Pixar perfect
Unmissable work from the Oscar-winning animation studio – check out this Edinburgh show
Pixar Perfect
Discover how some of your favourite animated characters were created at this fascinating exhibition in Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland
WHEN YOU WERE watching the monstrous exploits of the hugely successful animation film Monsters Inc, did you ever stop to wonder how Sullivan’s fur appeared so furry? Or why the tractors in the automation adventure Cars looked like cows? Discover all, at an extraordinary exhibition dedicated to the artistic genius of Pixar Animation Studios.
For over 20 years, the American studio has combined creative and technical artistry to bring together some of the most popular animation films of all time, including Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life, The Incredibles and Cars.
Its fortunes began with Toy Story in 1995. It took four years to make and was the first full-length feature film produced using computer animation. It was a huge success and Pixar has gone on to produce seven feature films to date, and has won over 20 Academy Awards.
From writing the story, illustrating storyboards, modelling, animating, lighting, rendering and filming, each film goes through numerous stages to bring it to fruition. This exhibition offers a small insight into this elaborate process, as it brings together previously unseen drawings, paintings, sculptures and multimedia work.
Children and adults alike will revel at the variety of art on display, which not only reveals how your favourite character came to life, but offers an insight into the astonishing artistic talent involved in these films. As John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer of Pixar Animation Studios explains: “Our artists create so much beautiful art for each film but most people never get to see it, this [is a] unique collection of work.”
Pixar: 20 Years of Animation, National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JF; tel: +44 (0) 131 247 4422; www.nms.ac.uk, until 28 May.
RALPH EGGLESTON, FIRST DAY, FINDING NEMO This drawing was one of a sequence of pastel images that were used as a reference for the final choice of colour and light for the scene. Finding Nemo (2003) is a father-son adventure story involving a clown fish called Marlin who has to travel the oceans to find his son, Nemo, after he is taken by a scuba diver and put into a dentist’s aquarium. The film was inspired by writer-director Andrew Stanton’s visit to an aquarium, when he decided that he could mimic the underwater world in computer graphics. The film came to life through Stanton’s personal experiences and his own parenting challenges.
TEDDY NEWTON, FROZONE, THE INCREDIBLES This pencil and marker drawing was one of the early preparatory sketches that helped with character development. The Incredibles (2004) was Pixar’s sixth film and its first film where the main characters were humans. It tells the story of a family of superheroes, 15 years after society made them retire. They’re forced back into action when they uncover a diabolical plan that requires them to rediscover their powers to save the day. The animation house faced new technical demands on this film, as the story required fast action scenes.
RALPH EGGLESTON, PRE-PRODUCTION SKETCHES, THE BIRDS These pastel drawings show how much detail was required to create the characters for this Academy Award-winning short film. In the final film, the birds’ feathers were digitally created to look and move as they do in real life.
TIA W KRATTER, HOPPER, A BUG’S LIFE Creating a Pixar film involves a delicate balance between artistry, imagination and reality. The movie’s art director, Tia W Kratter, kept specimens of real beetles in her office so that she could ensure her drawings for the characters were as close to reality as possible. The idea for A Bug’s Life developed from a discussion between writer-director Andrew Stanton and storyboard artist, Joe Ranft. They were discussing the Aesop fable The Ant and the Grasshopper – in which a grasshopper begs a family of ants for some food as winter approaches – and decided to turn the tale on its head. In their version, the grasshopper no longer begged but just took food from the ants – and a film was born.
TIA W KRATTER, FLIK, A BUG’S LIFE, ACRYLIC When creating these insect characters, the artists had to decide how loyal their figures would be to real insects. They decided to make various changes, such as giving the ants four legs instead of six and adapting the legs that grow from just behind the head, so that they came out further back. All these ideas were carefully planned to allow the film ants to stand up and appear more human. A Bug’s Life (1998) is the story of Flik, an ant searching for better ways to be a bug. His colony revolves around feeding and fearing the local grasshoppers. When Flik accidentally destroys the grasshoppers’ seasonal food supply, he is forced to look for help from bigger bugs.
The Gallery
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JOE RANFT, STORYBOARD, TOY STORY
This pencil drawing is a storyboard sketch, which was used to bring one of Pixar’s most successful films to life. It is part of a series of illustrations that offer a visual idea of how a sequence will look when it is filmed.
Toy Story (1995) follows the adventures of Sheriff Woody and Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear who – along with other toys – come to life when humans aren’t around. This illustration shows Sheriff Woody and Slinky Dog, both of whom were not changed much after this design. Other characters however were adapted at this stage, such as Ham the piggy bank, who was depicted in the storyboard as standing up like a human, but when the model was finished he was on all fours.
JAY SCHUSTER, EVOLUTION OF COW TO TRACTOR, CARS (opposite page, bottom) This pencil drawing reveals how the tractor characters in Cars (2006) evolved from images of cows. The tractors were created to give a sense of the countryside. They are used for scenes of tractor tipping (similar to cow tipping) and at one stage they ‘stampede’ through the middle of town.
TIA W KRATTER, SULLIVAN FUR PATTERN STUDIES, MONSTERS INC (above) These designs show how the fur of the main character in Monsters Inc (2001) was created. In the end, the artists drew 1,000 individual hairs and then duplicated them, so there were 2.8 million animated hairs on Sullivan’s body.
JEROME RANFT, SULLIVAN, MONSTERS INC, CAST URETHANE RESIN (right) Resin figures are used to ensure that every detail is accurate. They also bridge the gap between the initial 2D drawings and the computer-generated images (CGI) in the film.
NORM DECARLO, SLIM, A BUG’S LIFE, CAST URETHANE RESIN A crucial early step in the Pixar process is creating sculptures like these. They’re called maquettes – or simply sculpts. In certain cases, later in the production process they can be scanned into the computer, by touch or laser beam, as a starting point for the digital model. Other maquettes may be created just to explore details, like a set of facial expressions. This detailed and time-consuming process is typically only applied to the main characters.
RALPH EGGLESTON, COLOUR SCRIPT, TOY STORY, PASTEL Few people outside the movie business know about colour scripts like the ones pictured above. They’re made early on in the process, and are used to demonstrate the colour design for each scene. They are used as an important reference during all the years that it takes to complete a film.
TEDDY NEWTON, THE INCREDIBLE FAMILY, THE INCREDIBLES, COLLAGE (second row) These collages are used at the initial stages of the film’s creation, to develop the colours and characters.
GREG DYKSTRA, ANGLERFISH, FINDING NEMO, CAST URETHANE RESIN (second row, right) Even the tiniest details are realised in this final model.
