He attributes that partly to the skill of the animators and the digital artists who created and integrated the tongue into the scene, but a bigger part is understanding both Toad's personality and the situations, and being able to translate that information into images that look and feel organic. Fink noted that there are no short cuts. He had to get into the mind of the director and understand exactly what he was thinking, and he and Sigel also had to be on the same page all of the time. While all of the effects shots were storyboarded and planned with animatics, the script was always evolving with new interpretations. He and Sigel spoke almost every day in pre-production, and of course, during production.
Fink believes that directors and cinematographers have much more creative freedom today.
Motion tracking software allows them to move the camera freely, and they can shoot with the same type of camera, lenses, film stocks and lighting they use for live-action photography. It is also important to understand that while the evolution of digital technology is providing powerful new tools, each practitioner brings their own innate talent, skills and experience to every project. Fink is a case in point. He started as an artist and photographer, but through work on films, found he enjoyed the collaborative process. We can encourage radical movement of the camera and we can create three-dimensional, synthetic backgrounds that enable us to move in perfect sync with the camera that films the actors in ways not possible a few years ago.