Moulin Rouge is very much Luhrmann’s vision. But, if he is the painter, Animal Logic Film is his paintbrush and his palette. In this intensely design-driven musical, visual-effects design was crucial to the film’s final realisation. And it became more crucial as production continued: at the start, there were plans for just 30 special-effects shots, but the film ended up with over 300, making it the largest undertaking ever for Animal Logic Film, one of Australia’s leading digital design companies.

“Baz Luhrmann’s imagination was as fired by the process itself as by anything else,” says Animal Logic visual-effects designer Andrew Brown, who also worked on Jane Campion’s Holy Smoke and DreamWorks’ Mouse Hunt. But the new film was fun in a big way, says Brown. “It inspired us, it inspired Baz Luhrmann and I think it will inspire others. It was exhilarating.” Luhrmann also stretched everyone: Animal Logic’s Justin Martin wrote a plug-in street map of Paris, for example, which randomly generates buildings in the distance. And the team also created some unique particle animation for the ‘Green Fairy’ sequence.

Luhrmann’s intention was to make Montmartre the cultural hub of Paris. This meant that everything outside the quartier was inconsequential and boring. In fact, everything else outside it was reduced to miniature, and shot with motion-control cameras. To create the striking, nostalgically surreal opening shot over Paris, for instance, “the front frame and mid-ground uses photos in a 3D environment, and beyond that we built 3D model buildings,” explains Brown. “We didn’t have much by way of references to work with, so one of our designers flew over to Paris and took a bunch of collage shots, from the top of the Eiffel Tower and the top of Montparnasse.”

This establishing wide shot - the Paris vista - carries within it one of the driving design concepts that appeals to Luhrmann, which imagines a central axis running through the frame. In this case, it runs between the Eiffel Tower, the Moulin Rouge and Sacré Coeur (which was being built at the time of the film’s setting). This requires a slight rearrangement of the real Paris. But, considering the fantasy-driven nature of the whole musical, it would seem churlish to complain.

Kidman with Ewan McGregor as Christian, the penniless poet who falls in love with her

The essential stylistic guide laid down by Luhrmann meant that everything had to be related to the music and had to play to the rhythm of the film because, after all, it is a love story, with powerful, uplifting music: the visual effects and the music are all part of the whole jigsaw that give the film its emotional impact.

Meanwhile, Luhrmann, who has “wonderful memories from when Cannes launched my first film, Strictly Ballroom”, is especially excited about being back on the Croisette. “I am particularly gratified that an American-financed film almost completely created in Australia and specific to French culture and history, has been embraced this way by Cannes,” he says.