Wall-E Supervising Animator Tells His Story

Denofgeek wrote in to tell us about their story where "Pixar's supervising animator Angus MacLane gives an interesting interview about the technical challenges in bringing Wall-E to the screen. Plus he squeezes in a bit on his love of Lego, too..."

Comments

Rated G!

[toxyouxunknown]

Actually, Wall-E was much different than I expected. I know the critics really liked it, but I found it to be a bit heavy for younger kids, and probably not enough to grab very young kids' attentions. As an adult though, I thought the movie was incredible. I hadn't really read up on it before viewing it and had no idea it was going to be an entire social commentary-esque movie.

Definitely makes you think, though! And the animation was absolutely breathtaking at times.

Re:Rated G!

[UnknowingFool]

For the sci-fi geeks, it really paid homage to many of the films that we consider classics. I read somewhere that they consulted with Oscar winning filmmakers to affect the look of the film. For example, they adjusted their software to simulate the look of the 70mm Panasonic cameras from the 70s to even include their imperfections.

Re:Rated G!

[Temujin_12]

I hadn't really read up on it before viewing it and had no idea it was going to be an entire social commentary-esque movie.

Actually, I listened to a really good interview NPR did with Andrew Stanton (director and co-author of Wall-E) and at one point he discusses that the story never was intended to be a social commentary on environmentalism. The story was written about a decade ago and while it certainly has the universal theme of protecting nature, he primarily used the concept of a polluted planet to avoid having to give some other explanation for humans leaving the planet that would have been to heavy for a children's movie (ie: global war).

Re:Rated G!

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. In SF the useful commentary is still hidden deeply. It just takes place in a world taken to the extreme. Some people call the extreme world ham-fisted, but that is just the environment which allows more creativity to permit more allegorical setup and therefore the higher amount of useful commentary. Those who object to it are too easily distracted or not comprehending of how handy it is to have a fantasy world.

In other forms of literature the amount of commentary is small, weak, and puny, because it has difficulty flexing its wings in a world constrained by reality.

thought experiment: consider classic works of strong-commentary literature and whether they would be considered SF if published today, or whether they would be even stronger if given the freedom of SF

Great stuff!

[Blice]

Wall-E was an incredible movie. The character development was outstanding, emotions were believable, and scenes really made impressions on me.

What I found most interesting about TFA was about the software they use for long-term development.
It said that for long-term development movies (Wall-E was 3 years, right?) they use the same software all the way through. I had always wondered about that kind of thing.. Since 3D software and rendering engines and such is always improving, how do these guys make the movies? Do they constantly re-render with the better software throughout the process, etc.? How do they keep up with competition in that regard?

So it was neat to finally find that out. The article also offers a lot of insight into the team arrangement at Pixar. I like that they aren't chained to animating a certain character/part- That they really observe who likes to animate who and what kind of scenes and kind of let them do what they enjoy best in the project. I wish programming jobs were like that- Where we could work on parts that we really liked instead of being moved from language to language and to different teams etc. like our preference doesn't matter. I think it's a really good thing they have over there.

If you haven't seen Wall-E yet, it's well worth the ticket price!

Re:Shorts

[norminator]

The look of the people in The Incredibles was definitely different than in previous Pixar movies, but they were less about trying to look realistic (which I think was the attempt it Toy Story, where it ends up looking somewhat creepy), and more about making the characters look like action figures. Because hey, they're super heroes. If they wanted to try to make the people really realistic, I'm sure the look would have been vastly different.

And now, in Wall*E, the people (for the most part) have a very cartoony bubbly look, which is obviously intentional to represent how far the human race has degenerated during the time it has been waited on hand and foot by robots in space. The obviousness of that intent is highlighted by the fact that in the line up of photos of all of the previous captains, the first one was very realistic looking, and they gradually get more cartoony and fat from there. Also, all of the videos of Fred Willard are actual videos of the actor, not animations. That serves to further show the contrast between what humans were and what they have become. I think when Toy Story came out, they were focused on showing off this new medium and how realistic it can be, so they tried to even make the people lifelike, which was hard to do. So in subsequent movies, they've avoided the Uncanny Valley by making the humans cartoonish in different ways, depending on the theme of the movie.

Re:More than taking care of the planet

[serviscope_minor]

Incredibles - Exceptionalism should be rewarded

The message of the film is that mediocrity is celebrated.

I really had issues with the Incredibles message. Unlike Wall-E the average human was portrayed as weak-willed, contemptible, and ungracious for not heaping glory on their superhuman betters. The line from the kid, "when everyone's special then nobody is" I found to be a pretty horrible statement, the implication being that he can't really shine unless everyone else is inferior in every way.

s/every/some. But yes, that is true. It may not be pleasant, or nice, but it is true. It's kind of the definition of special really. And you know what? The average human is weak willed, ungracious and contemptible. In the film, it's not that they didn't heap praise, it's that they forced them away. They forced the incredibles to be as mediocre as they were. That is what people are like.

Much as I don't particularly like it, I'm like that too, to some extent. Have you never felt ill will towards someone who got/achieved something you didn't manage to do? If you ever have, then you have those tendencies too.

And the race at the end, I didn't really see the point; it takes no effort to win, all he gets from winning is the dubious recognition of having won an elementary school race.

So the best guy shouldn't win, so everyone else can have a chance? Why shouldn't he win? Because there's nothing special about special? Because the mediocre people should be celebrated too? Your comment is the point of the film.