Images
I was mentored by great Disney animators at the end of their careers.
John Lasseter
At Pixar, we've been huge fans of any new technology that makes the viewer experience of our movies better. Blu-ray is the best yet because the picture quality, especially for our movies, is unbelievable.
At Pixar, after every movie we have postmortum meetings where we discuss what worked and what didn't work.
'Cars' is a really personal story for me because, first of all, I grew up in Los Angeles - the car crazy capital.
I'm a car nut. My father was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership.
Steve Jobs is like a brother to me and he's one of the founders of Pixar, and when the first iPad came out, I got one right away.
I'm a huge fan of Blu-rays myself.
Toys are put on this Earth to be played with by a child.
I love French auto design of the early '50s, '60s, early '70s of Citorens, Renaults, and Peugeots. They're so unique.
When you really study espionage movies, or spy movies, the beginnings are really set up to have, like, an amazing bit of action, but at the moment you're watching it, you have no idea why or what it's about.
In computer animation, every detail has to be thought out, designed, modeled, shaded, placed and lit. The more you add, the more computer memory you need.
If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.
I am, by nature, an honest person. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. There is no 'behind closed doors' with me.
I worry about kids today not having time to build a tree house or ride a bike or go fishing. I worry that life is getting faster and faster.
I think 'Disney Infinity' is exciting. It's hard to even call it a video game, because it's so different. What excites me about this is how it's going to put more and more of what happens in the game into the hands of the user; it's up to them. You can play it to where everything's laid out for you.
Walt Disney had always tried to get more dimension in his animation and when I saw these tapes, I thought, This is it! This is what Walt was waiting for! But when I looked around, nobody at the studio at the time was even halfway interested in it.
If you've seen 'Spirited Away', 'Spirited Away' is set in a very, very Japanese sensibility. And so, to Japanese audiences, when Sen would walk up, the main character, and look at this big building with a flag on it with Japanese writing on it, everyone in Japan would know what that is.
I laugh very hard at work every day.
It's the nature of Hollywood that there are the people in power and the people who tell them what they want them to hear.
In overseeing both Disney and Pixar Animation, each studio has a unique culture.
I am so proud that 'Up' is Pixar's 10th film. I think it's the funniest film that we've ever made and also one of the most beautiful.
When you're a director, you really live whatever you do.
I think that as I had children, I have five sons, and they got into video games and were the prime ages through the development of video games. It was so much fun seeing them play the games and seeing it through their eyes.
Pixar films are not realistic. They are believable for the worlds we are creating.
I've often heard people say that managing creative people is the hardest thing in the world. 'They're never happy, they drive up the cost of things, blah blah blah.' I just manage people the way I always wanted to be managed. That is, to be creatively challenged, but never to be told what to do.
I quickly realized that this medium had a lot to offer someone like me. To do Disney-quality hand-drawn cartoons, you have to be a master of two art forms. Seriously, you have to be able to draw like a Leonardo da Vinci or a Michelangelo. But also you have to know movement and timing and control that through 24 frames a second.
One of the big moments of my life was watching 'Star Wars' on its opening weekend in Hollywood. I was watching all these people enjoy this film, and I thought: animation can do this.
The hardest thing to get is true emotion. I always believe you need to earn that with the audience. You can't just tell them, 'Ok, be sad now.'
My brother liked sewing and sculpting and making things, and my sister sewed and painted and cooked and baked. She's a professional baker now and makes the most gorgeous sculpture-like cakes. She's the queen of wedding cakes in the Lake Tahoe area.
I believe in research you cannot do enough research; believability comes out of what's real.
I'm a big fan of pantomime storytelling, being an animator.
Walt Disney always said, 'For every laugh, there should be a tear.' I believe in that.
I believe once you watch a Miyazaki film, you'll get hooked.
I don't believe that an animation studio should be an executive-driven studio.
I have met a lot of top chefs around the world during my travels. Each one of them has said 'Ratatouille' is their favorite movie and the only movie that truly captures what they do.
There was a period of time when they estimated the two biggest stars in Hollywood were Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse.
When I started work with LucasArts Computer Division back in 1984, I went to the Palace of Fine Arts and saw the Festival of Animation for the first time. I loved the diverse collection of animated films the festival held.
My father pulled into Pearl Harbor four days after the bombing, and he said, everything was still burning. He said they never told the public how bad it was. It was really bad.
I love the Sonoma wine community. It's like Pixar - nothing competitive, only supportive. They're always rooting for you.
I don't really think of myself as a businessman at all. That's why I have the 'chief creative officer' role.
Sure, they were simple desk lamps with only a minimal amount of movement, but you could immediately tell that Luxo Jr. was a baby, and that the big one was his mother. In that short little film, computer animation went from a novelty to a serious tool for filmmaking.
I've noticed with my own kids, it seems like they have so much more homework than I did.
The magic of Disneyland, walking through the tunnel underneath the train station to Main Street, it just transports you to other places and other times.
Nobody pays attention to the way a person's shirt folds around his shoulder when they sit down, but if that shirt folded in an unusual way, you'd notice it.
Car love is the sound of a throaty V-8 rumbling and revving, the acceleration throwing you back in the seat - especially when you get on a beautiful, winding road and the light's dappling through the trees.
The specific influences on villains to me is, I love the villains who are really hyper-smart. When at the end of the movie you find out what they were about, and it makes absolutely perfect sense from their point of view.
We use shorts at the studio extensively to develop talent. I always love to give opportunities for young story people, animators, layout people something like that to take the next step up in their career and try things out.
Animation is the only thing I ever wanted to do in my whole life. I have no desire for live-action or anything else.
My mother was a high school arts teacher, so I was always surrounded by the arts.
At Pixar, we do sequels only when we come up with a great idea, and we always strive to be different than the original.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10