WEBVTT - Creative Technology at Pixar 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.276 Pushkin. There's a bunch of stuff I want to ask you. 0:00:22.396 --> 0:00:26.276 A lot of it is about the relationship between technology 0:00:26.316 --> 0:00:28.876 and creativity, and especially given the fact that you've been 0:00:28.876 --> 0:00:33.636 working at Pixar for a long time, respectfully, how that 0:00:33.756 --> 0:00:34.596 changes over time? 0:00:34.756 --> 0:00:37.716 Okay, so how creativity changes as technology changes? 0:00:37.876 --> 0:00:39.676 Yeah? So, actually, can you just say your name and 0:00:39.716 --> 0:00:40.156 your job? 0:00:40.836 --> 0:00:43.876 Sure? My name is Danielle Feinberg, and I work at 0:00:43.876 --> 0:00:47.396 Pixar Animation Studios and I am a visual effects supervisor. 0:00:48.076 --> 0:00:50.956 So you're a visual effects supervisor. Now, if I understand correctly, 0:00:50.996 --> 0:00:52.876 you spent a lot of your career there. You've been 0:00:52.916 --> 0:00:55.516 at Pixar for more than what twenty five years at 0:00:55.516 --> 0:00:55.876 this point? 0:00:56.116 --> 0:00:58.316 So right, yeah, I hit twenty six. 0:00:58.556 --> 0:01:04.836 Musseltov, you were director of photography for lighting for a 0:01:04.916 --> 0:01:06.876 lot of your time there, right, And that's striking to 0:01:06.916 --> 0:01:10.076 me because, if I understand correctly, there are in fact, 0:01:10.436 --> 0:01:14.796 like no photographs and no actual lights in Pixar movies. Right, 0:01:14.836 --> 0:01:17.036 So what does it mean to be the director of 0:01:17.036 --> 0:01:20.356 photography for lighting on you know, movies like say Coco. 0:01:21.076 --> 0:01:25.036 So picky of you, Jacob, I'm sorry, so curious, I'm curious. 0:01:30.156 --> 0:01:32.836 I'm Jacob Goldstein. And this is What's Your Problem, the 0:01:32.876 --> 0:01:34.996 show where I talk to people who are trying to 0:01:35.076 --> 0:01:39.196 make technological progress. My guest today, as you've already heard, 0:01:39.316 --> 0:01:42.196 is Danielle Feinberg, and as you will hear, we did 0:01:42.236 --> 0:01:46.476 talk about creativity and technological change. Also we talked about 0:01:46.516 --> 0:01:49.476 the problem she's trying to solve now, and we talked 0:01:49.476 --> 0:01:52.196 about how we can often wind up following rules that 0:01:52.276 --> 0:01:55.196 are not particularly useful and that in a lot of 0:01:55.196 --> 0:01:57.516 cases we don't even know we are following. 0:02:01.276 --> 0:02:05.036 So director of photography is in a live action movie, 0:02:05.156 --> 0:02:07.356 is the same as a cinematographer, and so they're doing 0:02:07.396 --> 0:02:12.516 camera and lighting together essentially. And so in our world 0:02:12.516 --> 0:02:15.756 and animation, we split that what is traditionally one role 0:02:15.796 --> 0:02:18.116 in live action to two roles, and so we have 0:02:18.156 --> 0:02:20.356 a director of photography for camera and a director of 0:02:20.356 --> 0:02:21.396 photography for lighting. 0:02:21.916 --> 0:02:23.516 And just to be clear, I mean camera is a 0:02:23.556 --> 0:02:27.356 metaphor in this instance, right, like just so I'm thinking 0:02:27.396 --> 0:02:29.996 about it, right, there is a camera, right. 0:02:30.556 --> 0:02:33.276 There is a virtual camera, and so we build a 0:02:33.356 --> 0:02:36.196 virtual three dimensional world, and we actually have a chunk 0:02:36.236 --> 0:02:38.836 of code that is our camera that mimics a lot 0:02:38.836 --> 0:02:44.196 of things that a real life camera does. And as 0:02:44.276 --> 0:02:47.236 time has gone by, in fact that that camera has 0:02:47.236 --> 0:02:50.036 gotten more and more like real life. And we even 0:02:50.156 --> 0:02:55.556 use specific sets of lenses, sometimes modeled after certain companies 0:02:55.636 --> 0:02:56.756 lenses and stuff, and. 0:02:56.676 --> 0:02:59.796 So the lenses are our code basically that generate images 0:02:59.836 --> 0:03:02.836 that look like a picture you take with a certain. 0:03:02.636 --> 0:03:05.556 Actual yes, exactly exactly. 0:03:05.156 --> 0:03:09.756 So similarly than presumably the lighting is sort of similarly 0:03:09.876 --> 0:03:12.436 virtual but modeled on actual lights. 0:03:12.556 --> 0:03:17.396 Yeah, you know it's originally it was modeled on a 0:03:17.516 --> 0:03:21.116 version of a light. It wasn't like, oh, this is 0:03:21.156 --> 0:03:24.756 tungsten light, or this is a light bulb that I 0:03:24.836 --> 0:03:27.556 would have in my lamp at home. It was like, 0:03:27.796 --> 0:03:29.836 here's a light. You can do whatever you want with it. 0:03:29.956 --> 0:03:31.316 You can make it as bright as you want, you 0:03:31.316 --> 0:03:32.756 can make it as big as you want, you can 0:03:33.436 --> 0:03:35.396 all kinds of things. And so in those sort of 0:03:35.436 --> 0:03:39.476 early days, it was easy to do things that looked 0:03:39.516 --> 0:03:42.716 sort of wrong visually because we weren't beholden too some 0:03:42.796 --> 0:03:45.516 of the same physics in real life, huh. 0:03:46.276 --> 0:03:49.796 And so it was almost like too much. You had 0:03:49.796 --> 0:03:51.916 too much power, and you could just get crazy with 0:03:51.956 --> 0:03:54.596 the light and was going on, Yeah. 0:03:54.436 --> 0:03:55.716 We had all the power and you had to use 0:03:55.756 --> 0:03:56.276 it wisely. 0:03:56.956 --> 0:04:01.836 Yes, So, I mean, so there's different ways to talk 0:04:01.876 --> 0:04:04.596 about to talk about this, and I want to try 0:04:04.636 --> 0:04:06.876 a few. But one way that I thought might be 0:04:06.916 --> 0:04:10.836 interesting to frame this is to talk to talk about 0:04:10.836 --> 0:04:13.356 the way that the craft really of what you do 0:04:13.436 --> 0:04:16.476 has changed. I know you worked on Turning Red, the 0:04:16.516 --> 0:04:19.836 recent Pixar movie, which, like millions of other people, I 0:04:19.876 --> 0:04:22.596 watched at home during the pandemic with my daughters. So 0:04:22.716 --> 0:04:25.716 thank you for that. Excellent And then you also you 0:04:25.756 --> 0:04:28.716 worked on A Bugs Life in the late nineties, right, 0:04:28.756 --> 0:04:31.836 And so I thought it might be interesting to compare 0:04:32.596 --> 0:04:35.036 A Bugs Life to Turning Red in terms of the 0:04:35.116 --> 0:04:38.956 sort of technology and creativity, right, how you created in 0:04:38.996 --> 0:04:41.956 those different really kind of technological erars. I mean, that's 0:04:41.996 --> 0:04:46.476 a long time in the development of computer generated animation, right. 0:04:46.916 --> 0:04:50.596 I mean one question in that context is what is 0:04:50.636 --> 0:04:53.636 something that you wanted to do when you were making 0:04:53.716 --> 0:04:56.916 A Bugs Life but that you couldn't that now would 0:04:56.916 --> 0:04:57.876 be really easy to do. 0:04:58.716 --> 0:05:03.556 Yeah, probably so many things. When you think about A 0:05:03.556 --> 0:05:07.196 Bugs Life. That was my first film I worked on here, 0:05:07.276 --> 0:05:09.396 and at that time in the world, there there was 0:05:09.476 --> 0:05:13.036 one feature length computer animated film that had ever been released, 0:05:13.036 --> 0:05:16.436 which was Toy Story. A lot of what was happening 0:05:16.516 --> 0:05:18.836 was just being made up of how to make these 0:05:18.836 --> 0:05:21.796 movies and so and it was a very tiny group 0:05:21.836 --> 0:05:24.076 of people just kind of figuring out how to do 0:05:24.116 --> 0:05:26.956 this computer animation thing as a movie. And so, you know, 0:05:26.996 --> 0:05:30.676 back then Pixar was just this tiny little company that 0:05:30.796 --> 0:05:33.836 like nobody knew Pixar made Toy Story, like they saw 0:05:34.116 --> 0:05:36.756 the Disney on it, and like nobody. I used to 0:05:36.756 --> 0:05:38.596 have to say, oh, I do computer animation. I work 0:05:38.596 --> 0:05:41.276 out a place called Pixar. And then around the time 0:05:41.356 --> 0:05:43.636 of maybe finding Nemo, I said that and someone was like, 0:05:43.716 --> 0:05:45.476 we all know what Pixar is. You can stop saying, 0:05:48.356 --> 0:05:50.836 and so it was very cool. But like on A 0:05:50.876 --> 0:05:53.556 Bugs Life, part of the thing is it's this colony 0:05:53.556 --> 0:05:55.716 of ants, and you know what we know of the 0:05:55.716 --> 0:05:57.756 ants is there's a lot of them once you find 0:05:57.756 --> 0:06:01.196 them and where they live. And doing a scene with 0:06:01.436 --> 0:06:03.516 one hundred ants in it back on A Bug's Life 0:06:03.556 --> 0:06:05.876 was a huge, huge deal. We had to write a 0:06:05.916 --> 0:06:09.916 whole chunk of crowd software and figure out really how 0:06:09.916 --> 0:06:11.756 to jam it into the system and get it to 0:06:11.876 --> 0:06:15.876 render and meaning generate the final images, which is when 0:06:15.916 --> 0:06:19.516 the computer is crunching all of the work you've done 0:06:19.556 --> 0:06:24.476 and doing a million calculations to generate just one image, 0:06:25.036 --> 0:06:26.956 and you need twenty four of those images to make 0:06:27.036 --> 0:06:29.556 one second of film. So for a ninety minute film 0:06:29.596 --> 0:06:31.876 you're doing, you can imagine the sort of scope of 0:06:31.996 --> 0:06:34.876 the calculations you're doing. And doing a crowd of one 0:06:34.916 --> 0:06:37.156 hundred was a really big deal. You know, we can 0:06:37.436 --> 0:06:40.236 do crowds much bigger than that. Now we can give 0:06:40.276 --> 0:06:43.796 them all kinds of sort of acting properties. Where on 0:06:43.836 --> 0:06:47.436 a bug's life it really was someone was animating an 0:06:47.516 --> 0:06:51.116 ant and then you could sprinkle that animation across things, 0:06:51.356 --> 0:06:53.396 and then they'd animate another bit and you sprinkle in 0:06:53.436 --> 0:06:57.076 some of the other ones. But like I was giving 0:06:57.076 --> 0:06:58.676 a talk for I do a lot of talks for 0:06:58.796 --> 0:07:01.196 girls to try and keep them interested in math and 0:07:01.236 --> 0:07:04.636 science to get some better numbers in STEM, and I 0:07:04.756 --> 0:07:07.556 pulled some clips from a bug's life, and I was 0:07:07.636 --> 0:07:09.516 going through this whole thing of like, you know, what 0:07:09.556 --> 0:07:12.196 you don't want is for some two ants to be 0:07:12.276 --> 0:07:14.276 doing the same movement, and then you can see in 0:07:14.316 --> 0:07:16.316 the clip I pulled, like three ants are moving their 0:07:16.396 --> 0:07:18.636 arms like this or something. And it was very funny 0:07:18.636 --> 0:07:20.676 because Back then it was really what we were doing 0:07:20.756 --> 0:07:23.276 was very hard, and now it's much easier, and it 0:07:23.316 --> 0:07:23.716 would have. 0:07:23.796 --> 0:07:28.156 Just been too computationally intensive to have all the ants 0:07:28.196 --> 0:07:30.676 doing different things basically, so you sort of cheated by 0:07:30.716 --> 0:07:32.236 like having some of them do the same thing. 0:07:32.276 --> 0:07:34.836 Yeah, and like you did ten little animated bits and 0:07:34.876 --> 0:07:37.196 sprinkled at a crossing, and you thought that's probably enough, 0:07:37.876 --> 0:07:40.196 and we were probably out of time, honestly, you know, 0:07:40.316 --> 0:07:42.436 also and the next. 0:07:42.196 --> 0:07:44.876 Certain level it was enough, right, Like I don't know 0:07:44.916 --> 0:07:47.436 that people watched a Bug's Life and like, oh, that's 0:07:47.436 --> 0:07:50.196 so cheesy. Those two ants are doing the same thing. 0:07:50.356 --> 0:07:52.396 Right, And if we're doing our job right, you're actually 0:07:52.436 --> 0:07:54.676 looking at the characters who are doing the acting, and 0:07:55.516 --> 0:07:57.516 the crowd is the background in a lot of ways. 0:07:58.076 --> 0:08:00.596 But you know, there's this whole thing of back then 0:08:00.636 --> 0:08:02.716 you were you were much closer to some of the 0:08:02.836 --> 0:08:04.836 sort of the guts and the code, and you'd write 0:08:04.876 --> 0:08:07.156 a little code and you'd generate a picture and you'd 0:08:07.236 --> 0:08:09.316 kind of a lot of back and forth. I think 0:08:09.316 --> 0:08:11.276 a lot of the development that's happened over time has 0:08:11.316 --> 0:08:13.716 been to abstract away from that code so that people 0:08:13.756 --> 0:08:17.836 that really are coming from maybe a pure art background, 0:08:17.956 --> 0:08:21.596 or they're somewhat technical but they're really artistically based, could 0:08:21.636 --> 0:08:24.436 still thrive in this area. Now, Pixar is this really 0:08:24.436 --> 0:08:26.316 wonderful place where we have all of these people that 0:08:26.396 --> 0:08:29.956 are really like this wonderful combo of art and technology, 0:08:29.996 --> 0:08:32.796 and some are very technical and some are very artistic, 0:08:32.836 --> 0:08:35.316 and a lot of people are somewhere in between. So 0:08:35.396 --> 0:08:38.956 it makes it kind of accessible to more people in 0:08:39.516 --> 0:08:42.396 a great way, I think. But back in the old days, 0:08:42.396 --> 0:08:46.116 it was definitely it was just a different thing, and 0:08:46.156 --> 0:08:48.276 you were spending a lot of your time kind of 0:08:48.556 --> 0:08:52.516 not in a creative space. Part of it was in 0:08:52.556 --> 0:08:54.276 a just trying to get the computer to do what 0:08:54.276 --> 0:08:57.476 you want to do in a kind of rudimentary way. 0:08:57.876 --> 0:09:04.716 Yeah, I mean, clearly Pixar movies have gotten more beautiful, right, 0:09:05.876 --> 0:09:15.316 and certainly complex, and so the benefits of technological improvements, 0:09:15.356 --> 0:09:17.076 I mean both. I'm sure a lot of it is 0:09:17.236 --> 0:09:19.756 just processing speed and more's law, but also I'm sure 0:09:19.796 --> 0:09:22.316 also on the sort of software side that you all 0:09:22.356 --> 0:09:24.636 have developed. So it's clear the ways in which it's 0:09:24.636 --> 0:09:28.276 gotten better, right. I'm curious though, In fact, I heard 0:09:28.276 --> 0:09:31.116 in one of the interviews I listened to in preparing 0:09:31.156 --> 0:09:34.436 for this interview, one of your interviews, you mentioned this 0:09:34.636 --> 0:09:37.556 idea that when you get new tools, obviously you gain things, 0:09:37.756 --> 0:09:40.756 but sometimes there are things that you lose as well. 0:09:41.196 --> 0:09:44.276 And so I'm curious when you look back, you know 0:09:44.756 --> 0:09:47.196 too much earlier in your career, when you had fewer 0:09:47.236 --> 0:09:52.316 tools and frankly worse technology, were there things that I 0:09:52.356 --> 0:09:54.236 don't know that you could do better or differently? Are 0:09:54.236 --> 0:09:58.956 there things you miss about that time from a creativity standpoint. 0:09:59.076 --> 0:10:03.876 Yeah, definitely. So as an example of things, I'll start 0:10:03.876 --> 0:10:06.556 with the things that we couldn't do and now can. 0:10:06.796 --> 0:10:10.596 So bugs life, I mentioned the crowd, and then when 0:10:10.636 --> 0:10:13.916 we got to Monsters Incorporated, we needed a monster that 0:10:13.956 --> 0:10:15.996 had hair. We couldn't We had no idea how to 0:10:15.996 --> 0:10:18.476 do hair. That was a huge R and D project. 0:10:19.036 --> 0:10:20.836 The next was finding Nemo. We didn't know how to 0:10:20.836 --> 0:10:22.996 do underwater, and so we had to figure out how 0:10:22.996 --> 0:10:25.596 to do underwater and what the elements were, and then 0:10:25.636 --> 0:10:28.196 sort of developed the technology so that instead of just 0:10:28.236 --> 0:10:30.996 in a test shot, all the people across the show 0:10:31.116 --> 0:10:35.156 could could do underwater in this sort of easy way, 0:10:35.196 --> 0:10:37.476 from the most technical person down to the most junior 0:10:37.516 --> 0:10:39.716 that they could still sort of API, so you. 0:10:39.676 --> 0:10:41.836 Didn't just have to sort of render water, you had 0:10:41.836 --> 0:10:44.116 to build kind of a toolkit so that people could 0:10:44.396 --> 0:10:45.556 create in water. 0:10:45.956 --> 0:10:47.636 Yeah, and so that's one of the really fun things 0:10:47.716 --> 0:10:50.116 is you take some we took some live action footage 0:10:50.636 --> 0:10:53.516 of water and tried to recreate it, and then you 0:10:53.556 --> 0:10:56.676 start breaking down all of that messy looks development work 0:10:56.716 --> 0:10:58.596 you did, and it turned out there were five or 0:10:58.636 --> 0:11:00.476 six elements that when you put them together, we can 0:11:00.516 --> 0:11:02.196 make it look like underwater. And then you take each 0:11:02.236 --> 0:11:04.356 of those elements and turn it into a more pathge 0:11:04.476 --> 0:11:07.276 that's right. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's really fun. It's kind 0:11:07.276 --> 0:11:08.636 of scary while you're doing it because you don't know 0:11:08.636 --> 0:11:12.036 if you're ever going to get anywhere good. But and 0:11:12.116 --> 0:11:14.676 so then you go to a movie like The Incredibles 0:11:14.836 --> 0:11:17.676 and the daughter Violet has long hair, and that was 0:11:17.716 --> 0:11:20.676 a completely unsolved problem in computer graphics, and it was 0:11:20.716 --> 0:11:22.596 all the way up kind of to the last minute 0:11:23.116 --> 0:11:25.156 that it wasn't it got solved. 0:11:25.396 --> 0:11:27.716 Uh, she might have had short hair if if somebody 0:11:27.716 --> 0:11:28.916 had something out. 0:11:29.156 --> 0:11:30.876 Yeah, but this is one of the fun things about 0:11:30.916 --> 0:11:33.356 Pixar is sort of if a director says, well, that's 0:11:33.356 --> 0:11:35.676 a story point which is what Bradbird, the director said. 0:11:35.716 --> 0:11:39.556 He's said, well, this is how we're telling the audience 0:11:39.596 --> 0:11:42.036 who Violet is. So she hides behind her long hair 0:11:42.076 --> 0:11:44.916 and it's this big sort of story moment, and he says, 0:11:44.956 --> 0:11:47.076 it's a story point and that is sort of good 0:11:47.076 --> 0:11:48.756 as gold here, and it doesn't mean you spend a 0:11:48.756 --> 0:11:50.556 lot of time talking about whether you're going to do it. 0:11:50.556 --> 0:11:52.036 You just go figure out how to do it. And 0:11:52.076 --> 0:11:54.876 so it's this creativity driving technology and I think this 0:11:55.036 --> 0:11:59.716 really wonderful way and a very fun and scary way. 0:11:59.796 --> 0:12:02.756 But it's like we're doing this. There was quite a 0:12:02.756 --> 0:12:07.276 while where Violet's hair looked like kind of March Simpson's beehive, 0:12:07.316 --> 0:12:09.716 because when the computer doesn't do it right, it does 0:12:09.716 --> 0:12:11.956 something pretty spectacular with hair and cloth, so. 0:12:12.036 --> 0:12:12.956 It goes way wrong. 0:12:13.076 --> 0:12:16.156 Yeah yeah, yeah. So so those are all things. Those 0:12:16.156 --> 0:12:19.196 are examples of sort of things we literally couldn't do 0:12:19.276 --> 0:12:21.876 that then the movie and the story spirit so that 0:12:21.916 --> 0:12:24.716 we then know how to do it. One of the 0:12:24.756 --> 0:12:26.796 things is there was kind of a push to get 0:12:26.836 --> 0:12:30.076 more and more real life mimicking real life more and more. 0:12:30.876 --> 0:12:33.836 So as we push, say lighting and materials more towards 0:12:33.836 --> 0:12:37.756 what sort of real life light responses. Say, suddenly, what 0:12:37.876 --> 0:12:39.916 started to happen is that we could get to something 0:12:39.956 --> 0:12:42.756 that looked better much faster. So you can start to 0:12:42.756 --> 0:12:45.156 put the sun in. In the olden days, we'd put 0:12:45.156 --> 0:12:46.916 the sun in and then you'd put another light that 0:12:47.036 --> 0:12:48.876 was the light bouncing off the ground, and you put 0:12:48.916 --> 0:12:50.876 another light in that the light coming from the sky, 0:12:50.956 --> 0:12:53.596 a bounce light, a fill light, a key light. And 0:12:53.636 --> 0:12:55.156 now what we could do is you put the sun 0:12:55.196 --> 0:12:57.516 in and the computer is calculating how that light is 0:12:57.556 --> 0:12:59.436 bouncing around, and then you can start aug. 0:12:59.596 --> 0:13:02.196 The computer is just figuring out what the world would 0:13:02.196 --> 0:13:03.636 look like if the sun were in that. 0:13:03.556 --> 0:13:04.956 Spot in the stit if the sun were in that 0:13:04.996 --> 0:13:07.596 spot and the light was bouncing off of things. And 0:13:07.676 --> 0:13:10.196 these materials are more real life than they were before. 0:13:10.196 --> 0:13:13.276 They have a better material response, and like, oh, doesn't 0:13:13.316 --> 0:13:15.156 that look nice? It used to take me longer to 0:13:15.236 --> 0:13:17.476 get to something that looked nice like that, And there's 0:13:17.516 --> 0:13:19.756 complexity to it that we just couldn't get before. So 0:13:19.916 --> 0:13:24.076 isn't that lovely? And so all of that is fantastic 0:13:25.036 --> 0:13:29.316 until you want to do something that is maybe not 0:13:29.396 --> 0:13:32.316 real life, say you want to stylize it, or even 0:13:32.396 --> 0:13:35.036 say the director wants you to get the shadow off 0:13:35.036 --> 0:13:38.836 the face. Suddenly that you can't do that anymore because 0:13:38.876 --> 0:13:41.436 as you push more and more towards real life, those 0:13:41.476 --> 0:13:43.916 are things you can't do very well in real life. 0:13:45.236 --> 0:13:49.196 And so and you can't and because you've built essentially 0:13:50.116 --> 0:13:53.036 a piece of software where you've said make it real life, 0:13:53.676 --> 0:13:55.396 the software is like, no, you can't take the light 0:13:55.436 --> 0:13:57.436 off the face because I'm making it real life and 0:13:57.476 --> 0:13:59.316 there would be light on their face in real life. 0:13:59.516 --> 0:14:03.076 Yeah. And so suddenly it was really funny. I'm talking 0:14:03.116 --> 0:14:06.676 to one of the sort of scientific engineering people who's 0:14:06.796 --> 0:14:11.236 who's engineering the system, and he's really brilliant guy, and 0:14:11.276 --> 0:14:13.156 I said, well, what if the director asked me to 0:14:13.196 --> 0:14:15.236 take a reflection off of something or move a shadow 0:14:15.276 --> 0:14:17.156 like that stuff we do all the time for the 0:14:17.196 --> 0:14:20.476 storytelling of it. And he said, oh, you just tell 0:14:20.476 --> 0:14:23.396 the director they can't do that. And you know it 0:14:23.596 --> 0:14:26.156 is I don't know what it's like anywhere else, but 0:14:26.196 --> 0:14:28.916 you don't really usually tell the director they can't do something, 0:14:28.956 --> 0:14:32.116 and especially not because we took that capability away, you know, 0:14:32.196 --> 0:14:34.156 like it was really hard, and he was coming from 0:14:34.156 --> 0:14:36.876 this purist he doesn't ever talk to the director. He's 0:14:36.916 --> 0:14:38.956 coming from this purists, like this is what the real 0:14:38.996 --> 0:14:41.956 world does. So there was sort of this time period 0:14:41.956 --> 0:14:45.076 where as they're getting the system up and running, the 0:14:45.076 --> 0:14:47.036 thing is they'd say, well, you could do that, but 0:14:47.116 --> 0:14:49.276 like it's going to slow everything down, and there were 0:14:49.276 --> 0:14:51.916 so many more calculations happening that slowing it down felt 0:14:51.916 --> 0:14:53.516 really like the ideal world. 0:14:53.596 --> 0:14:57.036 And people are like spending all days solving optimization problems, right, 0:14:57.076 --> 0:14:59.476 trying to speed it up so that the ants aren't 0:14:59.516 --> 0:15:01.636 all doing the same thing in the background or whatever. 0:15:01.716 --> 0:15:03.636 Right, yeah, and they're like, why do you idiots need 0:15:03.636 --> 0:15:05.436 to move a shadow that doesn't happen in real life, 0:15:05.476 --> 0:15:07.756 you know sort of thing, and so yah. So the 0:15:07.876 --> 0:15:10.276 interesting thing that's had that sort of an era, And 0:15:10.316 --> 0:15:13.196 then the interesting thing that happened is now we're in 0:15:13.196 --> 0:15:15.916 an era where we're getting some of both I think 0:15:15.956 --> 0:15:19.876 where you get this sort of harness the power of 0:15:19.916 --> 0:15:21.836 the computer in a lot of ways where it's mimicking 0:15:21.876 --> 0:15:24.836 real life, but now we have more ability to kind 0:15:24.836 --> 0:15:27.596 of break out into that. And I think that's. 0:15:27.316 --> 0:15:29.996 Because in terms of realism versus kind of. 0:15:30.156 --> 0:15:34.516 Just scilistic flavor and stylization and what a director wants 0:15:34.636 --> 0:15:36.796 and sort of guiding the audience in lighting. We spent 0:15:36.876 --> 0:15:38.716 a lot of time guiding the audience's eyes so that 0:15:39.476 --> 0:15:42.036 they're looking at the right thing. You imagine a film 0:15:42.116 --> 0:15:44.556 like Wally where there's no dialogue for the first thirty 0:15:44.596 --> 0:15:47.316 minutes if you're distracted bold. 0:15:47.716 --> 0:15:49.756 Old I couldn't believe it what I thought. 0:15:49.956 --> 0:15:51.476 It was very scary. When we were working on it. 0:15:51.516 --> 0:15:53.796 We're like, oh, it's going to go see this movie. 0:15:53.996 --> 0:15:55.636 But you know, if we leave some shiny thing off 0:15:55.676 --> 0:15:57.276 in the corner and you're looking over there, you might 0:15:57.316 --> 0:16:00.116 miss an entire chunk of the setup of the movie 0:16:00.156 --> 0:16:02.876 because that was all visual storytelling for thirty minutes and 0:16:02.956 --> 0:16:07.276 so so so there's a lot of just compositional things 0:16:07.276 --> 0:16:08.676 that we need to be able to do that aren't 0:16:08.716 --> 0:16:12.036 necessary early real world things, but we still need to 0:16:12.076 --> 0:16:15.396 do them. And you know, it also kind of invites 0:16:15.436 --> 0:16:19.316 the like we have these conversations sometimes that are like, well, 0:16:19.676 --> 0:16:22.036 why are we making this movie as an animated film, 0:16:22.116 --> 0:16:23.836 Like you could just go make this a live action movie, 0:16:23.916 --> 0:16:26.556 and like why we're not taking advantage of the medium, 0:16:26.596 --> 0:16:28.836 Like they're just different art forms, and like how do 0:16:28.876 --> 0:16:31.516 you make animations sing in an animation like you can 0:16:31.596 --> 0:16:33.836 do anything and so take advantage of it sort of. 0:16:33.876 --> 0:16:36.196 And so so I think we're in a better place 0:16:36.236 --> 0:16:39.636 now in terms of like there's all this like visual 0:16:39.676 --> 0:16:42.276 gain and speed gains by mimicking some of real life, 0:16:42.276 --> 0:16:44.836 but we've started to roll back in a lot of 0:16:44.876 --> 0:16:48.796 the ability to sort of maneuver it artistically too. We're 0:16:48.796 --> 0:16:50.916 not I don't know that we're totally there. Sometimes it's 0:16:50.916 --> 0:16:53.316 still really hard, but I think we're getting to a 0:16:53.316 --> 0:16:55.116 place that at least makes me happy. It might not 0:16:55.156 --> 0:16:58.956 make that engineer happy at all, but it makes me happy. 0:16:58.996 --> 0:17:01.596 So well, well that's the like you're telling the sort 0:17:01.636 --> 0:17:05.436 of Goldilocks story where like at first just you were 0:17:05.476 --> 0:17:08.516 limited by computing power and the lack of sophistication of 0:17:08.516 --> 0:17:10.156 the suffware because we're just figuring ou how to do this, 0:17:10.196 --> 0:17:11.636 And then there was a moment when you had sort 0:17:11.676 --> 0:17:15.996 of gone too far into just mimicking reality. And now 0:17:16.036 --> 0:17:18.156 you're in this sort of just right phase. 0:17:18.076 --> 0:17:20.556 Although you know it's never going to be just right, yeah, 0:17:20.556 --> 0:17:22.796 because you're always I mean, I'm sitting on a movie 0:17:22.836 --> 0:17:25.036 right now where it's like, how on earth are we 0:17:25.116 --> 0:17:27.916 going to do that? Like it's not clear, and our 0:17:27.956 --> 0:17:29.676 system isn't made to do that. So what are we 0:17:29.756 --> 0:17:31.756 going to do? You know? And so well, let's talk 0:17:31.756 --> 0:17:32.876 about this like this. 0:17:33.036 --> 0:17:36.036 So the sort of frontier questions that you're bringing up, 0:17:36.196 --> 0:17:37.716 First of all, can you talk about the movie that 0:17:37.716 --> 0:17:38.276 you're working on? 0:17:38.476 --> 0:17:40.036 I can't. It's totally secret. 0:17:40.236 --> 0:17:43.956 I love secret. So you're working on a secret Pixar movie. Yeah, Like, 0:17:43.996 --> 0:17:46.556 what's the thing that you're working on right now that 0:17:46.596 --> 0:17:47.756 you haven't figured out. 0:17:48.236 --> 0:17:51.116 In a general way? So there's this great thing happening 0:17:51.796 --> 0:17:54.276 within computer animation right now, I would say, which is 0:17:54.356 --> 0:17:57.196 the original Spider Verse came out. 0:17:58.156 --> 0:17:59.796 The Spider Verse that came out a couple of years ago. 0:17:59.916 --> 0:18:01.876 Yeah, and it was loved it, respectfully. 0:18:01.876 --> 0:18:04.036 I know it's not a Pixar movie. Blew my mind. 0:18:04.356 --> 0:18:06.356 I loved the New one. Went to the New One 0:18:06.396 --> 0:18:08.716 a couple of years, a couple of weeks ago at 0:18:08.716 --> 0:18:10.276 the theater in the old school style. 0:18:10.916 --> 0:18:17.116 Awesome, like high art right, totally Yeah, incredible, incredible movie. 0:18:17.276 --> 0:18:19.556 And I think both of those movies, the first one 0:18:19.556 --> 0:18:24.356 and now the second one again really inspired almost the 0:18:24.516 --> 0:18:25.356 entire industry. 0:18:25.716 --> 0:18:26.036 Huh. 0:18:26.076 --> 0:18:27.396 I mean, I don't even know if it's almost I 0:18:27.436 --> 0:18:29.716 think inspired the entire industry because as you look at 0:18:29.716 --> 0:18:34.036 the films that have come out since then, everybody, there's 0:18:34.156 --> 0:18:37.516 so many instances of stylization that were not there before. 0:18:37.836 --> 0:18:39.436 And yeah, I mean, let's be clear when you say 0:18:39.476 --> 0:18:42.276 stylization for people who haven't seen the Spider Verse movies. Yeah, 0:18:42.316 --> 0:18:46.276 like they don't look anything like real life. They're not 0:18:46.316 --> 0:18:48.716 trying to look like real life. They look really interesting. 0:18:48.756 --> 0:18:51.036 They look kind of like comic books. In the case 0:18:51.076 --> 0:18:53.636 of the new movie, it's like pastiche. Sometimes there's like 0:18:53.676 --> 0:18:56.396 six different styles on the screen and it sort of 0:18:56.436 --> 0:18:58.636 goes to this thing you're talking about about moving away 0:18:58.676 --> 0:19:02.996 from just trying to represent reality, so go on, sorry. 0:19:02.876 --> 0:19:07.236 Yeah, no, no, no, So it's that first one, I think, 0:19:07.316 --> 0:19:12.796 because it was like anything anyone had seen in the 0:19:12.876 --> 0:19:15.436 same way. Maybe that Toy Story was when I went 0:19:15.476 --> 0:19:17.076 and saw it when I was in college of just 0:19:17.116 --> 0:19:19.556