Upcoming Pixar Visits Pixar Animation Studios: The Introduction!

The title of this post might as well be "Upcoming Pixar Visits the Bay Area, Pixar, WonderCon and Watches Toy Story 3 with Some Surprises Along the Way", but I figured it looked better shortened.

The folks at Pixar set us up on an extremely thorough tour which I can’t possibly write about in just one post. So here’s my attempt at summarizing the adventure while leaving much to talk about for later.

Our first day was preceded by something else I’ll get to soon, but the studio visit on Wednesday consisted of a special screening of Pixar’s 11th masterpiece. I’m sure you’re all excited to hear about Toy Story 3 which was shown to us in an almost finished form sans Randy Newman’s score.

I can’t get into specific details, for obvious reasons, but I can tell you how I felt about the third installment. Toy Story 3 is the perfect way to end the trilogy and has all the humor and heart of the last two films! In fact, it felt like classic Pixar, if you know what I mean. Definitely bring tissues and get prepared for epic stuff!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. On the following day we were treated to presentations, tours, and roundtables by Lee Unkrich, Darla K. Anderson, Bob Whitehill, Bobby Podesta, Mike Venturini, and Christine Freeman! Stick around for proper intros and upcoming posts focusing on each facet of the tour.

Being able to delve all the way into the animator’s and technical director’s "quarters" was wonderful, but the most rewarding part of the trip was meeting a plethora of super friendly Pixarians, bloggers, and other reps around the building. Honorable mentions go out to Ed Catmull, Linsday VanderGalien, Cat Hicks, Oren Jacob, Jonas Rivera, Bob Peterson, Chris Ford, Renee Lamri (cool RenderMan folks) and, oh yeah, Victor Navone! That too is another story for another day.

After the interviews came to a close, we entered the Pixar theatre once again. This time, John Lasseter introduced Teddy Newton and Kevin Reher after an interesting chat. In turn, the duo introduced Pixar’s new short film, Day & Night. All I can say is that it’s like nothing I’ve seen before and it will blow your mind! It’s possibly one of my favorite shorts and works perfectly in 3D.

Following our Pixar trip, Thomas from Upcoming Pixar attended WonderCon so I’m sure we’ll get his reaction soon. For now you can check out some pictures from the event over at Stitch Kingdom and a great video of the panel by our friends at HeyUGuys.co.uk! 

To wrap this post I have to thank Chris Wiggum and the entire Pixar Publicity team for setting this up! The team did a phenomenal job introducing us to an assortment of talent and taking us around the studio. It means so much!

For more, check back soon. I had to delete much of what I’ve written because the post was getting too long. There’s so much more to tell! I’m open for questions, so ask away!