A bigger budget helped the film to advance into new more high quality technology. Using ground-breaking visual effects techniques - many of them led by UK-based company MPC - the aim of the filmmakers is to make the viewer feel for the first time that they are actually in the jungle with Mowgli, Baloo and the rest of the gang. Instead of shooting live-action, before cut-and-pasting animation on top, the filmmakers built the entire jungle within a computer, using footage from real Indian jungles for reference. Mowgli was filmed alone on a small Los Angeles soundstage and the world was then constructed around him. Once the jungle had been constructed, its animals needed to be turned into characters. Rather than applying motion-capture, they instead used the more complicated process of key-frame animation, using real animals for reference - to capture photo-realistic images of the creatures, but with the visual characteristics to express the emotions and vocal performances of the actors. The animals are not entirely realistic though. Wanting his film to reflect a childlike view of the world, many of the creatures and plants are slightly larger than their real-life counterparts, adding to the feeling that the audience is experiencing the jungle in the same way as Mowgli - as a small boy in a big world.
Creating this took over 800 artists to make more then 70 species of animals. This took a huge amount of time - because of his size and furry nature, it took artists almost five hours to create each frame of film featuring Baloo.
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