Having refined this unique technique of working with animals, Mario then felt it was time to embark on the challenge of an elephant movie that had been with him for so many years. After writing a storyline, Mario teamed with his Line Producer from Napoleon, John Wild, to write the detailed script treatment of what was to become Elephant Tales.  

Mario: "An ambitious story was born involving baby elephants, a baby giraffe, chimp and lion cub and a host of other secondary animals and birds set against the backdrop of spectacular African scenery. The challenge was to not "train" the animals but to manipulate their "natural" behaviour in order to follow the storyline.   As in Napoleon, the animals were to be allowed the freedom to "write" the detail of the scenes through their own spontaneous action.".

The filming of Napoleon developed a unique approach to making animal movies.   Wanting to use the natural behaviour of untrained animals, Mario insisted that the animals themselves would write the detail of the scenes. Filming began with a screenplay, but as shooting progressed, the behaviour and action of the animals, often unexpected and different to what was scripted, would then be used to rewrite the scene. The film would then be rewritten again during the editing. And once the editing had been completed, all the dialogue of the film would then be rewritten to fit the action and editing of the animals. The results were remarkable.

Mario: "When an animal has been trained to perform an action, there's something lost in the spirit of the animal. You can tell by the blank look in its eyes. In Napoleon the animals have such 'life' in their eyes, you can see they are really being themselves.   To capture that 'naturalness' and to tell a classic adventure story has made Napoleon the unique movie it is."