Dude, let's face facts. The rest of the nation is only going to see the penguins.

In Hawai'i, the birthplace of surfing and home of the world's best surf breaks, however, swell-savvy audiences will take one look at the new animated film "Surf's Up" and see waves. And the waves are so realistic, they might steal the show.

Such realism was no accident for Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation. In a movie about competitive surfing — even if the surfers are penguins — a phony-looking wave is worse than a wipeout at Waimea Bay.

"We weren't asking our animators to put something on a wave, but actually inside a wave, and we knew that would be a central element to the story," said director Ash Brannon during a recent press junket at the Kahala Resort. "We really didn't know if it could be done."

Detailed waves are just one of the pieces of the film that separate it from the average animated feature.

From making parts of it a "mockumentary" — filmmakers joked it was in the same vein as "This Is Spinal Tap" — to having the actors read their lines in the same room, "Surf's Up" is out to make its own statement.

The movie, which opens nationwide Friday, is billed as "an animated action-comedy that delves behind the scenes of the high-octane world of competitive surfing." That's with penguins, who are the hardest-working animals in Hollywood these days.

"Surf's Up" features the voices of Shia LaBeouf (the recent star of "Disturbia"), Jeff Bridges (remember "The Big Lebowski"?), Jon Heder ("Blades of Glory"), James Woods (TV's "Shark") and Zooey Deschanel ("Bridge to Terebithia"), among others.

The film relies on a proven Hollywood blueprint: the grizzled mentor taking on the challenge of youth.

LaBeouf's character is Cody Maverick. He's an up-and-coming teenage surfer who travels from Antarctica to tropical Pen Gu Island for a big surf contest. While on the island, he meets washed-up surf great Big Z, played by Bridges.

"The story always comes first," said Brannon, who was the co-director and co-producer of the 1999 hit film "Toy Story 2." "But the next step was to be sure we could create waves that were believable enough to carry this movie."

MAKING WAVES

The moviemakers went to great lengths to ensure the film's real star would shine.

They had a team of animators dedicated exclusively to the waves, Brannon said.

At one point early on in production, a crew of 40 animators went to California's Zuma Beach for surf lessons.

Everyone took off on the same wave and got dumped.

But they worked with a computer program that allowed them to manipulate an animated version of any wave in the world.

They also brought in professional surfers Kelly Slater and Rob Machado — who play their penguin alter egos in the film — to critique the movement of the waves and the penguins that surfed them.

The result went beyond anyone's expectations.

The filmmakers explain their joy in a blend of ethereal surf stoke and animator's animation.

"Think of it like a character," said co-producer Chris Jenkins. "It's got to be a character, in two ways: controls to animate it so that each scene is balletic, controlled by the skill of the animator, but each wave has an internal characteristic that amplifies the emotional intent of the scene."

What Penguins?

When the filmmakers began nearly five years ago, well before "March of the Penguins" and "Happy Feet," they had no idea they would be tapping Hollywood's newest animal everyman, said Jenkins, whose lengthy resume includes work on a score of Disney pictures, from "The Little Mermaid" to "Atlantis: The Lost Empire."

"If we had (known), then we might have done skateboarding squirrels," Jenkins said. "What we try to do is good animation where the characters become bigger than their species. You connect with a small fish in 'Finding Nemo.' You connect with 'Cars,' for god's sake."

Surfing, not penguins, was the hook that captured Bridges for the movie. He's a surfer himself, a longboarder.

At 57, the veteran actor looks the part of a surfing mentor these days: Serene and graying.

Before he took the role, he was curious to see what the waves would look like — and he liked what the filmmakers showed him.

"Being a surfer myself, it was a thrill being able to share with an audience what it feels like to be locked in the tube," he said.

Bridges called himself "a pretty basic surfer" who first learned in high school but quit about 30 years ago. It was only in the last five years that Bridges rediscovered his passion for waves.

"I am now back to getting my balance back and getting my turns down," he said. "It's kind of challenging to me. I worry about hurting myself, my back, so in the process I take it one step at a time so I can surf the next day."

Bridges enjoyed making "Surf's Up." His scenes with LaBeouf were more like play, he said. That too, was by design.

BEHIND-SCENES MAGIC

Rather than create a straightforward fantasy, the filmmakers decided to have the "Surf's Up" characters interviewed as if they were part of a surfing documentary.

For that behind-the-scenes intimacy, they made an unconventional decision and recorded multiple actors at once, complete with overlapping dialogue.

In most animated features, actors read their lines while alone in a booth. This allows editors and sound engineers the flexibility to splice together different performances, depending on quality.

Putting groups in a room created chemistry not usually seen in animation.

"I've done a lot of animation in the past, and it was a long day," Bridges said. "In this instance, the characters were all in the same room. I did a lot of work with Shia (LaBeouf), and he's a wonderful improviser. It was a really fun experience."

LaBeouf, who has long been in love with animation, found his on-screen mentor to be more of an overgrown kid.

"Jeff is just really playful," he said. "He's like a 9-year-old with a lot of experience. You feel like you're in a sandbox. There is a lot of joy that he brings to the table when he comes to work."

But his animated penguin is about as close as the 20-year-old LaBeouf is going to get to surfing. As one of Hollywood's rising stars, insurance won't let him.

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.