Why It Was 'Unfilmable': Yann Martel's Life of Pi novel takes three of the biggest moviemaking don'ts - never work with children, never work with animals, never film a movie on water - and makes them the three biggest components of the story. A fantasy adventure about an Indian boy who survives a shipwreck then spends 227 days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, Life of Pi was the kind of book people love to label 'unfilmable.' A few directors had a go; M. Night Shyamalan, Alfonso Cuaron and Jean-Pierre Jeunet were attached at different points over the years, but all walked away. How It Got Made: As with Gravity and Avatar, it took perseverance and some technical leaps to make Life of Pi work. Also, Ang Lee's smarts as a practical, veteran director of some 11 pictures grounded Life of Pi and made it more manageable as a feature film. Lee used CGI extensively for his adaptation, bringing the more fantastical elements of Life of Pi to life via visual effects company Rhythm & Hues. Ocean scenes were filmed in a giant wave tank (the world's largest) built by the crew at an abandoned airport, while Rhythm & Hues spent a year on research and development just to further the veracity of their CG.