Pixar: 20 Years of Animation

NARRATOR: 
In the dynamic Pixar process, character development is worked out early on. This case includes ideas for Toy Story. At the upper left is a tall sketch of the cowboy Woody shown from behind. You can see where Bob Pauley, the film’s Art Director, glued pieces of paper on in order to make changes to another artist’s drawing.

At the bottom, you’ll find the results of some unusual character research Bob conducted – details of Ducky and Legs – monstrous toys concocted by the mean kid, Sid.

BOB PAULEY:
 We would raid toy stores just to kind of look through the shelves and see how characters are made. And then you kind of marry that with what kind of acting they need to do.

You know, I grew up taking toys apart. And we glued them back together in all different configurations. And they were a blast. So we bought a bunch of toys, and we were cutting them up while we were designing them. So it was this kind of great rag-tag team of discarded, rebuilt Frankenstein toys.

NARRATOR: 
To the right are sketches for A Bug’s Life – including a delicate wing detail. The next case includes a “kit” to help Pixar modelers “build” a fly.

Tia Kratter kept specimens of real beetles in her office to study them. She had other ideas for the mean grasshoppers in the film:

TIA KRATTER: We drew from two inspirations. Harley Davidson motorcycle gangs. And animals with hard shells. I got to order all the lobster I wanted, and then I would take home those lobster shells, and we would use that as reference for all the grasshoppers. And if you look at the detail on their faces, you can really see that texture that we drew from a lobster or a crab.

NARRATOR: 

Other images here are ideas for Pixar’s new film, Cars, slated for release in June 2006. The characters are cars in their own car world. There are no humans in the movie.

This art includes drawings in pencil and marker. Inspiration in the form of raised yellow disks – real markers used on roads to divide lanes, and a strip of patterns for car hoods painted on the computer.

TIA KRATTER: Everybody who works at Pixar is into the details of their world.