Last spring, we had the opportunity to speak with Pixar’s very own Jay Ward at the Cars 2 press event.
An avid automobile fan, Ward is noteable in that he as one of the most unique job titles in the studio, Cars Franchise Guardian. Joined in this interview by surprise guest Jerome Ranft, we ask about Ward’s role at the studio and Pixar’s upcoming film.
Upcoming Pixar: Your official title is Cars Franchise Guardian. That’s pretty unique. What do you do in that capacity and how did it come about?
Jay Ward: Jerome’s had to hear this so many times. [All of us laugh.]
The Cars franchise guardian thing came about because…I worked on the first Cars with John, started out working in the art department with Jerome and then about halfway through the movie Cars, Darla Anderson, the producer said, ‘I think you should be managing the character team,’ so then I actually managed the process of building the cars in the computer. And while the film was going on John said, ‘wait a minute, you’re a car guy I’d like to use you for authenticity for car details.’ So I started telling him, ‘hey this is the lug pattern for this car or this is how flathead works,’ and John was able to get car knowledge from me that we used in Cars.
Movie comes out, everything’s great. I go on to work on other projects, Ratatouille, Presto, even Brave. And when Cars 2 came around John said, ‘I want you back in the Cars world but sort of like an overseer of all the projects because it’s gotten bigger and bigger, we have theme parks and video games, publishing, consumer products. How do we keep authenticity on everything? I want you to be the eyes and ears of the Cars world for me.’
So I came on very early to the Cars 2 project to help them get everything set up. And now it’s a full time role.
UP: As the franchise guardian, you have to have a beloved car. What’s your all-time favorite?
JW: Here’s the hard thing, to say ‘what’s your favorite car’ is like saying ‘which is your favorite child.’ This is a mind blowing question; there are so many beautiful cars. One of my all-time favorites is a Ferrari 250 GT Lusso… It is one of the most beautiful cars, aesthetically.
UP: What about in the film? Who’s your favorite car character?
JW: For this film, I’m pretty partial to Finn McMissile because of the influence of the European sports cars, the gadgets are very cool on him, I love the personality, Michael Caine is the voice, Jay Shuster’s design on the car are gorgeous… We tried to get all these beautiful features we loved into one car.
[On the original Cars], I love the heart of Mater and kind of who Mater was and who he became. Originally Mater was a super small part in… Cars and part of the reason he kind of became this bigger and greater car was because of Joe Ranft who gave him the scratch voice… I love the way he evolved and became this unexpected hit.
UP: As the franchise guardian, you said you kind of oversee the Cars universe as a whole. Has there ever been a time when someone overstepped the rules of this world? What did you do?
JW: That’s an interesting question because the Cars Toons got started between the two films and I wasn’t in this role [Franchise Guardian] yet, I was working on other films. The funny thing about the Cars Toons is that it breaks rules that we have in the Cars world because it’s Mater making things up out of his mind, going to the moon, being a heavy metal guy, wearing clothes, playing drums. It’s all these things we wouldn’t do in the feature films but it’s ok to stretch those boundaries. So it works, there’s context to that.
People are always like, ‘what are the rules of the world of Cars?’ But the rule book is sort of written in pencil. It’s like ‘Oh we never… oh wait we do that so it’s ok. But we never…. Oh yeah they did that in Cars 2.’
UP: On that subject, can we expect more Cars Toons?
JW: I think so for sure. Yeah, we told a lot of [Mater’s Tall Tales], I think there are still Cars Toons to be told. I feel that there’s opportunity for that.
UP: Will we see other characters get their shot at the spotlight?
JW: There are so many great stories to be told, some of them we’ve told in publishing but as far as Cars Toons go, there’s a lot more things we can do. We played out the Mater thing pretty well, and now it’s like, what other characters can we tell great stories with?
Jerome Ranft: We also don’t want to over saturate, we’re conscious about not “killing” these group of characters we don’t want to shove it down the public’s throat so much that they get sick of them.
JW: The good thing about Cars Toons is that, since a feature takes four years to make, it gives fans something to watch and be interested in between features.
UP: The Cars franchise is much more than just the films. What can you tell us about Cars Land, for example?
JW: Cars Land is going in at Disney California Adventure, it opens in the summer of 2012. Cars Land is sort of a snap shot in time, it’s after Cars but before Cars 2. It’s going to have the classic Lightning McQueen in it, not the Cars 2 McQueen, and the reason we have that is that Doc is in Cars Land. Doc Hudson is passed away in Cars 2 because Paul Newman passed away. So we wanted to have this classic, iconic thing; Doc Hudson has the headset on telling you to get ready to race in the ride. If we have Doc Hudson, we have to have classic McQueen. [Cars Land is] going to feel like being in Radiator Springs two years after the original film.
UP: And the toys? I will admit to owning quite a few diecasts.
JW: Cars 2 diecast is going to start out with the same Mattel format of 1:55, they’re going to initially launch 12 cars when the film comes out and we have this logical rollout to keep expanding every few months. We’re going to start with primary characters and then go on to secondary and then tertiary characters until we’ve filled out the world… There’s more RC than there’s ever been before because Spin Master is one of our toy partners.
JR: There’s gonna be more. A lot more!
UP: Back to the subject of the films? Did you have a role in developing the story for Cars 2?
JW: For story, they would ask me when a car question would come up because I’m the car expert. ‘What’s something that Finn McMissile can ask that’s a car related question?’ ‘A Karmann Ghia has no radiator,’ which is the exact line that they use in the movie. ‘What’s something indicative of British cars?’ ‘Well they use Witworth bolts and they have cork gaskets and they leak… you know little things.’
They’re not major story points, but they’re important for the authenticity. So when somebody’s watching the film that knows about cars it’s like, hey those guys actually did their homework.
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Thank you to Jay Ward, Jerome Ranft and the folks at Pixar for making this possible. I also have to thank all of you guys for reading, without you this wouldn’t be a reality.
Cars 2 opens on June 24— that’s just 6 days away. Get your tickets now!
Your thoughts?
Last modified: June 19, 2011
That Jerome Ranft fellow sure is talkative.