Pixar Comes To Melbourne

Melbourne’s ACMI hosts a 20 year Pixar retrospective from June 28 – October 14 2007, which’ll feature paintings, sculptures, digital installations and a zoetrope that creates the illusion of motion using nearly 180 modelled characters. Naturally there’s a whole raft of screenings and opening weekend includes public talks with 4 Pixar artists, including Dan Mason who took time out to answer these questions…

What attracted you to the special effects animation of Ray Harryhausen?
I just loved to see the unbelievable. It amazed me to see The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad or Jason and The Argonauts on Saturday afternoon television. At first I wasn’t trying to figure out how they were made. That came later. I just loved the interactions between the animation and the “real” world.

You began shooting stop-motion animated films with a Super 8 camera. If you were starting again today what DIY animation techniques and technologies do you think you’d be excited by?
Computers and digital video have changed everything. We can all be filmmakers now. I would’ve loved to have been able to shoot something, edit it, add sound and show it immediately. I probably would have made many more films.

How’ve your roles and ideas changed in the time between Cars, The Incredibles & Ratatouille?
The challenges are always changing. In The Incredibles we all had to learn how to animate humans to look really good. I learned a great deal on that film because we had to loosen up the faces and get the weight right. Cars had a different challenge where we had to keep true to the material of an auto but still bring out the character. We used the wheels and tires along different suspensions to loosen things up. Each character drove in a different way. Then it was back to the organic movements of rodents and humans in Ratatouille. Each film and each character creates a new challenge.

What do you think of the ‘uncanny valley’ (where animated characters that look too close to real can seem odd), and in what ways would you like to see Pixar deviate along the spectrum from ‘abstract to realistic?
Yes, the closer to realistic the creepier it gets. I like to see human characters as more of a caricature. We can have a lot of fun with great stylized character designs. The medium of animation allows us to explore and have fun with caricatures, and we always strive to be believable, but never realistic.

What’s lost in the transition to computerised animation, and what strategies do Pixar employ to try and remedy this?
An Animator at Pixar designs every frame the same way a 2-d or stop motion animator would do. The computer wants all movement to be equal and linear. We spend a lot of time working against what the computer wants to give us.

What workflow differences are there between a feature film and an animated feature film?
A live action feature is usually shot by getting coverage of a scene with different camera angles and multiple takes. It is then put together in editorial where the director picks which camera angle and which take he would like to use. In animation all of the camera angles are worked out before it is animated. The choices come in the storyboard phase and then refined in Layout but once it is animated there is not too much one can change. There is a lot of planning up front in animation.

Can you foresee a Pixar animated film hybrid, where Pixar techniques and workflow are applied to combine shot footage, FX and animation?
If you mean live action with FX and animation …Sure we could use all of those elements to tell a story someday. I think Peter Jackson did a great job combining all the elements for the Lord of the Rings.

What does Steve Job’s experience with Apple software architecture bring to the animation table for Pixar?
Apple and Pixar are two different companies that happen to have had Steve as CEO. He has been a great leader at Pixar.

What kinds of innovative behind the scenes technologies exist exclusively at Pixar?
New technologies are being developed constantly at Pixar. If I told you more I would have to kill you….(joking)

As motion capture technologies improve do you see further possibilities for real-time, or live animation in various contexts?
We don’t use any motion capture at Pixar. But I’m sure in the industry there will be lots of opportunities where mo-cap will be used. I liked the way Peter Jackson used it in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Based on the repetitive nature of animation, you must have many dreams in which you were animating. Have any dreams stayed with you as potential future animations?
I’ve had dreams where see the shot I am working on. It seems that I find solutions to problems and come up with new ideas while I sleep.

Contemporary directors that push your animation buttons?
I love the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. The animation and the nature they explore are so appealing. They also have great female characters. I love Nick Park and everyone at Aardman. Their sense of storytelling and comedic timing is so much fun. Mike Johnson did a great job with Corpse Bride – stunning. I am looking forward to seeing Henry Selick’s new film. And of course all of the directors at Pixar – I have been very lucky to have worked with brilliant directors here.

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