So, what was it like to visit Pixar? Simply put--amazing. There was a whole creative vibe about the place. In the days leading up to my trip, I'd watched some of the "Studio Tour" bonus features on the Pixar DVDs, so I was familair with the basic layout of the studio--but nothing compares to actually being there. I got there a little earlier than anticipated, so I wandered around outside the gates for a few minutes until I went up to the security booth to check in. I got my "official" Pixar vistor name tag (it says "a stranger, from the outside!" across the bottom
) and headed on in. It's a decent walk from the security gate to the studio entrance, but I stopped to snap some pictures of the Luxo Jr. sculpture along the way. I finally stepped inside the atrium--and, gosh, the place is huge. I checked in with the receptionist and wandered around the waiting area.
After a few minutes, my host, Bob Peterson showed up and took me over to Cafe Luxo for lunch. An interesting aside--the special pizza of the day at Cafe Luxo involed prochutto ham and several types of melon. In light of this, I decided to have a grilled chicken sandwich.
Bob was a really nice guy. He graduted from my college, and I'd been sent to do a story on him and how he got from middle-of-nowhere, Ohio to Emeryville, California. Let's just say that it was a long and circuitous route. His original project with Pixar was working in the animation department on a Nutri-Grain commercial. He went on to do some of the animation for Sid in Toy Story. After that, he worked his way up through the story department during "a bug's life," and became head-of-story for Monsters, Inc (you probably know him better as the voice of Roz). He continued to do story work, and ended up being the screenwriter for Finding Nemo (along with being the voice of Mr. Ray). His current project is "Up," for which he is the writer and co-director.
I got a lot of information about Pixar during my 45 minute-or-so interview, and it'll all eventually be formed into an article series for my school's website. However, I'll pull out a few park-related anecdotes that I think you'll all find interesting. I was talking about maintaining character integrity, and Bob shared a memory of one of his first exposures to Disney during a visit to the World's Fair in 1965. As most of you know, Disney had a very large presence there, and Bob encountered Goofy walking around the fairgrounds. He had a great interaction with Goofy (Goofy "stole" Bob's hat, and walked around with it dangling from his nose). He still remembers it vividly to this day, and uses that memory to gain an insight into how "real" the younger audience members view the characters that Pixar and Disney create.
Additionally, Bob has done most (if not all) of the voice work in the attractions for the characters he created. For the Monsters, Inc. ride in DCA he recorded many, many lines of dialog for the Roz animatronic at the end of the attraction. It's sort of an early version of the Living Character Initiative characters, and will often single out Guests riding in the vehicles and make some sort of comment about them--often 'flirting' with them. Well, when Bob rode the attraction for the first time, Roz singled him out. So what do you do when a character you voiced flirts with you? Flirt back, of course! He offered to take her out for a churro, but she stood him up.
Over the course of the meal/interview, Bob kept calling various co-workers over to meet me. I got to meet Lee Unrich, Ralph Eggleston (of Eggman Movers fame), Jerome Ranft (works in Pixar's model shop, son of the late Joe Ranft, AKA Heimlich the Caterpillar, among others) and Darla Anderson (Darla in Finding Nemo was named after her). I also saw, but wasn't able to meet, Pete Doctor, director of Monsters, Inc. and co-director of Up.
After lunch, I got to take a tour of the studio. There was a ton of WALL E artwork all over the walls. Apparently, this is a common thing that they do after finishing a movie, sort of in celebration of getting the project done. There were also other reminders of previous Pixar films all over, including life-sized models of characters from Cars, Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles along with lots of concept artwork for Finding Nemo. There was also an entire section devoted to "Your Friend, the Rat," the short created for the Ratatouille DVD. I also got to tour the outside of the studio, including the beach volleyball court, swimming pool, soccer field and ampitheater.
So, as for my final reflections on Pixar, again, I was absolutely blown away. To sum it up, Pixar is a team of dedicated perfectionists who both play hard and work hard. They are justifiably very proud of their work. Also, every person I encountered was incredibly nice and welcoming, from the security guard and receptionist to the animators wandering around the atrium. It seems like a fascinating work environment. Bob said one thing in particular that I found interesting--at Pixar, they aren't afraid to be wrong (and they aren't afraid to tell you that something isn't working right). Once they've gotten over finding something going wrong, then they take immediate corrective action until the problem is solved. This approach certainly seems to be working.
I'll write more about my other experiences in California sometime soon, but for now, I need to get some work done. Unfortunately, my professors aren't afraid to tell me when something isn't working well, either.
