Video: Digitally Creating the Meerkats (and Tigers) of 'Pi' Three years were spent working on the 3D effects in "Life of Pi," and, given his top billing, you'd think much of that was spent on the tiger, Richard Parker. But the ocean turned out to be a much more demanding star; the constantly shifting waves and whitecaps presented many more challenges to the effects wizards at Rhythm & Hues. They worked with the director Ang Lee to give the ocean moods -- hopeful, or melancholy, or operatically dramatic. In this video, Bill Westenhofer, the movie's visual effects supervisor, explains how they amped up or scaled back their creations, and why the scenes with meerkats were a highlight of the project.