happy Feet quickly became one of the Australian film industry's greatest box office successes, taking the number-one spot in the United States for three consecutive weeks. It made more than US$41 million on its opening weekend and showed on 3,800 cinema screens.