Disney provided hotel and transportation for us to attend the Incredibles 2 Animation Press Day. During the Incredibles 2 Animation Press Day we got to do something I’ve never done before. Pixar employees took us into the Pixar Archives so we could see what is kept inside Pixar’s Archives. And you would be surprised, Pixar doesn’t keep everything. Pixar archives keeps ALMOST everything but they couldn’t possibly house everything.
For every project there is so much artwork, clay models, pre-designs, and story boards created that they have to choose what is most important and that is what is kept. What might animators need in the future for sequels and what was key to telling the final story and entire process. They said that with Coco, it was very difficult to make those choices because with Coco there was much more amazing material than with other projects. You have to remember, Pixar puts so much research into each project.
Our tour guide began the tour by describing the building that has been around since May 2016. The building is built from materials that are flame resistant. The artwork is stored by project and is stored in movable walls, or high density shelving. Each wall has a lever that moves with great ease.
Pixar keeps artwork from each version of the script. Pixar archives keeps things that also tell the story of Pixar and that includes awards and a copy of software that they sold that made 3D text designs. Looking at it, I think that product was just ahead of it’s times and that’s why it didn’t do well.
Our tour guide in the Pixar archives took us to see the earliest version of the Toy Story sculptures. This material is a clay that can be manipulated then baked in a kiln. The lines were hand drawn and then a wand was used to digitize the lines and that’s how characters used to be created in the computer.
She showed us some of the clay sculptures from the first Incredibles movie. Did you know, they make a clay sculpture for every possible facial expression a character might need? They have only two sculptors on campus. Pretty crazy right? I mean they make drawing and clay creations. Then everything is put in a computer and it’s insane.
The final room we were taken into inside the Pixar archives was where we saw some amazing concept art for The Incredibles and The Incredibles 2. We saw art that turned into Violet.
We were also treated to see concept art of Edna Mode. It was really amazing how there were different versions of her. Could you imagine her as any other shape or size though? Look at the photo below? Could that have been Edna?
Here is a reason why they keep concept art from the original movies, the following picture is of some bad guys that didn’t make Incredibles 1, so artists were able to pull it and possibly use it to come up with the villains of the Incredibles 2.
We also saw press clippings and it took a lot of organizing because they had so so many to go through.
Photos are courtesy of Pixar. Pixar’s Incredibles 2 will be in theaters June 15th.
