The initial question towards the reasoning as to why I should bring up this topic is: why should we talk about Pixar Studios right now? Well, why shouldn’t we? Pixar is, again, a part of the award season with Soul winning Best Animated Feature for the 2021 Golden Globes along with Best Original Score.
More than likely, there is more to come from them as more award shows go by this year. Additionally, Pixar has recently released the teaser trailer for their new film Luca which is scheduled to be released this Summer.
Even during the pandemic, the studio has maintained their presence on the worldwide stage with two feature films released within one year. Comparatively to an active studio like Marvel Studios it doesn’t seem like much, yet they managed to stay active with content for the past year, thanks to Disney+, while Marvel stayed silent. Even as years go by and with seemingly no change in quality, it doesn’t appear that there will be a time where Pixar will go silent.
However, the company has certainly come a long way to earn the success that they have increasingly gathered over the years. Even as the technology was pioneered, such as the Menv and Presto animation systems, and opportunities were given, through the purchasing of the Graphics Group by Steve Jobs and then the later acquisition of the company by Disney, Pixar has always made story a priority. Even though Pixar’s very first animated short, Luxo Jr., the talent was not seen by the extension of the technology alone, but by the influence of creative storytelling. Giving an inanimate object the ability to portray emotions of excitement, disappointment, and gleeful ignorance. Then with such ability gifting the object the presence of a character that allows it to have motivations and wants like any of us would, thereby convincing us the sentience of an otherwise non-living object. In other words, they learned early on that in order to invest an audience into any story they must believe in the humanity and realism of what is obviously fiction.
While that is very true for Pixar’s early shorts, such as Knick Knack and Red’s Dream, the challenge of storytelling would first be challenged under Andrew Stanton’s first directorial project with Pixar.
Toy Story may initially come to mind as a challenge to make the unreal feel realistic, but Finding Nemo was actually more of a challenge. Director and writer of the film Finding Nemo, Andrew Stanton has noted after the film’s release in the feature commentary and filmmaker’s roundtable of the film’s Blu-ray that the film was a greater challenge to animate than others prior. Because while fish are very real and sentient in our world, as opposed to plastic toys, they have movements that are very particular and natural to their biology, and if you take a second look, you’ll notice how their facial features aren’t very emotive. So, as opposed to writing their own rules of how the characters should look or how they should express themselves, Stanton and team needed to take into account what the audience recognizes as real, and then could they find a way to fit in emotive attributes.
But why is that important to notice in the first place? Well for one thing, this shows the greater responsibility that the storyteller takes to build a convincing world before getting too lost into the narration. Just as I have researched and watched all of Pixar’s works, as well as commentaries regarding the process of making these films/shorts, the creatives at Pixar take into account the importance of information from our reality in order to better tell a story that is very fictional yet grounded to our understanding.
I say all of this in order to address one of several details that go into making the believable stories. Because if one thing is true about filmmaking it is that audiences will always notice if something feels inauthentic.
It may not be immediately understood as to why the film feels that way to the average movie-goer, but they will notice. Take for example a B-level action movie that uses generic and uninspired storylines to justify the violence that takes place in the film. Even if the reasoning feels too unrealistic, the viewer has either checked out immediately or has lost too much interest that they otherwise would’ve had if more care was given to the narrative. Andrew Stanton recognized this when writing A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, and Wall-E.
For much of his process through creating the stories, apart from the animation challenges, was just being able to tell a story that felt plausible and worthwhile for the audience. Much of which includes him having to restructure the narrative of the film in order to better invest the viewer. For example, the very emotional and sorrowful opening of Finding Nemo was originally written as scattered flashbacks that would be placed in several places throughout the movie. Additionally, while the first act of Wall-E was very much the same throughout the process of making the film the second and third act went through various directions before they even decided to bring in humans into the story. So, while on one hand, these are just examples of how the story of a film is always subject to change during the filmmaking process, usually for the better, it is also a testament to an important understanding of how Pixar operates: they are and have always been a collaborative team.
This is obviously noted by the years-long collaboration between Pixar veterans; Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, Andrew Stanton, and John Lasseter. Of whom have helped each other with creative decisions that have better influenced the direction of films that have become favorites of ours for as long as we can remember. Equally, this has brought in perspectives of storytellers who have brought voices that otherwise wouldn’t have been shared without the creative collaboration that Pixar is known for.
The obvious examples would be Kemp Powers’ contribution to Soul, as well as Adrian Molina’s work on Coco, and Brenda Chapman, of course, with her partnership on Brave.
The overlooked examples would admittedly be in Pixar’s Sparkshorts. Particularly, Loop and Out represent autistic and gay characters respectively. While Onward is the first Pixar film to have an openly gay character, Out is the first to center its story entirely on the experience of a man coming out to his parents which is based on the writer’s, Steven Clay Hunter, own experience. Additionally, Loop is the first feature from the studio to represent a non-verbal autistic character. Which is derived by Erica Milsom’s experience working and relating with individuals of similar disabilities.
Furthermore, this is all to point out how the creative collaboration of Pixar’s leadership hasn’t changed much since the beginning. If anything, it has only evolved, along with the technology and the company’s experience in telling compelling narratives, so that they can tell stories that can have the capacity to reach out to audiences who otherwise wouldn’t have seen these kinds of films. While for now these stories really flourish in smaller features, whether that be any of the aforementioned Sparkshorts or even in other feature shorts such as Bao, this is certainly the beginning of a new era of storytelling within the company.
Where a surge of different voices is given the chance to get their turn so that these stories can be told. So, if it suffices for you to understand then this is why Pixar Studios is relevant to talk about right now.
Because while they may have been a studio for 25 years and have pioneered as storytellers all this time, this should be a reminder that they don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. In fact, they are only thinking about moving forward.
Written by: Tyler Beckett
