Comic-Con 2007

Last week 30,000 people attended the 2007 San Diego Comic Convention. I was there in my home town on Friday and a little bit on Saturday, and it was pretty overwhelming. I've been going since 1993, and it has at least tripled in size since then. I barely had an opportunity to visit all my favorite vendors, and I only made it to one panel: the WALL-E panel, of course!

There, 7,000 lucky guests were treated to glimpses of preproduction art, animation tests and a synopsis of the film by director Andrew Stanton. They also got to see a sound demo by Star Wars veteran Ben Burtt, and about 7 minutes of footage from the film! Here are some reviews of the event:

Audio Interview with Andrew:
http://www.comingsoon.net/audio/stantonwalle.mp3
"I think that dog is happy to see me" / "I don't care what the math says, it's not doing what it's supposed to" / "I've been watching a lot of BSG"

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=22911
"It certainly looks like another imaginative, fun film from Disney and Pixar. It also looks like Ben Burtt's going to win another Academy Award for sound design."

http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/07/28/comic-con-indepth-wall-e-details-revealed/
"The footage that was shown was unlike anything that has been ever done by Disney before. I’d call it an anti-Disney movie."

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/07/29/comic-con-prince-caspian-and-wall-e-the-disney-pixar-pre/
"If you're reading a story about Comic-Con on a film site I probably don't need to tell you how much Ben Burtt rocks and how much of a contribution he makes to any film he works on."
"In short, the clip was great and I can't wait for the film."

http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2007/07/comic-con-toon-.html
"Going in to Comic-Con, we published a list of the 10 most anticipated movies being presented in San Diego. Coming out of the convention, the two films I can't wait to see in their entirety were nowhere to be found on our original list (that's the beauty of Comic-Con, really).
First, there's Pixar's next toon, "Wall-E," from "Finding Nemo" director Andrew Stanton."

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2574379
Same thing here: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33497
"we got an awesome 10 minute clip from the beginning of the movie. Andrew Stanton stressed that it was unfinished. Still, it looks loving amazing"

http://www.reelzchannel.com/outtakes/blog.aspx?blogentryid=409
"Where as Fox's Robots took the standard approach to robot animated characters we've seen a million times before, Pixar's creativity shines through in a very original way."

And here are my photos from the 'Con.

Visualizing Taste

Michel Gagné has posted an article on his web site about how he created the 2D visuals for the tasting sequences in Ratatouille. It's not often that you get to see this sort of abstract animation in a feature film, and trying to visualize flavor must have been especially challenging.

"Lifted" on iTunes Store

The lastest Pixar short film, "Lifted" is now available for purchase on the iTunes Store. Hopefully you've already seen it in front of Ratatouille...

Walking...

Is it animation or performance art? Or is it just weird? From poster "notblu":

2 loops from walking animated wall painting.
the video is stretched horizontally. It was filmed with a camera in vertical position but youtube doesn't accept that format.

The Latest Short Films From Gobelins

The French animation school Gobelins, has just posted their latest student clips created for the Annecy festival. These guys consistently produce great work, and really push the medium. My favorites are La Grande Arche and Chronos 1.0. Enjoy!

Sisyphus

Marcell Jankovics - Sisyphus (1974)

Here's a nice piece of hand-drawn animation from 1974. Great use of line and a sense of weight, and also note the amount of variation in what would otherwise be a repetitive action. My advice for enjoying this clip: turn off the sound!

For the record...

There are some early reviews of Ratatouille on Ain'tItCoolNews right now, including one where a viewer compares the Pixar short film "Lifted" unfavorably to my own "Alien Song". To quote:

Another thing that bugged me was the Lifted short, the main alien reminded me to much of the “I Will Survive” animation that was everywhere online about five years ago where the alien was singing “I Will Survive” and then at the end a disco ball falls on it and flattens it. There were some funny parts in the short, but not great.

First of all, don't believe this guy. Lifted is hilarious! But beyond that I don't see much similarity between it and my film, other than that there are green aliens involved, and some violence. I don't even think director Gary Rydstrom had seen my film before he started to develop Lifted. The alien designs are a lot more interesting than mine, and they have TWO eyes! Take that! This reminds me of some similar conjecture years back when people were saying that Mike Wizowski of "Monsters, Inc." was a rip-off of my alien as well. Well, maybe there's a hair of truth to that...

Football Vs. Rabbit

This is a really cool example of using CG to emulate claymation. Nice squishy-stretchy feel!

WALL-E Teaser...

Tune in to Entertainment Tonight at 7:30pm PDT for a first look at the teaser trailer for Pixar's 2008 feature, "WALL-E". It's on KRON Channel 4 in the Bay Area. Check your local listings. You'll get a little taste of what I've been working on for the past year or so. Sorry for the late notice, I just found out about this myself!

UPDATE: the teaser in now online, in HD, even! Thanks to Alexiss for the tip.

Some thoughts on "Ratatouille"

A couple weekends ago (June 2) I had the pleasure of seeing Ratatouille with my fellow Pixarians at its wrap party. Now, we had all had a few drinks, and the crew was pretty exhausted, so we weren't the most objective audience, but I think it turned out fantastic. I'll admit, the premise of a rat who wants to be a chef never excited me that much, but when the story is in the hands of Brad Bird, you know you're in for something special. The story was funny and entertaining, the characters memorable, and the production values are off the charts. This is by far the best looking film Pixar has ever done, and probably the best looking animated film to date. The lighting is sumptuous, and the detail in the sets and characters is downright compulsive. Then there's the animation... There is acting in this film the likes of which has never been seen before in animation (at least not since the Golden Age of Disney), and the performances are more consistent throughout the film than ever before. This is partly because the Pixar animatosrs are at the top of their game, and partly because Brad Bird has written scenes that demand great animation. This film has definitely raised the bar on all levels, from story to cinematography to animation to shading to effects. It's such a dense and layered film, too, so I look forward to seeing it again (with a REAL audience) to pick up more of the details.

I only contributed one shot to this film, so I have the more distance from it than previous films, which makes it even more special to me. I don't know if this film will make a lot of money. How do you market cooking to kids and dads, and rats to moms? I just know that if people get to the theater, they will enjoy it. I expect this movie will be very well-reviewed, and hopefully that buzz will translate into some good revenues. Not that Pixar is in danger of extinction, or that if we don't break opening day records there will be layoffs or famine in the crew. But a movie with so much love and craftsmanship doesn't come along very often, and it deserves to be enjoyed by the masses. These movies we make are gifts to the world, so help us share the gift.

If you're reading this blog then you're probably already an animation fan and were likely going to see this movie anyway. But if you like it, see if you can't drag along someone else to see it who maybe isn't a fan. Tell your mom or the guy in the Starbuck's line. I bet they'll thank you later. And so will I.

Cool overlap tutorial

Courtesy of the blog "Flip". This a simple, structured way to think about drag and overlap in your animation, and it fits nicely with the spline workflows that I outline in my tutorials.

Cool Cake Animation

Some great squashy-stretchy claymation in here, set to the music of "La Traviata". Probably doesn't taste as good as it looks!

Computer Animation and Drawing

There's a cool article over on the Spline Doctor's blog about the importance of drawing for ALL animators, not just 2D animators. I get asked about this a lot, and I think Dr. Stephen Gregory does a good job of laying it down. Here's the article.

9 Minutes of Animation Bliss

I know I've been using this site to shill for Pixar movies a lot, and they don't really need the help. But I'm really excited about Ratatouille, and particularly about the 9 minutes of animation they just released! If you're like me then you prefer to wait and see it on the big screen and be surprised. But if you're not excited about Pixar's next feature, I suspect you will be after viewing this. Everything about this movie, from the story to the animation to the effects, camera, lighting, etc., raises the bar for the medium. I only animated one shot on this film, but I'm proud to have been a part of it. Enjoy!

The Return of Goofy

Looks like Disney Animation will start making 2D shorts again in the classic style! The first out will be "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater" starring Goofy. There are some heavy-hitter animators on board for this one, including Eric Goldberg, Andreas Deja and Mark Henn. I had the privelege of seeing the story reels at Pixar and I can tell you that it's hilarious! I'm looking forward to a return to form for Disney Animation! Read more about the short on AnimatedViews.com.

Yeah, it's been a while

Things have been crazy at the old Navone homestead. We had another baby and lots of visiting in-laws. Work was crazy, and I'm still teaching. So that's why I haven't posted anything in about a MONTH. Sorry for lagging!

In the meantime, here's an interesting resource for facial expressions: ARTNATOMY. It's a bit academic, but I think it's valuable for artists and animators to familiarize themselves with facial anatomy, and this site presents the information in an interesting and interactive way.

New Ratatouille Trailer on Friday

Officialese:

*TUNE-IN*
SITE: DISNEY.COM
DATES: Monday, March 19-Friday, March 23 @ 9:04PM
URL: http://www.disney.com
http://home.disney.go.com/movies/
SUBJECT: RATATOUILLE
NOTES: Trailer Tease

An exclusive trailer tease was created for Disney.com to notify users that the exclusive brand new trailer for RATATOUILLE will be available on Friday, March 23rd at 9:05PM PDT – ONLY on Disney.com. This video will be featured all week on the Disney.com Homepage, Movies page and segment pages.


*TUNE-IN*
SITE: DISNEY.COM
DATES: Friday, March 23 @ 9:05PM-Sunday, March 25 @ 11:59PM
URL: http://www.disney.com
http://home.disney.go.com/movies/
SUBJECT: RATATOUILLE
NOTES: Online Trailer Debut

Disney.com has the exclusive online debut of the new theatrical trailer for RATATOUILLE. It’s the first video in the play list on the homepage – making it so that every guest who visits Disney.com automatically sees the new trailer! The trailer will be exclusive to Disney.com for 48 hours. Following the exclusive period, the trailer will still receive homepage promotion on Disney.com, as well as the movies page and segment pages.

Also, www.ratatouille.com will be refreshed on Monday to include the trailer in multiple sizes, including HD, and hard tapes and streaming links will be delivered to all outlets on Monday morning.

Splinophilia Part 2 is up

It's done at last. Hope you like it. I'm gonna sleep now.

New Tutorial Up: Splinophilia

I finally got this tutorial worked out. It swelled to about 3 times as big as I expected (which is typical for me) and this is only part 1. Hopefully there's stuff in there for newbies and veterans alike. Comments are welcome if you think something is unclear, or you think I'm full of it.
Enjoy!

Brad Bird on Good Morning America

A few months ago a camera crew from Good Morning America showed up at Pixar to interview Brad and film some of the production on Ratatouille. This clip contains some never-before released footage from the film, as well as a peek inside of Pixar. Here's a supporting article on ABC's site.
By the way, I'm almost ready to post the next tutorial on splines that I mentioned way-back-when. I've just got a few Quicktime embedding issues to sort out.

Ratatouille Test Animation Online

Check it out! This was animated by Doug Dooley last year and is not actually a scene from the film.

Purple and Brown

Those guys at Aardman just have too much fun. Witness their new series of shorts, "Purple and Brown". Two simple characters with simple minds = pure viewing satisfaction. Enjoy a slew of clips on YouTube. There's also a downloadable clip here. And here's a blurb:

Aardman Animations is continuing its full-scale deployment of television content with a new interstitial series titled Purple and Brown for Nickelodeon U.K. Created by Aardman's Richard Webber, the ten one-minute shorts are set to launch on the kids' channel on Feb. 13 and are now available for download on Nickelodeon U.K.'s broadband video service, TurboNick.

Purple and Brown are two comical stop-motion characters who live in a world populated by other equally weird and wonderful plasticine characters. In each episode, they greet their new friends with infectious laughter and an innocent curiosity, which always ends in one or both of them sustaining a considerable degree of injury.

The series is exec produced by Nickelodeon's Howard Litton, along with with Aardman's Miles Bullough, David Sproxton and Peter Lord. Webber, whose animation credits include Creature Comforts, Angry Kid and Morph, writes, directs and provides voices for the interstitials.

Aardman recently sold its clay-animated Creature Comforts television series to U.S. broadcaster CBS, which will air an Americanized version as a 2006-2007 midseason entry.

Oscar Showcase at AWN.com

AnimationWorldNetwork.com has posted summaries and clips from all the Oscar-nominated features and shorts for 2007. You can see a clip from Pixar's "Lifted", directed by Gary Rydstrom, here.

The Animation of Romain Segaud

One of my favorite French animators, Romain Segaud, has a new (to me) web site featuring a variety of his personal and commercial work. My favorites are the short film "TimTom" and the music video "Bip Bip". Allez voir!

New interview with me on Planit3D.com

At least somebody's web site is getting some new content from me. I did this interview last year but only found the link just now. Thanks to Daryn Fitz for caring!

Congratulations to AnimationMentor.com Graduates!

In an emotional and historical ceremony, the first two classes of AnimationMentor.com students celebrated their graduation from the 18-month program today. I was able to attend, along with some other fellow mentors, and it was great to finally get to meet a lot of my students face-to-face. The event took place in San Francisco at the Fort Mason Center near Fisherman's Wharf and I was surprised to see that so many students had traveled from all over the country (and even the world) to attend. Congratulations to all the graduates, and best of luck in your careers! You can see a highlight reel of their outstanding work here.

Face Take Tutorial now in Chinese

Thanks to Ryudo Cheng for the translation and hosting.

The art of Mathias Verhasselt

This guy's conceptual designs and color renderings are awesome. Reminds me of how much I need to work on my own stuff. I wish I understood color as much as he does. Sigh. Anyway, all his images are on one page so it takes a while to load (it's worth it). Someone needs to introduce him to thumbnail galleries!

This blog has been a little light on content lately, thanks to holidays, illnesses, life etc. I'm working on another tutorial now and I hope to have it finished up some time this month. Keep checking back!

Al Hirschfeld in action

Thanks to Noah for this one. Here's a small glimpse into the process of a master draftsman and designer. I hope my hand is that steady when I'm 99!

Early Disney CG

This is some work that John Lasseter did at Disney before leaving to form Pixar back in the eighties. This movie probably wont stay up on YouTube long, so enjoy it while you can!

More great pencil tests

These are courtesy of 1 on 1 Animation, a pretty cool looking animation school. Scroll down this page for a bunch of pencil tests from Disney and other animators. Thanks to Bobby P for the find.

Glen Keane talk on YouTube...

...In 17 parts!

Recorded back in 1990, but still relevant.

Milt Kahl pencil tests

Thanks to James Hull at Seward Street for this one:


And this one from cartooncolin:

Ye Ol' Cars Reel

Here, as promised, is a highlight reel of my work on "Cars" and the DVD short, "Mater and the Ghost" Light, as well as a couple shots I did for the commercial I directed for State Farm. It's an 18 mb Quicktime movie, and you'll need Quicktime 7 to view it.

Cars on DVD

Okay, you probably knew this already, but I've got to represent! The Cars DVD features the short "One Man Band" as well as a new short, "Mater and the Ghostlight", which I had the pleasure of working. And, of course, you'll find the teaser for Ratatouille, the next great film from director Brad Bird. This is a single-disc edition, and as far as I know there are no plans for a two-disc set (bummer, yes).

I'll be posting a highlight reel of my work on Cars soon, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the movie!

P.S. A few people (Hans, Noah) have noted that there is a two-disc set available exclusively through WalMart, the second disc being called "Geared Up: Bonus DVD Disc". From what I can tell this second disc is just music video stuff, and likely doesn't contain any original Pixar content. Personally I avoid shopping at WalMart anyway, but if you're a Rascal Flatts fan then maybe you'll enjoy the extra disc.

Happy Halloween!

Image courtesy of thehaysoj
And from last year:

Blue Sky Takes On Pixar

Some cool images on the Blue Sky Studios Challenge blog. Thanks, guys!

New Scrat short online

Nevermind, it got pulled down. Look for it on the Ice Age 2 DVD!

Face tutorial now En Espanol

Thanks to Victor Escardo for the translation and hosting:
Animando una reacción de sorpresa ‘Take’

Long time no post

Sorry this blog has been so quiet lately. I was on vacation for a bit and then I got REALLY busy at work. I think I blew my wad on that last tutorial, too! Things are calming down a bit so I'll try to get some content up next week.

New Tutorial Up!

Here is my first (and possibly last) attempt at an animation tutorial. I break down a 10 frame shot from The Incredibles to show how I used squash and stretch, etc. in a facial take. Enjoy!

Caricature Dump

Over the past two years I've been drawing a lot of caricatures for fun, mostly of my friends at Pixar. I figured it was time I scan them and post them for posterity. If you don't work at Pixar then you probably don't know if the likenesses are accurate, but hopefully the drawings will be enjoyable on their own! There's a self-portrait at the end, for what it's worth.

Burning Man 2006 photos

Wild and wacky images from this year's festival on the playa. This is what kept me too busy to post to the blog. I still haven't finished unpacking yet, and it will take me all year to get the dust out of my stuff...

Is it Animation or Performance Capture?

You decide. Either way, it's super cool. I remember doing experimental photography with long exposure times back in college, but the Japanese, of course, have taken it an order of magnitude further.

Bruno Kirby, 1949-2006

Actor Bruno Kirby, 57, died of leukemia today, and like so many people you don't realize how great they are until they're gone. I always thought of him as just a funny character actor, but looking back I see he's been in some great movies, like "Donnie Brasco", "When Harry Met Sally", and even "The Godfather Part 2", and he's always given a memorable performance.

So why am I posting this here? I was listening to an interview with him recorded back in the 90's and he had some great things to say about his acting process and creating characters which, of course, applies directly to animation. I suggest you listen to it too, but I'll paraphrase some things here. He said you should never play a character for the end result. For example, don't try to make a character funny or sad or frightening. Play the character honestly from his specific point of view, and hopefully this will elicit the desired response in the audience. Every character should believe in what he or she is doing, and should not act "negatively". No one wakes up in the morning and says, "I'm going to do something bad today". Instead they decide to do something that will satisfy their goals, be it love, money, power, celebrity, salvation, etc. He explains it more elegantly than I do, and it's good to keep in mind as you develop an animated performance. I don't know about you, but I'm going to be adding some of his films to my Netflix queue.

Thanks, Bruno.

What I want for Christmas

Sorry there haven't been more posts lately. I've been busy with lots of stuff, including preparations for Burning Man.

I Met Gromit!

Or to be more precise, I met Aardman animator Merlin Crossingham, who brought along some of the characters from "Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit". I was so busy geeking out on all the goodies he brought that I didn't get a picture of him.


Anyway, it was fascinating to hear him talk about the stop-motion animation process, which I find both intriguing and intimidating. I love the idea of being able to manipulate real models with my hands, but I can't imagine trying to animate a performance straight-ahead, one frame at a time. Much less trying to hide the rigs and not pushing the clay characters off-model. Merlin and his fellow animators have my utmost respect and admiration!

Forget animation - Puppets are the next big thing

And by "big" I mean BIG. I wish I could have seen this in person - it's mind-blowing. The perfect confluence of art and engineering. More info here, and some more photos here.

Glen Keane

So if you're into animation like me you likely know who Glen Keane is. And if you know who he is you've probably already seen the Art Of Glen Keane blog, as it's been linked in plenty of other places. This is a fan site, mind you, not his personal site. Anyhow, his art has always blown me away (see above image) and he's a great animator to boot. I referenced some of his animation of Ratigan for my work on Syndrome in The Incredibles. And he seemed really nice the one time I met him, but I digress.

Recently I had to drive from San Diego to Oakland alone, which is about 500 miles, and thank Jobs for the iPod and, by result, podcasts. Listening to podcasts made the trip a lot easier, especially the wonderful Animation Podcasts by Clay Kaytis, in which he interviews working animators and directors. My favorite so far is the Glen Keane interview (back on topic!) where he talks very frankly about his animation experience and process. He's very inspiring to listen to. One of the things he said that I really latched onto was that when you come across an animation problem that you can't solve, it's not because you're not good enough, it's because you've reached the limit of your knowledge. The solution, therefore, is to seek that knowledge outside of yourself. For him this meant going to art museums and being inspired by classical works. It's reassuring to hear that even someone of his stature hits the wall once in a while and has to work through it and keep learning.

So that's my post about Glen Keane. I hope I don't come off like a fan-boy, but... He rules!

TMNT trailer online

You gotta admit, this looks pretty cool! Well, except for the guy in the dumpster.

NFB Animated Shorts online

The National Film Board of Canada has posted a bunch of animated short films to their web site. Among them are such Academy Award nominated films as George and Rosemary, The Big Snit, The Cat Came Back and Flux. The films span from 1942 to 2002. This ought to keep you busy for a while!

The Pixar Zoetrope

Looking through my files I stumbled upon this movie of the 3D Zoetrope from Pixar's exhibition at the NYC MoMA earlier this year, and I realized that it probably hasn't been posted anywhere. So here it is! It's a 4.2 MB mp4 movie, and of course it doesn't approximate in the least how cool this contraption looks in person. This is real 3D animation. There's plenty more information on the Zoetrope and the rest of the exhibit (which I believe is in London now) at the Luxo Blog.


You can see more of my personal photos from the exhibit here.

SIGGRAPH 2006 Computer Animation Festival

Trailer now online (19.6 MB). Some cool stuff in there; too bad I'm not going! Here's a link to the site.

What Recruiters Are Looking For

A good article on VFXWorld featuring interviews with recruiters from major animation and effects studios:

What Recruiters Are Looking For

9 Old Men Videos

"Disney Family Album" postings on YouTube. Delicious Old-School Flavor!

"Arthur et les Minimoys"

Luc Besson throws his hat into the animation ring:


Discuss amongst yourselves.

More French Student Animation

These kids at Gobelins have got it going on. Their film Pyrats has great physical animation, nice staging, it's entertaining and it's got a healthy dose of GBO*. And it's it 2D!

*Gratuitous Breast Overlap

Nemo

No, not THAT Nemo. This is Studio Ghibli's version of Little Nemo in Slumberland from a 1984 pilot. This clip is amazing:



Here is some information on the production and how it died.

Good article about Ed Catmull

Here's a good story in the LA Times about Ed and Pixar's reinvigoration of Disney Animation.

Q&A on StrutYourReel.com

I'm doing a Q&A on the forums at StrutYourReel.com right now. Feel free to drop by and ask a question. I'm way behind on answering email, so this may be a better venue for answers.

My shots on "Cars" - UPDATED

I've had some requests to list the shots I worked on in Cars, so I'll try to remember and describe them below. Of course I can't actually include the clips here, but when the DVD comes out I'll put together a reel. Anyway, here are some highlights:

Winner's Circle - I did two long shots of McQueen talking to Cori Vetta about how "there's a lot more to racing than just winning". I also did his pit crew team to the point where they storm out and say "we quit Mr. One-Man-Show!" These were really hard to choreograph because of all the characters and the changing tires (lots of constraint switching). I like how the pitties turned out, but I'm not so sure McQueen is pushed far enough.

Traffic Court - I did some McQueen shots where he's talking to Sally ("I'm sorry, did I scare you?" and "Do what you gotta do baby. Oh but listen - be careful. Folks 'round here are not firing on all cylinders..." I also did some Mater stuff in this sequence, like when he's playing with his side mirror and blinds himself, and when he's blowing the spit bubble. McQueen was really fun to animate here because he was being sleazy. I had a really hard time animating the Mater mirror shot. I think I started over twice, and I still can't tell if it's funny or not.

Racing Doc - Some shots of Guido and Luigi just before the race - "My friend Guido he dream of giving a real race car a pit stop" and the little happy pee-pee dance that Guido does while McQueen explains he doesn't need a pit stop. I also did the shots at the end of this sequence where Mater flings his tow hook into the canyon, hooks McQueen and hauls him up. "I'm startin' to think he know'd you was gonna crash!" "Thank you, Mater, thank you." Lasseter wanted Mater to use his tow hook like a fly-fisherman, which meant the I ended up sculpting the shape of the rope on every frame for about 48 frames. I actually had to do some posing between frames, too, to get the motion blur right. Ugh.

Doc instructs McQueen - a couple shots of Doc Hudson ("I'll put it simple... You'll find yourself turning right"). These were pretty straight-forward, but it can be difficult to get good mouth shapes on Doc because of his long bumper. We tried not to make it look too rubbery or curly.

Best Friends - the first 6 shots of Mater driving backwards through the Cozy Cone Motel, starting with the shot shown in my Disney interview in the previous post. These were the first shots I did on Cars.

Doc is a famous race car - I did Mater's spit-take ("He did WHAT in his cup?") and the reactions of the other cars at Flo's (Sheriff "Well you are looking a little peekid"). I also did Doc Hudson watching from his window as the other cars doubt his racing past. A lot of characters to handle but still fun. It's always nice to have a great punchline to work with, too.

New Tires - I did some shots of Guido and Luigi ("Gratsi, Mr. Lightning, gratsi!" and Luigi raising McQueen up on the lift). Guido and Luigi are always fun to animate. I came up with the idea of Luigi sort of hugging McQueen with his front tires, and I wasn't sure if Lasseter would buy it (he did).

Goodbye - I did a few shots of Sally talking to McQueen just before he leaves ("No, it was much more than that"). It was nice to do some serious acting for a change.


That's all I can remember right now. I also did some shots for promotional material (including my commercial) and some other stuff that I can't talk about yet (you'll see it on the DVD).

The Infamous Interview

Alright, here's my interview from the Disney Channel. It is what it is:


A few notes:

• No, this is not really my office
• My eyes look all droopy because we shot this early in the morning
• In real life I don't begin every sentence with "Well..."
  
• Well, you may recognize the smaller kid, Moises, from his role in "Nacho Libre". I didn't recognize him at the time, but I wish I had. Na-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
• Most of the rendered shots of Mater are done by Carlos Baena or other animators. They only show one of mine, which is on the monitor.
• That's "menv", Pixar's proprietary animation software on my workstation. Dig my rainbow-colored spreadsheet interface! Luckily my real workstation has a much larger monitor. Note the second monitor on the left which has its own computer (called a "xenon") dedicated to playing back Quicktime movies.
  
• I improvised the line about "The eyes are the windshield to the soul". Oh yeah, I'm that good.

My new favorite kids' show

Pocoyo! I've only seen one episode (on YouTube, of course) but it's really cool. Super simple characters and surprisingly good animation. Not something you expect to see in a kids' show. The duck character absolutely rules! Unfortunately it's only showing in UK, Canada and Japan right now. I found out about it from Angus Maclane who saw it at Annecy. Hopefully they'll start playing them in the US soon, or at least make them available on NTSC DVD. Here's a sample episode:

Some more vintage animation

This time: student films from John Lasseter and Jim Reardon (ex-Simpsons story guy, now working for Pixar). Here's John's "Lady and the Lamp":




And here's Jim's "Bring Me The Head of Charlie Brown" - warning: contains graphic cartoon violence!

I'm back

Just got back from vacation today. So why am I blogging already? Because I am a pathetic geek. And because I don't feel like unpacking or going to bed. Anyway, I don't have time to talk about my work on Cars right now (hope you saw it!) but here's a link to some of the fluffy documentary stuff on the Disney Channel:

YouTube clips

I'll post my interview too, when I get a chance.

Ratatouille trailer online!

Wow, big day for animation, or at least for my blog.


Here's the teaser trailer for Ratatouille, the film after Cars, due next summer. I'm not working on it (I'm working on the film after Rat) but I've been watching their progress and the animation is crazy good. So is the lighting. So is... Everything! This movie is going to blow your mind. But you'll have to wait another year!

I'm going on vacation for a week and half, so these posts will have to hold you for a while.

Amazing student animation from Annecy festival

I just found this amazing student film called "Burning Safari". Wow. I'm glad I already have job. Those french schools like Gobelins and Supinfocom sure churn out some awesome students. You can see more of their stuff here.

P.S. Go see Cars!

"Cars" opens today worldwide!

So, what are you doing this weekend? Anything fun? Well... If you, you know, get bored or something, why not go check out this little movie I worked on? What? You haven't heard about it? Well, go see it anyway. Better see it twice, just to be sure. And then come back here and let me know what you thought of it. Unless you hated it.

Enjoy!

Steven Seagal Live!

Last night a bunch of us animators caught a live performance of Steven Seagal at the Fillmore in San Francisco. He pumped us up with classics like "Love Doctor" and "Alligator Eggs", and then really brought the house down with the funky "Feet Don't Fail Me Now". Surprisingly, he got through the whole show without killing anyone! Truly a monumental evening for blues enthusiasts, Buddhists, and action lovers alike.

P.S. His band really does rock.

Banned Cartoons

You can find some interesting stuff on YouTube.com if you type "banned cartoons" into the search field. One of my favorites is this commercial that the Flintstones did for Winston Cigarettes back in the 50's:



Most of the others involve really racist material, so I wont link them here. There are some great WW2 classics, like "Russian Rhapsody" and "Der Fuehrer's Face". Hey, Nazi's are always fair-game for satire in my opinion.

I'll be on the Disney Channel tonight

Okay, I'm taking a risk posting this, as it's likely I'll end up looking like a complete idiot. During a broadcast of the movie "The Parent Trap" on the Disney Channel at 8pm tonight there will be a series of interstitials in which characters from the show "Hannah Montana" make a trip to Pixar to find out how we made "Cars". I am one of the animators they "meet" and I try to explain the process of 3D animation in very simple terms. I haven't seen any of the footage so I really don't know how it turned out. The kids were cool and the experience was fun, but don't look for a whole lot of enlightening information or deep drama. You may get in a good laugh at my expense, though.

Of note: the office we filmed in is NOT really my office. They dressed up a different room, and the photos on the desk aren't my family.