Pixar Animation Studios is the best of the best and have mastered the animation process by doing it in an unusual and creative way that has led the company to success. Even though Pixar is at a way more advanced level with their animations than I am at right now, there are still several practices that I can apply to myself at a college level. For example, the constant critiques process is a very important practice that not only Pixar is able to do at the advanced level they are at, but that I can also do with my Professors, fellow classmates, or other peers. The purpose of critique is to offer comments on the work in progress and how the work could be changed in any ways for the better, which can lead to some major revisions and then to success. Another example is the practice of creating storyboard sketches for each scene of the animation with the inspiration that I have come up with so far. The storyboards allow me to begin to imagine the look and feel of each scene like it does for the filmmakers of Pixar.
Character design is also a practice that is doable for me at a college level. At Pixar studios they have thought out their characters and the way they are going to look by creating digital illustrations either by drawing them out by hand or some which are sculpted in clay and scanned, and later visual textures such as fur, fabric, or hair will be added to the form, which is a step known as simulation. At the college level and with the skills and resources that I have, I would most likely only be able to practice character design by drawing out my characters by hand instead of using the other techniques that Pixar has mastered.
The steps of the animation process that seems most difficult are the technical challenges that start to pile up such as working with each character that can be defined by up to 1,000 avars, which are points of possible movement, that the animators need to work with, and the rendering of the film is very tedious as the average frame takes about seven hours to render and a movie has 24 frames per second.
The step of the animation process that seems most important is the presentation of the story reel with pre-recorded lines by the Pixar employees that is projected to an in-house audience. This seems like it is the most important step because it allows the filmmakers to see what works and what doesn’t depending on not only the character design and layout of the film up on the big screen but the audience’s reaction to it as well. This process will then allow the filmmakers to change whatever they need to in order to make the film a greater success.
In my opinion, the most interesting step in this entire process would have to be the animation process because of the complex steps they have to take that make the film so realistic and amazing. Regardless of the incredibly long and tedious hours that have to be put into this process, I think it is the most interesting because of the results that are developed during this process, such as the exact movements that the animators must put into the characters to make them seem so realistic or the work that they put into “Lotso” in Toy Story 3, for example, to make his fur look so textured and realistic.
This entire process is especially reflected in the final Toy Story 3 animation. The film would not look nearly as realistic and incredible as it does if Pixar had not gone through this long and tedious process. The lights, shadows, textures, and shades that are just a small portion of what makes up this film are so precise and realistic that it has led this film to become a great success. Another Pixar animation that I enjoy very much is the animated short “Jack-Jack Attack” from The Incredibles, which Pixar must have gone through a very similar animation process to make as the one that they utilize when producing their other big films, such as Toy Story 3. For example, in “Jack-Jack Attack” the lights, shadows, textures, and shades that appear on the characters faces or objects within the scenes seem to be equally as realistic as they do in Toy Story 3, and the scene where Jack-Jack lights up into flames and takes the shape of a fire ball baby is my favorite because the flames seem so realistic and the lights and shadows they used to make the reflection of the fire on other objects seems so precise and accurate as to what it would appear as in real life as well.
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