#GoodDinoEvent Archives

Put Your Heart Into It – My Experience at The Good Dinosaur event

November 23, 2015 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

As most of you know I attended a special Disney. Pixar & Disney Junior event from September 29-October 2 in San Francisco to take part in a fun few days of exploring the movies, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur and Miles From Tomorrowland. It was an amazing few days and it is my pleasure to share some of my experiences with you!

On the second day there we spent all day at Pixar exploring the Good Dinosaur as well as going to the Pixar archive and then going to a special event at GOOGLE for the Disney Junior series, Miles from Tomorrowland. I was really excited to have the opportunity to learn more about The Good Dinosaur, the Pixar Archive and Miles from Tomorrowland.

In the afternoon of the second day we spent time with some of the main leaders of the movie The Good Dinosaur, learning about the process that they took to create the new movie. In each of these sessions we learned something new and over three different posts I will share some of my experiences within these sessions to give you some glimpse into what Pixar and their artists have done to create an amazing film.

Today I am sharing with you my thoughts on my conversations with The Good Dinosaur Story Supervisor, Kelsey Mann, and Screenwriter, Meg LaFauve and their presentation: PUT YOUR HEART INTO IT. In this presentation we learned about how how the story of The Good Dinosaur was developed and boarded, and also learned how to draw our own Arlo!

Kelsey Mann is photographed on September 25, 2013 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

Kelsey Mann started by explaining that the room that we were in was the actual story room used for The Good Dinosaur. He told me that the seat that I was sitting in was the actual seat that Peter Sohn always sat in (talk about cool!)

Kelsey continued to tell us that it is the job of his team to take the writing of Meghan LaFauve and transform and draw it so that it could work on screen. We received a bit of a history lesson of how this was similar to the same process that Walt Disney used, albeit with a lot more technology mixed in.

While the artists use pen and paper, most also use special computers that help them easily draw, erase and manipulate the images that they are creating. The benefit of the computers is that it allows them to quickly draw on something that is very similar to paper, while being able to flip, flop and bring the image to scale very easily.

THE GOOD DINOSAUR - Screenwriter Meg LaFauve and Story Supervisor Kelsey Mann present at the Long Lead Press Days at Pixar Studios. Photo by: Marc Flores. ©2015 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

So how does the process work? Well, Kelsey Mann said that in The Good Dinosaur and all movies, Meghan LaFauve as the writer and Peter Sohn as the Director would first sit down to talk about what the movie will be. Part of Meghan’s job is to question Peter and pull out of him more about the vision for the movie. To do this she will find out what Peter cares about in regards to the movie as well as what is the world that Peter wants to create. Once this meeting occurs, Meghan will go and write a first draft of the script. While Meghan was the main writer on The Good Dinosaur, this is not always the case on all films. On some films there can be multiple writers. In the end in this writing process Meghan works to create a script true to the vision of Peter. Both Kelsey and Meghan mentioned that The Good Dinosaur was Peter’s film so their team is trying to dig out.

Once you have a script the team comes together to start drawing. As the team is together in the story room they will typically take one scene at a time and it is the job of one animator to pitch the room. Kelsey Mann made our presentation a ton of fun by pitching us a seen, one that we saw in the movie where Arlo and Spot run into a number of Prairie Dog like creatures. As he pitched us, he got into the pitch and really acted out the screen. Kelsey Mann mentioned that acting out the scene is part of what is called “bringing yourself to it.” Kelsey mentioned that to get at the A+ you have to be there, involved.

A The Good Dinosaur story review, including Kelsey Mann, Meg LeFauve, Erik Benson, Edgar Karapetyan and Director Peter Sohn, as seen on August 1, 2014 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

At the end of the session Kelsey walked us through the process of drawing Arlo for ourselves. I loved this and it was so much easier than I would have first imagined.

I learned so much in these two sessions and I hope that you did too!

Find out more about The Good Dinosaur

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Creating The Look & Feel of The Good Dinosaur – My Experience at The Good Dinosaur event

November 10, 2015 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Today I am sharing with you my thoughts on my conversations with The Good Dinosaur Director of Photography – Lighting, Sharon Calahan as she spoke to us about: CREATING THE VISUAL DESIGN OF THE GOOD DINOSAUR and using color scripts to the final picture progression as well as Sets Supervisor David Munier as he spoke to us about a VIEW FROM ABOVE where we learned about creating the expansive world in the film as well as hearing about how the team used actual USGS data of the northwest United States to create the sets. Finally I will share some insights on EFFCTIVE STORYTELLING with Effects Supervisor Jon Reisch where we learned how the Effects team created different environments using effects to support the storytelling within The Good Dinosaur.

Director of Photography Sharon Calahan is photographed on September 17, 2013 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

Sharon Callahan took a lot of time talking to us about the process by which she and the entire team went through to develop the lighting and visual design behind The Good Dinosaur. She explained that first they did a lot of looking at other movies that really embodied what she and Peter Sohn wanted to create in the film itself. Some of the movies that she watched to assist with this included:

On top of this the team did a number of research trips to the Jackson Hole Wyoming valley area as well as to the Grand Tetons to gain a better perspective on the vastness of the wild as well as the wilds of a river.

Sharon talked about how curious the Director of the film, Peter Sohn was. As she put it, “He was the most curious person you could meet” when it came to their research trips. He took this curiosity and challenged his team to go beyond what had been done in the past.

Sharon took us step-by-step through theoir trip to the Idaho side of the Grand Tetons into the rural wilderness and shared what they saw and what they did and how this helped them create the look, feel and overall story itself within The Good Dinosaur.

A press day for The Good Dinosaur, including presentations by Director of Photography – Lighting Sharon Calahan, as seen on October 1, 2015 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

As Sharon was on her trips she would paint by hand. BY doing this she was able to develop quick sketches of light over distance and helped her create strong sounds, smells and sights of the different locations that she was visiting. This also allowed her to explore and try out the different possible settings for the world itself and how the environment and weather would impact the overall story and scenes themselves.

Sharon also explored emotion and color as well as trying to paint for herself the progressions in the story.

I never knew how much pre-planning went into the development of the setting of the story itself and Sharon’s stories truly showed me the depth of the examination that goes into this process.

David Munier had a challenging job in The Good Dinosaur. Peter Sohn had it in his mind that he wanted environmental cinematography throughout the film that offers the audience a expansive view of the world (Peter wanted 50-100 miles at all times). This expanse allows the audience to experience the vastness of the world around Arlo and lets them see that the environment is the Antagonist in many of the scenes within the movie. The problem is that their department had not done this before for long periods of a film. Usually it would instead me in one shot or a handful of shots and not the entire movie.

A press day for The Good Dinosaur, including presentations by Sets Supervisor David Munier, as seen on October 1, 2015 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

To help make this happen they fell upon a novel idea, using USGS date to build the world that they would use for Arlo. Peter wanted to use the Valley area around Jackson Hole, Wyoming as well as around the Grand Tetons as a start for the world. Because the USGS had height data of all of these areas, Pixar was able to download the data and incorporate this into the computer to then manipulate this and make the world real. Once they imported the data, and in the Good Dinosaur they used 64,000 square mile of actual North America data to create the world around Arlo.

What was amazing was how David Munier and his team could manipulate the data once it was imported. David Munier mentioned that once the data was imported he would sit down with Peter and allow Peter to put things where he wanted them. Once they had the bare bones structures of the world, David Munier’s team would then work to create the detail and the landscape which includes things like trees, grass, rock formations, etc.

David Munier and his team also had to work on a new technology, creating 3D clouds that could be manipulated. This had never been done before. Instead, in the past it was the FX department that would work on issues of cloud movement and the painting department would paint on static clouds.

In The Good Dinosaur, things have changed and they are using technology to create the clouds digitally. Now they can build clouds and cloud types for 3D clouds throughout the movie. They also can deal with the shading and lighting as it relates to the clouds that they are entering to the scene.

David Munier mentioned that he also used data from GOOGLE Earth to help them to pre-visualize the world. He also worked closely with Peter Sohn to make sure that some of the other details are dealt with. For example one of the questions that needed to be answered were things like how much wind was needed in each scene, as wind con convey emotion.

The new use of USGS data is something that David Munier thinks will change the way they are creating the environment that is seen in the movie that they are working on.

Jon Reisch on August 6, 2015 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

Jon Reisch talked to us about how FX trul helps to create the story within The Good Dinosaur. He explained that the job of the FX Department is to heighten the mood, drama of the scene, rain, light, as well as the visual tension experienced in the scene and in the characters. Overall, it is the job of FX to add in the WOW factor within the film.

FX also works to solve equations of motion for every frame. Jon explained that it can take a lot of time and that people in FX are very patient though in what they are creating.

To be able to do what they do they have to have a very diverse group of people working in the FX department. You get people with strong backgrounds in areas such as computer science, but also visual artists too.

On The Good Dinosaur, Jon mentioned that they had 31 FX artists working on the film and this number was definitely needed as what they were being asked to do in The Good Dinosaur was grander than what they had done in the past.

You see, in The Good Dinosaur it was the FX department’s job to assist in showing the journey through nature and making that feel real for Arlo and for you as the viewer. FX in The Good DInosaur was used in 900 shots in the film which is 2X as many as usual.

Jon mentioned that water is the hardest work for FX as the viewer knows how water should look and as he mentioned “If you get it wrong, you know.” With that in mind the river in The Good Dinosaur created some challenges as there were 200 shots just of the river throughout the film. In one scene entitled “Swept Away”, the FX department spent approximately 8 months just on the river alone and another 8 months on the final shot work too.

All-in-all the movie itself was data-heavy and used 300 TB of data which was 10X more than was used on . For the rivers in the scene “Swept Away” alone, there was 17TB of space used, so FX had to make sure that the Pixar Animation systems were updates!

I had no idea that so much went into the making of an animated film, but now that I do, I have such a larger resoect for everyone involved!

Find out more about The Good Dinosaur

THE GOOD DINOSAUR – Trailer

THE GOOD DINOSAUR opens in theatres everywhere on November 25th!

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Designing & Acting Like Dinos – My Experience at The Good Dinosaur event

November 4, 2015 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Today I am sharing with you my thoughts on my conversations with The Good Dinosaur Production Designer, Harley Jessup as he spoke to us about: DESIGNING A BIG WORLD and how the Art department designed the different dinosaurs in the film and their surrounding environments as well as Animators Kevin O’Hara & Rob Thompson as they talked to us about “ACTING” LIKE DINOS and gave us an animation demo highlighting the reference used by animators to inform the movement of the dinosaurs in The Good Dinosaur.

Production Designer Harley Jessup is photographed on August 4, 2015 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

Harley Jessup spent about 20 minutes with us talking with us about designing the characters and set for the film. He talked to us about the use of research that he used to be able to create the characters and the world around them. He talked about the research trips that his team took the Jackson Wyoming Valley and to the Grand Tetons. What was interesting though was what his team was looking at when they were on these trips. Harley Jessup talked about that his team would look at things like the Aspen Bark, its’ color and texture. They looked at the tree moss; the quality of the river; even the rock formations. Overall, they were looking for the things you would not always see.

Harley Jessup’s team also worked on the characters. He mentioned that they start with pencil and paper and they they will sculpt the character to see what works. As they try things and years past characters will change which is what we saw on our tour of the Pixar facility. The final model that was created was completely detailed. We got to hold a final model of Spot and what stood out to me were the attention to detail such as leaves and sticks in Spot’s hair.

Harley also mentioned how they would work hand-in-hand with Peter Sohn to create the characters that he wanted to convey in the film. One example of this was the T-Rex family and how they wanted them to be able to have the Posture of a horseback rider. To do this they spent hours watching horseback riders in person or on video to see how they moved and held themselves.

In the end there are 24 unique characters within the Good Dinosaur that all work in concert with the environment (which is considered a character as well) to bring the story to you as the audience.

In the end, Harley Jessup works to create an authentic world that looks and feels like something that you would find in the world that Arlo finds himself.

A press day for The Good Dinosaur, including presentations by Animator Kevin O’Hara and Directing Animator Rob Thompson, as seen on October 1, 2015 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

Kevin O’Hara and Rob Thompson from The Good Dinosaur Animation department shared with us the large task that they have make sure that the characters that you see on the film come to life in the right way. Both animators mentioned how much they love what they do, especially in the fact that they get to become the characters. The challenge in The Good Dinosaur for animation was answering the question “How do you become a dinosaur?” To do this their team took a trip to start watching elephants to better understand issues of mass and locomotion. By watching, videoing and re-watching again in the future, they were then able to break down the movements of an elephant to help them with the overall movement of Arlo.

Kevin O’Hara on August 5, 2015 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

Both Kevin and Rob waked us through what they called keys. They showed us 4 keys which were the “key” moves that would base the movements for Arlo, no matter where they took him. By developing these keys they are then able to do a “walk test” which can take about a day to do. Doing the walk test allows them to see if the motion is fluid and whether it works for the character in general.

I asked them the size of their team and they told me that they have about 85 animators total in the show though people came off and came on at different points throughout the creation of the film itself. You see, it used to be that there was only one animator on one character, this is not the case anymore and animators work very collaboratively together to great the magic you see in The Good Dinosaur.

Rob Thompson has his photograph taken on February 16, 2010 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

So to get to the final product the animation has to go through three phases. The first is Blocking. In this phase, which usually takes about 4 days to create, animators are working to physically convert the character into action. This is very rough and in the example that they showed us we saw that there was even a lack of Arlo’s tail for this phase. The second phase is IP (In Progress). In this phase which can take up to 1.5 weeks the tail in question was added back in. You also are adding in the stage of the scene. The final phase is Polishing, this can take another week, Usually at this point animators will be in their special theatre framing forward and backward to make sure that everything is working smoothly. Usually at this point it is in the final cut of the scene in question, but they will keep working on it until the Director says he does not have to see it again.

An interesting point that Kevin and Rob mentioned was that quadrupeds are the hardest characters to animate because they are on all four legs. It also was the case that they had never had a human on all four legs so they had to look at other animals for inspiration as they were animating Spot in The Good Dinosaur. Some of the animals they researched included: dogs; wolves and raccoons.

As you can see it takes a lot to create the magic you see on screen and I hope this gives you a sense of the work that goes into this!

Find out more about The Good Dinosaur

Like THE GOOD DINOSAUR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PixarTheGoodDinosaur
Follow THE GOOD DINOSAUR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegooddinosaur
Follow THE GOOD DINOSAUR on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegooddinosaur/
Follow THE GOOD DINOSAUR on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/disneystudios/the-good-dinosaur/
Visit Disney/Pixar on Tumblr: http://disneypixar.tumblr.com
Follow Disney/Pixar on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DisneyPixar
Visit the official THE GOOD DINOSAUR website here: http://movies.disney.com/the-good-dinosaur

THE GOOD DINOSAUR – Trailer

THE GOOD DINOSAUR opens in theatres everywhere on November 25th!

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The Good Dinosaur Pumpkin Stencil Just In Time For Halloween!

October 27, 2015 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Just in time for Halloween I wanted to share a very cool THE GOOD DINOSAUR pumpkin stencil!

I hope that you enjoy!

About the movie

“The Good Dinosaur” asks the question: What if the asteroid that forever changed life on Earth missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct? Pixar Animation Studios takes you on an epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo (voice of Raymond Ochoa) makes an unlikely human friend. While traveling through a harsh and mysterious landscape, Arlo learns the power of confronting his fears and discovers what he is truly capable of.

Directed by Peter Sohn and produced by Denise Ream (“Cars 2”), Disney•Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur” opens in theaters on Nov. 25, 2015.

An Apatosaurus named Arlo and his unlikely human friend travel through a harsh and mysterious landscape, where Arlo learns to confront his fears, discovering what he is truly capable of.

Notes:

Peter Sohn made his directorial debut with the Pixar short film “Partly Cloudy.” He has worked in the art, story and animation departments, and also has voiced the characters of Emile from Academy Award®-winning “Ratatouille” and Scott “Squishy” Squibbles from “Monsters University.”
Denise Ream produced the Golden Globe®-nominated film “Cars 2” for Pixar Animation Studios, and served as associate producer for Disney•Pixar’s Academy Award®-winning film “Up.” She also has an extensive background in producing visual effects and animation for live action films.

Like THE GOOD DINOSAUR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PixarTheGoodDinosaur
Follow THE GOOD DINOSAUR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegooddinosaur
Follow THE GOOD DINOSAUR on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegooddinosaur/
Follow THE GOOD DINOSAUR on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/disneystudios/the-good-dinosaur/
Visit Disney/Pixar on Tumblr: http://disneypixar.tumblr.com
Follow Disney/Pixar on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DisneyPixar
Visit the official THE GOOD DINOSAUR website here: http://movies.disney.com/the-good-dinosaur

THE GOOD DINOSAUR – Trailer

THE GOOD DINOSAUR opens in theatres everywhere on November 25th!

Research Trips Made The Good Dinosaur a Reality

October 21, 2015 by dadofdivas 7 Comments

As most of you know I attended a special Disney. Pixar & Disney Junior event from September 29-October 2 in San Francisco to take part in a fun few days of exploring the movies, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur and Miles From Tomorrowland. It was an amazing few days and it is my pleasure to share some of my experiences with you!

On the first evening of the event we went to the Pixar Animation Studio for the first time to screen a part of The Good Dinosaur as well as to meet with some of the main creative team behind the film.

Today I am sharing with you some of my thoughts from the time I spent around the campfire at Pixar Animation Studios with Director Peter Sohn, Producer Denise Ream, Supervising Technical Director Sanjay Bakshi and Director of Photography – Lighting, Sharon Calahan.

What was amazing about this evening first was just being at Pixar. This was the first evening that we were on campus and we were in a building that not everyone gets to go in. As we walked into the building that we were in we were surrounded by some amazing artwork as well as familiar characters. By this time of night we were hungry as it was about 7PM PST or so, which for me was about 10PM, so I was a bit off my schedule, so seeing the amazing spread of food and knowing that we would be hearing from some amazing people was very cool.

As I was walking around the event, I first ran into Peter Sohn, the Director of The Good Dinosaur. I talked to Peter about why nature was so important in this movie. Peter Sohn mentioned that it was his goal to “Make nature feel like something real and something that breathes and was a character or something. Peter said that he was from New York City and that seeing something beautiful on the research trip could also mean that something dangerous was there too.”

I also asked Peter Sohn about his inspiration on becoming an animator and Peter said that Disney and Pixar were his “bible” and that growing up because his mother only spoke Korean he was brought to the movie theatre to translate for his mom. It was Disney movies though that were so well done that he never felt that he had to translate the films. It was because of these films that his passion for film and later of animation was started.

If people want to get into the field of animation, Peter Sohn mentioned that with animation you need to understand the idea of telling good stories and capturing something real. You also have to have a true love about animation to be able to create good animation. So much at Pixar, they allow the animators to pull from their everyday life. In the end it is about the love of art and animation. If you love it, it does not become work anymore.

As we moved into the formal presentation about the actual research trips that they took to be able to create the amazing journey that Arlo went on.

Peter Sohn introduced all of the panelists and we were trying to truly feel what it was like in some of the wilderness. Being from New York City, he had never spent time in these areas, but as he and his team went out to these areas they were able to get a feel for the terrain, the sights, sounds, smells and more of what it might be like for Arlo as he was on his journey. We were told about Sharon Callahan and how as a painter, she was waiting along these trips to help her to create the concept of painterly realism that you see on screen. The best example of this was in one scene when Arlo first is lost and he goes up on a huge cliff and looks around and as it pans 360 degrees you see the vastness of the world around him and understand how lost he is. The power in this though was that for me, when I saw it, I truly thought that what I was seeing could be true imagery and not animation, even though in reality that was what it was.

The Good Dinosaur took about 4-5 years from inception to final creation and within that time they took three research trips to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, The Grand Tetons and more. Each of these trips gave them the realism that created the lifelike tableau that they built on to create Arlo’s journey.

Throughout the trip to the Grand Tetons you get to hear about the two female guides that in Peter Sohn’s words were “bad-xxxxx” and could do anything and from the stories that were shared they truly were. We heard about them going to a ranch and staying with the people on the land, taking horses out into the wilderness and wanting to keep going and going, but eventually having to turn back. We heard about the river rapids trip and a story about a GoPro camera that they had with them to get perspective of the wildness of the river and how they lost it in the river, only to have a guide find it later in the river because he knew the river and how it worked.

All of these stories told a larger one, and that was that Peter Sohn was committed to making a movie that was authentic and true and to truly capturing the essence of nature itself within the movie and I, for one, think, from what I have seen of the movie, that he did an amazing job!

Disney•Pixar’s THE GOOD DINOSAUR opens November 25, 2015.

Find out more about The Good Dinosaur

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Exploring Pixar Animation Studios & the Pixar Archive at The Good Dinosaur Event!

October 14, 2015 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Today I am sharing with you my thoughts on the tour that I had at Pixar Animation Studios. As someone that has been a fan of Pixar movies and shorts for years I was so excited to be given the ability to enter the closed facility and get a glimpse behind the magic.

As mentioned Pixar is a facility that is not open to the public. You cannot just come up to the gate, walk in and ask for a tour, you have to be invited in. Because of the The Good Dinosaur I was able to go in and get a tour of the artwork of the movie and how they got to the final moments in the film itself. We were able to experience early versions of the movie, see character studies, tests with landscapes and much more.

I particularly loved seeing some of the early models that Pixar has a sculptor on staff who’s job is to bring the characters to life.

One side of the building that we toured was focused on The Good Dinosaur and the other was focused on Inside Out. Because we had just interviewed cast and Directors of the Inside Out movie the day before it was so exciting to see some of the early concepts for characters. Learning things like why the characters have the shapes that they have. For example, Joy is made from the look of a star; Fear, a nerve; Sadness, a teardrop; Anger, a box; Disgust, broccoli.

Also, on the Inside Out side you get to see some of the initial concepts about the lands within Riley’s mind. There was a whole wall that showed so many ideas that were used to come up to the final lands that were used in the movie.

While I could not take pictures on this tour, I was so impressed with the process of creating the film. I was able to see and experience just a small portion of the collaboration and brainstorming that come together to create something magical that connects with us on an emotional level.

Outside of this tour, I also walked around the campus itself and was so impressed with the collaborative feel that surrounds Pixar. There are so many places where people can come together to work. On top of this on the tour we learned that this was one of the reasons that the building as designed the way that it was by Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs wanted people to come together to work, learn, live and create together and he accomplished it. One other interesting fact I learned about the building was that it was on rollers because of earthquakes and it allows the building to move three feet in either direction if needed.

The main building also had a wonderful cafeteria and lunchtime was packed with people eating and conversing together. There was a gift shop as well as theatres and so much more. Outside of the main building there were sculptures of some of the most iconic features from some of the movies. You can even see the seagull from Finding Nemo on the roof of one of the buildings.

You also can see the commitment to employee health too. With a swimming pool, basketball and volleyball court, fitness center and more I saw people during lunch or even before work exercising, which was great to see.

We also had the chance to visit the Pixar Archives which was especially exciting. This was amazing as it is a place that had never allowed people in until recently. The building is very non-descript and away from the main Pixar Animation Studios (though they are moving closer in the next year). We were visiting this great facility to celebrate the anniversary of Toy Story that is happening this year.

Entering the facility I was impressed by the security. You have to go through a thorough scan before getting entrance and then you have to go up to an upper floor and into a temperature-controlled room that houses the materials. While we did not see everything, as you walk in and start to see some of the things on the shelves such as original models, artwork and more, you cannot stop but being impressed.

I could not take pictures in the facility unfortunately, but as we entered we did gather around a large viewing table to hear about the facility and start seeing some of the amazing materials. They explained that they have a very small staff (7-9 people) working with the approximately 5 Million pieces of material all placed in meticulously labeled boxes on shelves among shelves that we saw.

We were shown many original sketches and models from Toy Story that really showed the progression of the story and the characters. It was amazing to see Buzz before he became Buzz, and he would have been a very different character if he had been drawn in the different ways that we saw with a more jowly cherubic air. We also learned that originally Buzz was going to be called Lunar Larry – who knew! We also were also able to see the progression of Woody too, and in some of the early sketches Woody seemed much darker and even was shown being a bit malicious toward Buzz – talk about different!

What was interesting too was the progression of how the Archive was developed. We were informed that it did not happen until after Toy Story when Jonas Rivera asked the question of why they did not have one. From there the Archive was born. A lot of the historical collection was developed with the archivists asking people working on projects to donate items into donation bins. Now they have a very systematic approach to how they collect and what they collect, so the game is changing!

We learned so much on this visit and it is hard to put it all in words, but needless to say it was a once-in-a-lifetime visit that I will never forget.

I was very impressed with everything that I saw in both facilities, and I can only hope that others like you have the opportunities to visit this amazing place sometime in your own lifetime.

Find out more about The Good Dinosaur

The Good Dinosaur opens in theaters on November 25, 2015. Stay tuned for more on The Good Dinosaur because over the next month I will be sharing some great interviews with the filmmakers, animators and much more. In the meantime check out the following The Good Dinosaur clip!

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