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YouTube member cmtification wore this Luxo Jr. costume for Halloween last year. The only information I can find out about him/her is that cmtification is 16 years old, that he/she made the costume him/herself. -via The Frogman
Ed Catmull and Fred Parke made this film demonstrating early computer generated animation way back in 1972. It shows an animated hand derived from a physical model and then digitized, as well as facial movements based on mathematical formulas. Catmull went on to start Pixar, so in a sense this is the first Pixar film, and quite possibly the first computer animated 3D film.
Link -via The Mary Sue
There is no doubt that the work of Carlos Villagra is in demand. From concept art to comic book illustrations, Carlos brings originality of design and style to each piece, then renders them beautifully until you get awesomeness like this re-imagining of Buzz Lightyear. Head on over to ComicsAlliance and check out a small gallery of his works, then be sure to visit Carlos’ blog if you like what you see and want more. Will Pixar ever be bold enough to re-imagine their characters in such a way? Not likely…
Link -via ComicsAlliance
How well do you know your Pixar films? Do you know who did the voices? Of course, you know Tom Hanks did Woody and Tim Allen did Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story movies, but other celebrities provided voices you might not know about -unless you recognized them. Test yourself in this Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. Come on, I scored 60% just by educated guess! Link
By the hand of Old Red Jalopy, we get to see what some classic movie characters -who happen to be cars- would look like if they were in the new Pixar film Cars 2. This one is, of course, the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard. See the other six at NextMovie. Link
In honor of Pixar’s 25th anniversary, YouTube member NkMcDonalds put together a video montage of twelve feature films and 20 short subjects you know and love. -via Slashfilm
Previously: The Beauty of Pixar
Journalist Melena Ryzik from The New York Times got the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes at the California based animation film studio Pixar.
Link – via kottke.org
Zoetropes date back to the nineteenth century. Images revolve on the inside of a cylinder, and viewed through slits in its circumference, replicate motion. This amazing three dimensional version explains the basic premise of animation.
Via Presurfer
Leandro Copperfield put together 500 scenes from eleven Pixar films to make this super mashup. If you’ve seen the movies, you’ll love this! -via The Daily What
Presto! is an animated short about a magician and his bunny rabbit by Pixar presented in theaters right before the main attraction (WALL-E). If you haven’t seen it before, it’s well worth the 5 minutes.
Written and directed by Dough Sweetland: Link [embedded Vimeo]
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It’s been 15 years since the first Toy Story came out. I have to say, I can’t think of many movies with great sequels, let alone movies that are still good by the time #3 rolls around. But from everything I’ve been hearing, Toy Story 3 is every bit as good as the original, if not better. Having an infant in the house makes it a bit challenging to get to the movies, so I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s definitely on my list as soon as I get the chance. In the meantime, let’s flashback to the movie that put the franchise on the map back in 1995.
You probably know it’s common practice for animators to act out a scene or movement to get an idea of how the action would really look. But those green plastic army men obviously don’t move in real life, so the animation team had to come up with a creative solution: they glued some sneakers to pieces of plywood and tried to walk using that.
An early version of the script portrayed Woody as a sarcastic jerk who was constantly berating and insulting his fellow toy box members. It just didn’t feel right, so writers went back to the drawing board and spent a week making Woody the nice guy we know today.
Barbie is in the movies now, of course, along with her on-again-off-again beau, Ken. But the first time around, Mattel passed on letting their iconic doll be featured in the movie. They claimed that they didn’t want Barbie to have a personality defined by a company; they wanted kids to provide the personality when they played with the dolls. Hmm. Considering all of the Barbie videos already out on the market, I call shenanigans on that one. After Toy Story was a confirmed hit, Mattel gave their approval for the sequels. Go figure.
Can you imagine Billy Crystal as the voice of Buzz Lightyear? It could have happened. Disney and Pixar were wooing Crystal, but Billy declined, feeling his voice just wan’t a good fit. “It’s the only regret I have in the business of something I passed on,” he has said. I’m sure Tim Allen is grateful. But no harm, no foul – Crystal went on to voice Mike in Monsters, Inc., which did pretty well at the box office too.
Any Far Side Neatoramanauts out there? If you’ve seen Toy Story, it’s likely you’ve already spotted this tribute to Gary Larson: it’s when the toy shark does a Woody impression, saying, “Look at me, I’m Woody! Howdy Howdy Howdy!” A Far Side strip from the early ’80s macabrely shows a vulture wearing a dead cowboy’s Stetson, declaring, “Hey everyone, look at me, I’m a cowboy! Howdy! Howdy! Howdy!” Check it out here.
Pixar is famous for their Easter eggs – fun little bits hidden in the movie for viewers to find. Here are just a few of them:
• All vehicles in the movie have license plate stickers that are dated November ’95, which is when the movie was first released.
• Woody gets trapped in a milk crate with a toolbox perched on top of it. The toolbox is labeled “Binford,” which is the company that sponsored Tim “The Toolman” Taylor’s show on Home Improvement, starring, of course, Tim Allen.
• Many of the Easter eggs won’t mean anything to you unless you worked on the film or are very familiar with the people who did. For instance, many of the “authors” of the books on Andy’s shelves are actually the names of people who worked on the movie. Even the character of Andy has meaning – his name comes from Brown University Professor Andries Van Dam, a computer animation guru who taught many Pixar employees. Similarly, the letter/number combo “A113″ is worked into all Pixar movies – this is the room number of the animation department at the California Institute for the Arts, where a lot of staffers went to school. In Toy Story, it’s on the license plate of Andy’s mom’s car.
Toy Story was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2005, the very first year it was eligible for inclusion. By contrast, Beauty and the Beast took 21 years to be inducted.
Buzz Lightyear is named after astronaut Buzz Aldrin, obviously. Buzz Aldrin seems to enjoy this fact, as he pulled a Buzz Lightyear action figure out to great applause during a speech at NASA. NASA likes him, too – on May 31, 2008, a Buzz accompanied the real-life astronauts of the space Shuttle Discovery on a mission. He docked with the International Space Station and became the first toy to walk on the moon.
(Image credit: NASA)
Woody is voiced by Tom Hanks, obviously, but in non-movie media, he is usually voiced by Jim Hanks – Tom’s brother.
Speaking of the pull-string cowboy, Andy’s once-favorite toy was named after Woody Strode, an actor who appeared in quite a few Westerns in the ’50s and ’60s. Woody the doll does have a last name, but it’s not Strode. Editor and director Lee Unkrich revealed on his Twitter that since the very first Toy Story, Woody’s last name has been “Pride.”
The artist known as Sillof (previously at Neatorama) combined the characters from Star Wars with the characters from various Pixar movies. Take a look through the gallery and see how logical the choices are. I particularly got a kick out of Obi-Wan Carlobi! Link -via Unreality Magazine
Pixar studios has proven that Disney isn’t the only game in town for quality animated films. How well do you know the Pixar films? Find out in this quiz from mental_floss! I scored 33%, way below average, even though I’ve seen most of these movies. You, no doubt, will do better. Link
The winners of The Washington Post’s annual Peeps diorama show (Peeps Show IV) have just been announced. The entry "EEP" by Michael Chirlin and Veronica Ettle which recreated a scene from Pixar’s animated movie Up, beat over 1,100 other contestants to capture first place:
Chirlin works for a company that designs virtual-reality goggles, and he relied on his experience with 3-D computer modeling to create the basic structure. "I built the house using a computer first, and figured out what kind of pieces I needed to cut out of wood," he says. "Then I just bought plywood, drew the pieces on it and cut them out."
After forming the basic structure from plywood, the duo snipped popsicle sticks to create the siding, scalloped lattice and shingled roof. Ettle, a field director for the Girl Scouts, painted the house in a palette of pastels and created the balloons by covering a large foam egg with chunks of Peeps.
The diorama re-creates the moment in the film when the house takes flight, with the elderly widower Carl tucked away inside and Russell the Boy Scout clinging to the front door. "We’ve always liked Pixar movies," Chirlin says. "We saw ‘Up’ this year, and it seemed like a logical progression from ‘Wall-E’ to ‘Up.’ And we thought the balloon would look really good with Peeps on it."
Link | Don’t miss the Photo Gallery
10-year-old Colby Curtin of Huntington Beach, California had been anxiously looking forward to the movie Up since she saw the first previews. Colby battled vascular cancer for three years, and when the movie was released, she was too sick to go to the theater.
After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.
The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.
The animated movie begins with scenes showing the evolution of a relationship between a husband and wife. After losing his wife in old age, the now grumpy man deals with his loss by attaching thousands of balloons to his house, flying into the sky, and going on an adventure with a little boy.
Colby died about seven hours after seeing the film.
Be warned, reading the entire story will make you cry. Pixar declined to make a statement about Colby or the employee who visited her. Link -via Boing Boing
(image credit: Carole Lynch)
Jim Hill has a fantastic post about the in-jokes and self-references that appear in Pixar’s feature films and shorts. Take, for instance, this beat up Pizza Planet truck to the left. Turns out, the car has been in every single feature film that Pixar Animation Studio has produced to date:
It’s the truck that Woody & Buzz stow away in when they’re trying to hitch a ride to Pizza Planet in the original "Toy Story."
This is also the vehicle that Buzz "borrows" in "Toy Story 2," when that space ranger is trying to prevent Buzz, Jessie and Bullseye from being sent to that toy museum in Japan.
You can also catch a quick glimpse of the Pizza Planet truck as Gill is explaining his latest escape plan to the Tank Gang.
The Pizza Planet truck also makes an appearance in the Piston Cup sequence of "Cars." You’ll find him to the far left in the photo below, next to the RV that looks like Elvis Presley.
Link – via mental_floss and i met a possum
Previously on Neatorama: The Stories Behind Hollywood Logos
