WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Pixar Story: Part 3 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.400 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.840 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.520 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio, and how the tech 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.040 are you. It's time for another tech Stuff classic episode. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:27.040 Over the past two weeks, we have listened to classics 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:30.560 from The Pixar Story Parts one and two, So this 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:35.040 week it's The Pixar Story, Part three, which concludes the 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.080 trilogy of episodes I did about Pixar from back in 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.360 twenty sixteen. This one originally published August tenth, twenty sixteen, 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.800 so there's a lot more to say since then, but 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.920 let's sit back and listen to this classic episode. We 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.320 left off last episode in two thousand and six, when 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:59.680 Disney had officially announced its intent to acquire Pixar outright. 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.800 It would no longer just be a partnership, a contractual partnership. 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.679 It would be that the two companies would become united. 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:09.919 So now we're going to pick up in two thousand 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:14.000 and seven, when Pixar would release the first film it 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.080 had as an official part of the Disney Company itself. 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:23.080 That film was Rataituey with Patton Oswalt voicing the main character, 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:28.039 Patton Oswald, one of my favorite comedians. Now, Rattue was 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.560 again very successful. Like all the Pixar films that led 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.880 up to this point, it was successful both financially and critically. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.319 It later would win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.880 We're getting to a point now where the people were 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.759 starting to ask the question, are other movies ever going 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.920 to have a real chance against Pixar movies in the 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:54.280 category of animated feature? And we also see more and 0:01:54.360 --> 0:02:00.080 more push from companies like Pixar for the Academy to 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.920 consider animated movies on the same playing ground as live 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:10.079 action films. Now, Ratatuy would be another brad Bird directed film, 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.800 although not Originally, Bradbird was brought in to replace a director, 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:20.120 Jan Pinkava. I believe Jan might be Yon. Jan Pinkava 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.560 was at the Helm and then brad Bird took over. 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.440 One of the big challenges facing the animators with Ratatue 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.960 was finding a way to animate Linguini. That's the human 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:38.720 character who's under the control or partial control of Remy 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.480 the rat. They're trying to figure out, well, how do 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.120 we animate him where it's clear to the audience that 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.840 he's not really in control of his own movements, or 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.600 not in full control at any rate. That took a 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.079 lot of work, so they ended up doing a lot 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.560 of They studied a lot of puppet puppets like marionettes 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.560 and stuff like that. That movie did quite well and 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:03.359 over at Disneyland. In two thousand and seven, a new 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:08.000 attraction called the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage opened up now 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:12.000 that actually used the old submarine voyage ride, the twenty 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.880 thousand leagues Under the Sea type ride, which had closed 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:19.760 in nineteen ninety eight, so almost a decade after the 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.800 ride had closed, it reopens with a new theme with 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.720 Finding Nemo. Disney World would get its own version of 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.280 this ride, but that would be housed in the Living 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:37.360 Seas and not use the submarines. Instead, you get a 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:43.000 Little Mermaid Submarine ride now instead of the Finding Nemo version. 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:48.480 In two thousand and eight, Pixar would debut the film Wally, 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.880 come out actually the day after My birthday that year, 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.800 and Wally won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. The 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:00.680 Movie's Adorable and also debuted with the short film Presto. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.320 Wally was the first Pixar film to feature scenes with 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:10.040 live actors. And the experience was so much faster than 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.200 computer animation that Picks Her folks were really surprised and 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:19.120 excited about it, because with animation, if you create a 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.960 scene and you realize, oh, we need to have this 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.240 character turn around a little faster, or we need to 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.159 light this in a different way, or the entire pacing 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:30.960 of the scene needs to slow down a bit for 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.520 it to make sense, that requires animators to go back 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.760 and do a ton more work, and it could be many, 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:42.480 many many days before there's something else to look at, 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:45.640 whereas with live action, if it doesn't work, you give 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.920 the direction to the crew and to the cast, and 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.359 you do it again and it's right there. So the 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:55.960 animators were all kind of gaga over how different live 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.719 action is to computer animation, and they said that the 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.440 actors were kind of amuse used because that's what the 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.200 actors were used to, but the animators, to them, was 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.920 a whole new world. Oh. Also, the fact that the 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.799 shoot was catered appeared to be a really big deal, 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.920 which just tells you what kind of things people find 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:19.640 important when they go to a film shoot. Man, I 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.799 wish my shoots were catered. Anyway, it was an entertaining 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.760 thing to see that this live action being incorporated into 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:32.320 the movie had such an effect on the various Pixar employees, 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:35.760 and it was also kind of interesting to just see 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:37.960 live action showing up at a Pixar movie in the 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.159 first place. But another big challenge with Wally was creating 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.760 a story in which there's really no dialogue for the 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.479 first act of the film. Now, obviously that makes the 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.080 story much more of a a story challenge rather than 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.159 a technical challenge, but it also meant that the team 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.880 had to put in a lot of personality in the animations. 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.520 They had to figure out, how can we animate these 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:04.120 characters in a way where we understand what their emotional 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:08.600 reactions are, what their motivations are, what they're feeling and 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.120 thinking at any given time, considering the fact they're not 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:13.320 able to talk or they're not they have nothing to 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.120 talk too, And that actually ends up creating a pretty 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.799 tough technical challenge. It's not just how do you animate 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:29.440 this character, but what motions indicate those specific feelings and thoughts. 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.920 So it involves animators studying themselves a lot, as they 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.440 make different facial expressions and they have different body language 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:41.440 in response to different types of ideas like, you know, 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.440 you just got to you just open the door, and 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:47.080 you just found out your friends are throwing you a 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:51.520 surprise birthday party. What's your reaction? Or you got home 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.479 to find out that your dog got out of the 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:59.640 backyard somehow and is missing. What's your reaction? And studying 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.200 yourself and then translating that into a character, and a 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.359 character that's not human a robot is a big challenge, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.760 whether it's technical or just from a psychological standpoint, So 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:17.520 pretty spectacular work that they were able to create characters 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.400 that could give you that feeling that they wanted, even 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:26.280 though they're not human or speaking. In two thousand and eight, 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.320 Pixar would finish work on the first set of Car Tunes, 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.640 which are in fact short cartoons about the car's characters. 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.320 Jim Morris, who produced Wally, would become the general manager 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:44.240 of Pixar, and in two thousand and nine, Up debuts 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.080 at the can Film Festival, So the first animated film 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.080 ever in the history of the festival to open the 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:56.000 whole thing up. And I imagine that festival attendees were 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.600 just as devastated by the first ten minutes of that 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.800 movie that I am I still can't watch the first 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.760 ten minutes of UP without turning into a blubbering mess. 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.800 I know because I did it today. When I'm recording this, 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:17.200 I was doing research on Pixar, specifically on UP, and 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.560 I watched it twice. I watched the original sequence in 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.680 storyboard format, and then I watched the actual finished sequence, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.040 and I was so thankful that on Fridays our office 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.960 is pretty dead because no one was there to hear 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.720 me blubbering at my desk. I'm not ashamed of it. 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.360 I just don't want to make other people feel uncomfortable. 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.600 The whole idea for UP began with just the notion 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.360 of an old man floating his house away with a 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.800 bunch of balloons, which is just kind of a comedic image. 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:53.400 But while the image was really evocative and people at 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.960 Pixar thought, yeah, it's a really cool idea, they had 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.160 to come up with, well, why is he doing that, 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.439 where is he going? What's the whole point? So they 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.000 had to create a story around this picture, and that's 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.040 where they started working on the ideas for UP. Now. 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:13.079 The original opening had the character of Carl, who's the 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.600 main character in UP, and his wife Ellie falling in 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.800 love through a contentious and competitive relationship. It starts off 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:24.680 with their kids. Originally, the two kids didn't get along 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.760 with each other and would kind of ambush one another 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:33.520 and punch each other. It was sort of a violent behavior, 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.240 and it got to a point where those punches give 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:43.920 way to the characters falling for each other, dating, getting married, 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.640 and all the story beats that you see in the 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:48.160 first ten minutes of Up that I'm not going to 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.440 go over or I'll start crying on a podcast, and 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.360 no one wants that, but at any rate, it's same 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:59.000 sort of progression, but in a different emotional impact because 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.840 people are getting punched. So they ended up reworking it 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.360 because when they showed it to people, the reaction was 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.680 pretty quiet and they said it's a little too violent. 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.400 So they went back, reworked it and did a different take, 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:16.560 which led to what you saw in the film. Technical 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.600 challenges included creating a system that could guide the behavior 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:24.439 of a lot of balloons, because that's how Carl's House 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.120 moves to South America. So how many balloons were used, 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.040 like in the movie, how were the balloons showing up? 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.040 I mean, not real balloons obviously they're virtual balloons, but 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.400 how many were on screen? According to one animator, two 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.720 hundred and eighty six balloons or somewhere in that neighborhood 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.680 were used to get Carl's house off the ground. And 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.600 those balloons had to behave in a believable way. They 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:53.920 had to be buoyant, so they had to rise up 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:55.280 in the air, but they had to rise up in 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:56.800 the air in a way that was natural, like if 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.960 a breeze came by, it wouldn't be a straight line up, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.760 it would be moving off at an angle. They had 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:04.800 to bounce off each other, They had to have presents. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.000 They had to be able to react off of each 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.120 other's strings. So the first balloons that go up are 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.760 followed by other balloons, But those balloons also have to 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:18.840 move through strings, and that's going to restrict the way 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.720 those balloons move. It all had to be believable or 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:26.800 else it would just be distracting. So the modeling they did, 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.800 the simulations they did to create the rules of physics 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.480 for those balloons was pretty sophisticated. It was kind of 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.880 like not unlike the hair simulator that they had to 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.200 build for monsters, inc. They needed to have a system 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.880 there that would make all of this work in a 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:48.200 way that was, you know, that behaved a set of rules, 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.760 and that wouldn't require animators to sit there and hand 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:57.920 animate ten thousand balloons, which would for the number of shots, 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.360 in the number of frames that it shows up on screen, 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.320 it would be impossible. The movie would still be in 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:08.120 development if all that had to be done by hand. 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:13.440 The short Partly Cloudy would accompany Up and Up would 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:17.480 win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. Also, it 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.560 won an Oscar for Best Original Score. And that's really 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.880 when people were beginning to ask, is any movie animated 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.280 film besides Pixar ever going to have a shot at 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.800 winning that best Animated category. The answer, by the way, 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:32.920 is yes. But at the time it looked like Pixar 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:38.040 could not produce anything but a surefire hit. In two 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.840 thousand and nine, Edwin cat Mole was honored by the 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.120 Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences would the Gordon E. 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.199 Sawyer Award, which is an award for an individual in 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.200 the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:56.000 to the industry as a whole. Now cat Mole, of course, 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.760 had been working on lots of different technologies related to film, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:05.040 not just directly to computer graphics, but other applications as well, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.280 and as a result, there were a lot of movie 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.120 studios that were able to do some pretty incredible things 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.680 using the technology he had invented, So it was not 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.760 a big surprise that he was honored with this award. 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.160 Also in two thousand and nine, Pixar created a wholly 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:26.800 owned subsidiary called Pixar Canada because it was located in Mexico, 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.080 just kidding, it was in Vancouver. The main purpose for 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.960 Pixar Canada was to create short films based off the 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:39.840 characters from Pixar feature films, So Pixar Canada would be 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.680 focusing on short cartoons that had characters from Toy Story 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.280 or Monsters Incorporator or that kind of thing, and it 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:53.160 freed up animators at the main Pixar headquarters to focus 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:58.280 on feature length films. In twenty ten, Pixar debuts Toy 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.360 Story three, which of course breaks even more records. It 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.600 becomes the highest grossing animated film of all time at 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.480 that point. It also became the first animated film to 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.160 rake in a billion dollars at the box office. It 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:17.440 won the Best Animated Feature Oscar, and the composer Randy 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.440 Newman won an Oscar for the song We Belong Together. 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:26.920 So a very critically praised film. The first two films 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.120 in the Toy Story series really explore the idea of 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:31.840 if a toy could think and feel, what would it 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.360 feel if it were lost or if it had been stolen. 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.120 The third film explores the idea of why would a 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:44.960 toy feel if the owner had outgrown the toy? Kind 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.480 of explored a little bit in Toy Story two with Jesse, 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.280 but now the characters of Woody and Buzz Lightyear have 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.120 to deal with that. So some of these are pretty 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:59.400 heavy concepts, the idea of being abandoned and mortality and 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:04.600 purpose in life, and it's all being explored by three 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:10.120 D animated toys. But what was the big challenge in 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.320 this film? We've talked in some of the other movies 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.960 about you know, fur in Monster z Inc was a 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.960 big challenge. Getting those underwater effects just right and finding 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.880 Nemo that was a big challenge. Was there anything left 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.080 to be challenging by the time they hit Toy Story three? Well, 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.320 according to Pixar, Yeah, and the big challenge they had 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.520 at that point was creating a meaningful exchange between human 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:37.520 characters as Andy gives his toys away to the little 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.440 girl Bonnie at the end. Spoiler alert if you haven't 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:42.440 watched Toy Story three by now, but it's been out 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.080 for six years, so come on. That moment had to 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.480 be really meaningful, and it's a moment between two human characters. 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.480 Earlier Toy Story films had received criticism that the human 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.640 characters looked kind of like toys too, they didn't really 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.480 look like people. And Pixar had created human characters in 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:05.200 previous films like Up and The Incredibles, but those characters 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:10.600 have been pretty stylized, like they're not not so human, like, 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:12.880 you know, they're supposed to be people, but they don't 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:17.600 really look like people. But pix are also new. They 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:19.960 couldn't go too far in the other direction. They couldn't 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:24.080 make Andy look too human or Bonnie look too human. 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:29.920 And that's because of the uncanny valley problem. And if 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.600 you've never heard that term before, it really started to 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.200 be applied in robotics, but the same is true for 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.520 computer animation. The idea is that uncanny valley is the 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:45.240 closer you get to looking like a human without getting 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:50.680 it absolutely right, the more unsettling it is. Typically the 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:53.640 real problem is with the eyes. The eyes if they 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.760 don't look like they're really like there's any life behind 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:02.480 those eyes, it looks like there's a and animated corpse 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.359 acting in front of you, which for most people is 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:11.399 probably not something that is really entertaining or fun to watch. 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.000 It's unsettling. So this has been a real issue with 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:20.120 robotics and with animation. How do you create a character 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:25.280 that is believable and realistic enough so that people can 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.800 empathize with that character and feel something when they see 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:36.040 that character going through various issues without going so realistic 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.800 that you make everyone kind of squirm in their seats 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:45.080 because something is almost but not quite perfect. It's just 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:51.560 wrong enough to be not good right. It's you don't 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:53.879 want to look at it. And if you've seen certain 0:17:54.320 --> 0:18:00.200 computer animated films that have pretty realistic depictions of humans 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.720 where things are just slightly off, polar Express jumps to 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.080 mind for me, you know what I'm talking about. It 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:12.919 just something doesn't look right and it is unsettling. So 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:17.400 they had to get that fixed for Toy Story three 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.960 because the scene is the end of the movie. It's 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.679 really important that they got the scene right. So it 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.879 took them a lot of time to work on designs 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.359 for the characters that would work and do the story 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:33.880 justice without making the audience feel uneasy in the process. 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:39.840 And capturing that moment of Andy coming to the realization 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.600 that he needs to let go of his toys. That 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.280 was a huge challenge too. That would be a tough 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.320 acting gig to ask a human being. To ask a 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:54.040 human I need you to show us that your character 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.920 has realized it's time to let go of a beloved 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.320 piece of childhood, because it's the right thing to do, 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.639 both for the child you're giving the toy two and 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.199 for the toy itself. I need to see that. That 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.360 would be tough to ask a human actor to do. 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:12.560 I mean, good human actors would be able to do it, 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.160 but it's not easy. It's even harder when you're talking 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.640 about animation, because that's a huge group of people all 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.359 working together to try and make that happen, and getting 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.439 all those little details right is enormously challenging from a 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:33.760 technical standpoint. Now, behind the scenes footage for Toy Story three, 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.000 they reveal that the entire movie has one hundred and 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.879 thirty nine thousand, six hundred and eighty frames in it, 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.399 and each object in the film, every single thing you 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.520 see in the movie, had to be built in several 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:54.720 stages by several teams of people, even if it only 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.520 appeared in a second or two of on screen time. 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:03.840 So every single this old individual component had to be designed, 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:10.920 sketched out, modeled, lit, textured, colored. All of these things 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:15.840 all had to happen for all of the different pieces, 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.320 for all the frames of the movie. And then you 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.840 start to understand, Oh, now, I see why making a 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:27.320 movie like this takes five years. That same year that 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.760 Toy Story three came out, they published a short called 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.480 Day and Night. And that also that same year, John 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.600 Laster would become the first producer of animated films to 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.920 win the Producer's Guild of America David O. Selznik Achievement 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:46.640 Award in Motion Pictures. So Pixar again becomes a pioneer 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:52.600 in the animation industry, really helping gain more legitimacy in 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.000 the eyes of other parts of the industry. For a 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.399 long time, I would argue that animated films have been 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:02.120 kind of looked down upon by certain certain other areas 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.119 of the film industry. I think that both Disney in 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.080 general and Pixar in particular have done a lot to 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.359 turn that around. Other studios also have done great work, 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.959 DreamWorks among them. It's not like Pixar and Disney are 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.520 the only two entities out there, but they really did 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:24.040 pave the way for a lot of other successes. In 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:29.800 twenty eleven, Pixar turns twenty five and releases Cars Too. Also, 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.440 they released the first toy story short cartoon, Hawaiian Vacation, 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.920 and another short film called La Luna. That year, a 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:41.000 Lassiter would direct Cars Too, which was the first time 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.000 he had directed a film since the original Cars, which 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.239 came out I think two thousand and six. He had 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:49.879 directed some of the other shorter cartoons Pixar had produced 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.760 between Cars and Cars Too, but he hadn't directed a 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:58.120 feature length film since Cars. Out of the seventeen movies 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:02.199 Pixar has made, Car, Ours ranks number fifteen at the 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:05.520 box office in the United States, so it's not at 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:08.680 the very bottom, but it's two up from the very bottom. 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.159 It ranks number nine globally, however, so nine out of 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.080 seventeen when you look at worldwide box office. So what 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.640 two films actually got less at the box office than 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.919 Cars Two? That would be A Bugs Life, which was 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.680 Pixar's second film, which made a little less than Toy 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:32.119 Story did, and The Good Dinosaur, which is at the 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:36.080 bottom of both the US and the global box office lists. 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:38.840 We'll get to The Good Dinosaur in just a little 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:42.720 bit and talk about the problems that movie had. We're 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:44.399 going to take a quick break, and then we'll be 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:57.400 back with more about the Pixar story. In twenty twelve, 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:01.640 Brave is released by Pixar along with La Luna, which 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:04.399 had been premiered the year before, but officially released with 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.960 a movie in twenty twelve. Brave also would win the 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.800 Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Brave was co directed by 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:14.800 Brenda Chapman, who was the first woman to direct a 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:18.600 Pixar film. She had previously been the first woman to 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:23.040 direct a major studio animated picture, but that was with DreamWorks. 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.679 She was one of three directors for the Prince of Egypt, 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:29.439 and she was the first woman director to win an 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:33.960 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature with Brave. That being said, 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:38.240 she was not director from start to finish. She had 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:40.600 the idea for Brave. She based it off her own 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:45.240 relationship with her daughter, but there were some real creative 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:48.720 issues behind the scenes while they were working on the story, 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:51.920 so during the production of the film, Chapman was essentially 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:57.000 fired from the production. According to Chapman herself and Mark 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:00.000 Andrews stepped in her place. They both got co direc 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:04.200 director credit, but she was no longer part of the 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:09.240 production and she stayed on with Pixar until the movie 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:12.200 came out, and then she left and for a while 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:14.640 she worked as a consultant with Lucasfilm. She went back 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:16.720 to dream Works for a while. She's done some other 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:20.439 stuff since then, but yeah, she was not on for 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:23.800 the entire film. Still was the first female director of 0:24:23.800 --> 0:24:28.359 a Pixar movie. Now, for Brave, they actually had to 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:32.200 go back and create a new hair simulator. They built 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:35.080 one for Monsters Inc More than a know around a 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:41.119 decade earlier, but they needed a new one. Why because 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:45.639 Meredith's hair is curly, and curly hair moves in a 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:49.920 different way than straight hair, and they could not get 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:55.159 curly hair to work properly using the old simulator, so 0:24:55.200 --> 0:24:57.840 they had to make a new one. In fact, it 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:00.440 was so hard for them to get the curly hair 0:25:00.680 --> 0:25:03.480 to behave the way they wanted it to. For a while, 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:07.240 they actually talked about giving Merita a haircut, but that 0:25:07.400 --> 0:25:10.359 was met with an intense negative reaction for pretty much 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.040 everyone else in the company, and they said, no, you 0:25:12.119 --> 0:25:14.399 got to get this right. So it took more than 0:25:14.440 --> 0:25:18.359 a year just to get the hair right, to build 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:22.360 a computer simulation that could take curly hair and make 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:25.240 it behave in a natural way. When you think about 0:25:25.240 --> 0:25:27.640 the nature of curly hair, you can understand why. It's 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:30.240 not like it's just a wire that's got some weight 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:33.199 to it that needs to move around. That curl is 0:25:33.240 --> 0:25:36.800 going to extend or contract based upon the various forces 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:40.400 that are acting upon it. It's a complicated thing to simulate, 0:25:41.440 --> 0:25:43.000 and you have to do it for a character who's 0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:46.920 in nearly every frame of the movie, and so there's 0:25:46.960 --> 0:25:49.639