pixar – St. Eutychus

This is as good as the Radiohead 01 10 album theory, the (confirmed) Tarantino movie and movie within a movie universes (also this), and the Tommy Westphall’s mind theory that connects almost every television series known to mankind. All Pixar movies are connected and occur in the same universe.

Source: Pixar.wikia.com

It’s surprisingly plausible, and utterly convincing.

Here’s something from the middle of that post.

In the beginning of Up, Carl is forced to give up his house to a corporation because they are expanding the city. Think on that. What corporation is guilty for polluting the earth and wiping out life in the distant future because of technology overreach?

Buy-n-Large (BNL), a corporation that runs just about everything by the time we get toWall-E. In the “History of BNL” commercial from the movie, we’re told that BNL has even taken over the world governments. Did you catch that this one corporation achieved global dominance?

Interestingly, this is the same organization alluded to in Toy Story 3:

Toy Story 3 (Buzz’s batteries)

In Finding Nemo, we have an entire population of sea creatures uniting to save a fish that was captured by humans. BNL shows up again in this universe via another news article that talks about a beautiful underwater world. In Finding Nemo, lines are being crossed. Humans are beginning to antagonize the increasingly networked and intelligent animals.

July 12, 2013

Pixar’s storytelling tips

Every time this gets reposted somewhere I think “I really should add that to the virtual filing cabinet that is my blog”… This time I had the will, and the headspace… so here are some great storytelling tips that have helped Pixar produce blockbuster after blockbuster.

Image Credit: Aerogramme Studio

They were tweeted to the world by a Pixar staffer. They’re part fun, part principled, part practical, part imaginative, part geared to get your creative juices flowing after writer’s block…

You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

These have been all over the web – but I got them here this time.

March 19, 2013

I love (robot) lamp

This is, I think, what the Pixar lamp would be like if it wasn’t just a short animation in the opening credit of Pixar movies. It’s pretty clever.

Pinokio from Adam Ben-Dror on Vimeo.

December 2, 2012

25 years of Pixar

This one is mainly for Izaac – who writes Australia’s leading Pixar blog in his spare time. 25 years seems a long time.

April 29, 2011

How to inspire a movie scene

Izaac, who knows more about Pixar than anybody else I know, sent me this little story that warmed the cockles of my heart.

In Toy Story 3 there’s this great scene where Mr Potato Head’s parts get put on a tortilla. And he sways around everywhere. He can’t stand up. It’s funny.

Funnier still is this little story that the animator of that scene tells on his blog:

The animation supes took me into a room to tell me the news ‘We are giving you Mr. Tortilla-Head’ Its one of those moments where your really happy then really nervous. How was I going to animate that thing? Sure it plays funny in boards, but to bring it to life! The Supes knew it was going to be a challenge, being the great leaders they are said ‘these are your last shots, take all the time you need!’ I kept telling myself, you’ll be happy you animated this once it over.

I sure was – although they were extremely hard shots to pull off, I’m really proud to part of that character. There was a small team of us, 3 animators helping each other. Showing each other what works, what didn’t. Some reference that really inpired us was Drunk Guy Buying Beer. I wonder if this guy knows he was in a movie?

Drunk Guy Buying Beer is an hilarious little clip on YouTube that made me laugh. So here you go, this is how you inspire a movie scene:

March 16, 2011

The Up house in real life

300 balloons. Each eight feet tall. One lightweight house. One Pixar recreation.

The entire structure with the balloons is about 10 stories high, and it manged to reach a level of 10,000 feet for about one hour. I don’t have any word of how they got the house to come down. Maybe they had some guy with a key inside who slowly cut away some balloons.