Pixar 25 Years of Animation

Offer us a chance to look at the birth of our old friends- Pixar’s Characters

The names Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear, Shelly and Boo, and Mr. and Mrs. Incredibles, may sound as familiar as the old friends of ours. But, we may also realize that they are the names of lively characters of those animations (ToyStory, Monster Inc., and the Incredibles) of Pixar, which seem still to accompany us with all joyful stories happened in cinema.

And, now, we all have the chance to have a glimpse at the birth of our old friends, as Pixar celebrated its 25 anniversary and hold an exhibition-25 years on Animation, in California. After that, it exhibits at Hong Kong, started from the March to July of 2011 at Hong Kong Heritage Museum, as the debut point of the world tour. In this time, more than four hundreds of sketches, models, and scripts are featured to offer public a raw vision of the birth of the characters and how pure imaginations of Pixar are brought into lives.

Pixar’s production represents a new age of digital animation. At the hall entrance, visitors are welcomed by so-real Shelly and Mike; going up on the escalator, we can see there are colourful banners with familiar characters’ faces painted hang on from the middle of the 12-metre high ceiling, giving audience of all ages a massage that it is time to be amazed by the arts Pixar. The theme is very clear.

With the soundtrack of the Incredibles playing, visiting the exhibition hall likes taking an adventure with all my favorite characters, wondering what coming next at the exhibition will surprise me and how Pixar team performs their superpower to bring imagination into digital lives. At the entrances of the hall, we can view the work-in-progress versions of our friends showed on the screen; they are structured in a green-web surface, or just in plain colours without shade, unveiling a part of the secret how they are born into human-like characters.

Seeing the works of hundreds of contributing artists, mainly includes the designs of characters with their hundreds of facial expression and bodies movements illustrated in pastel, digital sketches and pencil, raw but lively. There is a sketch capturing the moment how Buzz Lightyear rockets to the sky; and the clay model which Mr. Incredible’s face is molded into an extremely surprised one with his large, bare chin dropped and brows frowned; and how the vanillin in ToyStory 3, Lotso, changed its image form a spiky, little, toy bear to a pink, puffy, and cute looking but devilish bear, and there are more thought-provoking paintings and sketches displayed.

The Script and the World

Before I went to the exhibition, I cannot help asking what makes an animation so popular. Pixar gives us a clear answer-excellent cooperation of talents. And its success, first, begins on the script.

A script is the origin of the story, telling the audience what happens, who involves, to whom, and how the characters think and react in the designed situation. Spending three-forth of the time to plusses a story is more than the time that I had expected they spent on visualization process. Prestigious is all they wanted, and, however, continuous edition is required to make it entertaining, exciting and reel.

So, because of the team’s superb imagination, we can have a story about a mouse who is able to do terrific French cuisines with his inborn tastes and faculties; and the one that toys can think and act like human, but only desire to performs its duties-being played with children, namely, their owners; but also that an electricity company ran by professional Monsters who are hired to scare children to make them scream to gain energy.

Though they are imaginative, but we can always find ourselves in it. That’s their secret. We experience all the up and downs like what Shelly, the blue fluffy monster experience at his company, or how we desire people’s love like what Woody and Buzz did, and how our family endure challenges like the Incredibles family do. All these stories possess the elements, emotions, desires, hopes and dreams that we can all relate to.

After finishing the story on script, artists are required to visualize its sequence into colorfully illustrated drawings based on the dialogue and action from the script, and pin it on the corkboard, which is like a film showing how things happen in the movie. That is what we call, the Storyboard.

 And it evolves. It becomes the feature of the show- storyboard. All storyboards compose a stream of movements, and edited into sequences, which captured the essence of story, and edited into scenes with the characters’ emotions and actions exquisitely depicted to tell the story.

At there, I was impresses by the storyboard of Ratatouille, painted in digital form but show no stern of computer painting, giving us a feeling of pastel painting, telling us the story of how Remy and the mouse meet under the deem light nearby the river, influencing us with the colors of blue and black. I can experience the same depression after Remy and Linguini are expelled by where they belonged to. The paintings are soft and colourful, quiet but emotional.

With artists’ work, setting its colours tone, mood of the scenes, the designs of characters, and finally digitalizing it into a raw vision of moving sequence. Here come to the digital artists’ work to polish all of it into detailed scenes with shading and textures added, and they even have to smooth the movement of characters, just in order to making it what we seen reel!

Finally, after the enormous process of digital animation, adding sounds is a must to create the world in the movie. From the voices of characters to the minor sound effects, and even the soundtracks performed by an orchestra and composed for the dialogue, every sound is finely toned in order to make the situation that the characters and audience are in real.

Pixar brings the audience to a world that does not exist, and offer an opportunity to artists to conjure imaginative universes. Like the micro world of ToyStory, we can see how the artists craft the scene on story board and set its layout and mood. The scene Buzz realizes the evil plan of Lotso and totters in the dark vending machine is sketched separately into about twenty drafts composing a stream of Buzz’s adventure. It makes us experience the limitation of being a toy, like Buzz’s and his rigor to save his friend, meanwhile, showing us how the artists put their vision into the toy’s one.

The process of animation is just like how Michelangelo visualize his raw pencil sketches drawn on his tightly sketch-book into the world famous paintings hang on the church. The only difference are, Pixar’ artists are not working alone, and that the content are designed without limitation. “Others collaborators are welcomed to add their own interpretation, shadings and insights into the story.” This collaborative process may move the production towards perfect by the story being kept on improved and polished into the final essence.

The Characters

We can see ourselves through them. And “they must have something that we can relate to.” said the director of Pixar. Based on the principles, a character must moves the story forward.

Like the Incredibles family; Dash is a ten-year-old kid with full of energy; is a teenage girl who often doubt herself; Mrs. Incredible give up her heroin business for the family; and Mr. Incredible is a father who endures his mundane work in order to protect his family. Their strengths are exploding, but what they are doing is suppressing.

The thought and emotions is easy for the audience to recall. And, the designs of characters must present their personalities; however, the artists have to work out figures for all characters depicted on the script.

What I understand is making an animation is an effort of cumulative efforts of their large creative team of Pixar. “Unlike live-action films with real sets and actors, the animated environment and characters don’t live outside the imagination of the director.” expressed the team. That why producing an animation with fantastic and realistic lighting, texture, and sound-effects consume enormous works.

We have a glimpse at all the production of Pixar. And there are another interesting sections. Visitors can understand how quiet models with a moving-stream postures moves into an action at the circling machine. And we can visualize our imagination right after the exhibition at the drawing corner set outside the hall. There are numerous pastel painting contributed by visitors from all walks of lives to have a look at their little space.

Interesting and entertaining as the animations does the exhibition.

After all, thanks, Pixar.