Jungle Beat: The Movie
Jungle Beat: The Movie is a 2020 computer-animated film directed by Brent Dawes, based on the characters of the television series "Jungle Beat". It tells the story of a homesick alien who crash-lands his spaceship near the colorful African Jungle. His new animal friends need to get him back to his ship and teach him about friendship and fun before his Space-Conqueror father can take over the planet. The film premiered at the 2020 Annecy International Animation Film Festival and was released by Netflix on May 14, 2021. Plot. In a jungle isolated  in the African plains, live a group of animals including Munki the bold, adventurous ape, Trunk, the big-hearted elephant, Rocky, the dog-like rhino, Tallbert, the earnest & award giraffe, Humph, the grumpy hedgehog, Ribbert, the lazy frog, a female ostrich & her 3 unhatched chicks that always try to escape, & Ray the firefly. One morning, Munki & Trunk wake up to discover that they can speak, which they take advantage of. They learn that the source of them talking is an alien named Fneep, who has come from the planet Scaldron to conquer Earth and has brought some amazing technology with  him, including a translation device that lets the animals talk for the first time that Munki tries on the others, which they sometimes don't come in contact with during the film, but won't let the group help him get home for no reason. The animals make him give in easily & allow themselves to surrender peacefully, making Fneep's conquest a success. They learn from Fneep that his ship crashed near the mountains, & since he's conquered Earth, he can use the homing beacon in his ship that summons & makes the Scaldronians arrive instantly. Munki, Trunk, Rocky, & Humph agree  to come with him on the way to Fneep's ship. While crossing the plains, they meet a group of singing wildebeest, whose leader misbelieves that Fneep may become the new leader due to the fact that he's conquered Earth & tries to keep his position, but Fneep manages to outdo him, & tells him that the herd are great at what they do & that only reason they follow him is that they love what he does. Resolved, the leader allows them to pass. One of the ostrich eggs tries to follow them & is almost run over by a wildebeest stampede  that Munki & Trunk inadvertently caused by playing a practical joke involving the stampede to be activated when the word "stampede" is heard, & is almost crushed by Trunk's foot, hatching in the process. Once out of the egg, she believes that since she is a bird, she can also fly, & tries to, but to no avail. After witnessing the mother ostrich hugging the baby ostrich, he learns that hugs are for making someone feel better, knowing he/she isn't alone, saying "I love you", & to feel special. They learn from Fneep that the only way for Scaldronians to feel  special is to conquer planets, which prove that they're strong & worthy of respect, & that he's a terrible conquerer & hasn't conquered any planets until now. Munki, Trunk, & Rocky tell that it doesn't matter if he hasn't conquered any planets & try to give him hugs, but he refuses. Meanwhile, Humph, who had gone farther than the others, finds Fneep's ship & accidentally jumpstarts the ship by making a hole in the hull after ramming it several times & touches the exposed wire with his tongue after being lured by the spark's bright light, which electrocutes him & temporally  makes his spikes long as a porcupine's in the process. He learns from an 2-month old hologram from Fneep's father, Captain Grogon, the conquerer of 999 planets, that Fneep's next step in conquering Earth is to capture all the Earth creatures & imprison in the Scaldronian museum, The Great Hall Of Conquest, & sets off to rejoin & warn the others. Later that night, Fneep goes to the ship all by himself & after getting back into his ship, & a long 60-step reading of the Planet Conquering Manual of how to activate the homing beacon, which is fact, just  a simple red button, pushes the beacon, & Grogon's ship arrives instantly above him. Despite Humph's pleas & the fact that they're out of the translator's range meaning they can't understand him, the gang eventually reach Fneep's impact site, where he's greeted by Grogon & learn of the capturing plans & that Fneep lied about conquering Earth & that he originally intended to use the homing beacon to get picked up & have his spaceship repaired. Grogon takes advantage of this to get his 1000th victory, but he stops him by lying that the animals are invincible & unstoppable, making  the gang safe for now. Fneep is forced to leave Earth & conquer another one instead, but Munki, Trunk, Rocky, & Humph, refusing to believe what Fneep said, sneak aboard on one of the transporters & tell that Fneep still actually conquered the planet, but they learn from Grogon that the only way to show that the planet is conquered is by shooting a constellation resembling the owner into the sky & tries to use his own, but Munki stops him & tries to buy time while Trunk, who fell to the ground with Fneep's star after blasting a hole in the ship which  is later blocked, assigns the baby ostrich to get Fneep's star onboard the ship by manually using her trunk to make her fly. However, after a long battle, Grogon overpowers them all & shoots his star into the sky, but Fneep proclaims even though his star's in the sky, he hasn't conquered the animals yet due to their "secret weapon", which is, in fact, hugs, which he uses to confront his dad, & makes him & himself to turn the color orange, filling him with happiness & joy. After this, they try to do this to the other Scaldronians, which results  in the ship about to crash, but the baby ostrich takes control & saves everyone. Eventually, all the other Scaldronians are all effected by the hugs, Grogon declaims the earth & allows Fneep to claim it & he shoots the star which now looks a lot like him & the gang. Grogon & Fneep plan to return home to use the hugs on every Scaldronian & repay the group by giving them the speech pods, some of the Scaldronian tech, & a ballad of giant bananas for Munki to satisfy his hunger. In the post-credits scenes, Grogon discovers that Ribbert has eaten his gun after eating  Fneep's, Tallbert is seen talking in African with the translation device Trunk & the mama ostrich use on him, & Munki, in a protective suit made of vines, finally manages to give Humph a hug. Production. The director Brant Dawes founded Sandcastle Studios in September 2017, during his trip to Forbach, a village located near the Circle Square Retail Park of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. As their first feature film, the studio partnered with Sunrise Studios. Production started in April 2018 and finished in March 2020, creating the first Mauritian-South African animated film. “I wrote and made this  movie so that anyone who watches it will enjoy it. It was important to me that as a father of four, I always try to find a movie that we can all watch. I’ve got a range of ages too, 5 to 15 years old, so finding a movie we can all watch, where a 5-year-old isn't too scared and the 15-year-old isn't bored, is tricky. This movie is definitely for a broad audience.”, according to director Brant Dawes. The movie was animated using Autodesk Maya and rendered on Houdini's render farm  GPU Mantra to create realistic hair on the animals and the aliens' "Glitter"-like slimy skin. Each animator used render farm machines with 96GB RAM-equipped Dell computers connected by Houdini grooming tools. For example, all the scenes set in the Scaldronian mothership provide thousands of moving complex effect sources, each reflecting back and forth off the background, the ship's lights and the characters' shadows. Each scene of the film took around 4 hours to be rendered and composed. While most of the modelling, texture, animation and lighting was created in Mauritius, half of the entire production of the  movie was produced in South Africa, with voices recorded in London, England, at Soho Square Studios and sound design, foley and final mix done in South Africa at Sunrise Productions in-house studios. Additional animation was provided by Infinite Studios.