Since we don’t get snow in this part of the globe, there are certain things going on to remind us that Christmas is just around the corner.

The joy of Christmas is starting early with, of course, the year-end sales and vibrant mall decorations. The magical feeling is also mostly felt when Christmas songs are played.

Another thing that brings about the festive spirit are the holiday movies that are not just entertaining, but educating and heartfelt for people from all walks of life to enjoy.

This year, Christmas flicks have come early Nov 19 to be exact with Walt Disney’s A Christmas Carol, a multi-sensory thrill ride in a groundbreaking 3D motion picture event.

The story, if you’re not familiar with it just yet, follows the grumpy old man Ebenezer Scrooge (voiced by Jim Carrey) as he begins the Christmas holidays with his usual miserly contempt, barking at his faithful clerk (Gary Oldman) and his cheery nephew (Colin Firth).

Scrooge makes it clear that he has no intention of enjoying the holiday and, as always, goes home-alone where he encounters the ghost of his dead business partner Joseph Marley.

Marley, who’s paying the price in the afterlife for his own callousness, hopes to help Scrooge avoid a similar fate and tells him that he will be visited by three spirits.

But when the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come take old Scrooge on an eye-opening journey revealing truths he’s reluctant to face, Scrooge must open his heart to undo years of ill-will before it’s too late.

The stellar cast is led by multi-faceted actor Carrey (Yes Man, Horton Hears a Who, Bruce Almighty) who, like many of his co-stars, appears in several pivotal roles.

In addition to portraying Ebenezer Scrooge at various ages, Carrey also brings to life the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Christmas Yet-to-Come.

Classically-trained British theater actor Firth, on the other hand, is one of the few actors playing only one role, albeit a central figure in the film. Firth portrays the forever optimistic Fred, whose cheery disposition and opposing outlook on life is a stark contrast to that of his grumpy uncle Scrooge.

“Fred is quite simply the opposite of Scrooge,” explained Firth.

“He’s the foil. If Scrooge is the ultimate pessimist, Fred is the ultimate optimist. I think Fred sees life very simply. ‘Why can’t we be friends? It’s not complicated. I’m inviting you to dinner. Why don’t you just come for dinner?’ I think he embodies the Christmas spirit. He wishes no ill to anybody.”

For Firth, the film looks likely to be yet another hit to add to an impressive résumé that already includes The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Bridget Jones’s Diary and that unexpected blockbuster Mamma Mia!

By being British, A Christmas Carol must be part of his DNA. “I think my first encounter with the story was the musical version with Albert Finney and I was very frightened of the ghost of Jacob Marley. With Dickens, it’s a bit like when people say Fellini-esque even if they’ve never seen a Fellini film. There are all those BBC adaptations of Dickens, countless films, stage versions, and you study it at school.

"The funny thing is that when I finally read A Christmas Carol, which was around the time we made the film, I had this feeling that I hadn’t actually ever read it before and yet I knew everything about it.”

And as a Brit, one wonders if he had any concerns about whether a British classic would be safe in American hands.

“I think it’s been safe in American hands before," said Firth.

“Personally I loved the Muppet version. Also, it’s Robert Zemeckis. With a record like his, you couldn’t have safer hands than that.”

This film is re-envisioned by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Zemeckis from his own adaptation based on the classic novella by Charles Dickens. This is the first film developed by ImageMovers Digital, which was created by Zemeckis, Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke to develop 3D-performance capture films exclusively for The Walt Disney Studios.

Firth explained what performance capture techniques really meant, in simple human language. “You give a performance like any other and it’s just captured in a way that’s different from the way a film or video camera would record it. I’m a bit bewildered by it, but everything you see on the screen has been acted by the actors.

Jim and I were in a room together, all the gestures we made are there, all the expression ... “And what’s nice is that unlike a conventional film, it’s all shot in the right order and without someone shouting cut all the time so they can change the position of the camera or the lights. I mean on a normal film, you can go to your grandmother’s birthday party before breakfast and come back after lunch and go to her birthday party again.”

Right. Joining Firth and Carrey is a diverse group of gifted actors. Oldman (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) stars as Scrooge’s beleaguered employee, Bob Cratchit, his young and ill son Tiny Tim, as well as the ghost of Joseph Marley, Scrooge’s deceased business partner.

Robin Wright Penn (State of Play) stars as Belle, who long ago stole Scrooge’s heart, and Fan, Scrooge’s now deceased sister.

One of England’s most distinguished actors, Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) reunites with Zemeckis as Old Fezziwig, to whom Scrooge was apprenticed as a young man, and Old Joe who runs an old rag and bottle shop and purchases the “deceased” Scrooge’s bed linens and curtains.

Cary Elwes (Ella Enchanted, The Princess Bride) rounds out the cast and portrays multiple characters, including young Dick Wilkins, Scrooge’s old roommate.

Malaysians thrilled to be part of the creative team

A Christmas Carol will be presented in Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D. RealD 3D is the new generation of entertainment, with crisp, bright, ultra-realistic images so life-like you will feel like you've stepped inside the movie.

And unlike the old days of paper glasses, RealD 3D glasses look like sunglasses, are recyclable and designed to comfortably fit on all movie-goers, and easily over prescription glasses (www.RealD.com).

The creative team of A Christmas Carol includes production designer Doug Chiang (Beowulf, The Polar Express), director of cinematography Robert Presley (Enchanted, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, What Lies Beneath), film editor Jeremiah O’Driscoll (Beowulf, The Polar Express), composer Alan Silvestri (Beowulf,
Night at the Museum) and visual effects supervisor George Murphy (King Kong, Constantine).

What was not mentioned was that there were two Malaysians involved!

Yes, fellow Malaysians working in ImageMovers Digital (IMD), Jax Lee and Woei Lee, were thrilled to be part of the creative team. “It’s fantastic,” Jax said of his experience.

“I work with Robert Zemeckis, the director and also with the production designer Doug Chiang. They are amazing guys to work with.”

Joining the company in 2008, Jax Lee, 31, is an animator responsible for enhancing facial motion capture and also hand-key animations.

Prior to that, he worked for LucasArts where he designed the graphics for PlayStation3 and Xbox 360 games, namely Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. “I like to animate and make CGI characters look alive," he said.

“Jim Carey is a very talented actor. He’s very funny. We have a lot of reference from him on the computer, so we were able to study his facial expressions and movements, and then we applied them to his CGI characters.

“The character I worked on most was Scrooge and the character voiced by Gary Oldman, the meek but optimistic Bob Cratchit. But we did it by scenes, not by characters. Sometimes I got a scene with Scrooge and Cratchit and other characters, so I have to do them all.” Jax added that including him, there were about 40 animators working on this movie. The entire animation process took about a year to complete.

“Actually, before I joined IMD, I never read the books and never knew the Christmas Carol story. When I got involved with the movie, I did some research and found that there are so many variations of A Christmas Carol on the market.

“What separates this from previous remakes is that it's close to the illustrations from the original 1843 book, and also the rendering quality and texturing is very good. I'd personally suggest everyone to go watch it in 3D!

“I am very happy with the end result. I want to watch it again and again. In fact, I’m actually going back to Malaysia this December. I’m planning to bring my family to see the film.”

Meanwhile, Penang-born Woei Lee, 35, joined IMD early this year as a senior lead compositor, working on developing tools to be used by lighters and compositors to keep the overall look of a scene consistent.

Prior to joining IMD, Lee worked for The Orphanage and Dynacom Studios. He has a background in creating visual effects for live action movies such as Superman, Hellboy and The Day After Tomorrow.

“I was involved with the visual effects part of those movies. For example, like in Superman, I did the visual of putting the bullet in Superman’s eye, that kind of stuff.”

This would be his first time working on a 3D movie, animation and performance capture. “I’m having fun doing it,” he said.

Woei added that for A Christmas Carol, he played a lot on the colour aspect. “The feel of the movie follows the mood of Scrooge. For the first part of the movie, where it started with Scrooge being bitter, the colour play would be dark and gloomy.

The colours then turned more bright and joyful as he sets on his adventure rides, all the way to the end. “I love the movie. You should go watch it,” he said proudly.