UPDATE: Link to one of the articles we interviewed for below!
Pixar Animation Studios Trip Report, Monday, June 16, 2008
My life is complete—I officially stepped inside Pixar Animation Studios and shook hands with Andrew Stanton in Emeryville, CA.
A relative of mine works for a local Bay Area news media source, and today his coworker (who is also friends with a couple people at Pixar already, and I’ve been exchanging e-mails with one of them) gave me an opportunity to “assist” him with a very quick photo shoot of Andrew Stanton. In reality, that meant I would get a visitor’s pass to step inside Pixar for almost an hour and absorb the loveliness that is Pixar. So I hopped on BART (our amazing subway system) and he picked me up to take me there.
You would never guess that Pixar is where Pixar is. It’s surrounded in a very industrial neighborhood and a large IKEA. While Pixar campus is unassuming, it’s no surprise that only a couple miles down is University of California, Berkeley and the Bay Area’s premier independent filmmaking studios. As we pulled up to the large “Pixar Animation Studios” gates, I felt like I was instantly in the presence of gods.
At 9AM, I saw all the amazing Pixar employees drive up in their cars with their official Pixar IDs and pull up in the parking lot. I bowed my head to them in thanksgiving. Meanwhile, we waited in the registered guest line. To my surprise, I was on the registered guest list! The building is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. I expected some big baseball field sized area, but it’s not. The lovely trees that line the building act mostly as a means to prevent unsuspecting people from spying on their actions…truly top secret information.
Needless to say, I had to sign an agreement form saying that I would not take any unauthorized photos anywhere in the building (darn) or share any secret information, but I did get some shots of the outside really quickly before we left (see below).
The atrium looks exactly like they portrayed it on the DVDs. There’s a huge Luxo Jr. lamp and ball outside the main entrance, a Mike and Sulley and Cars model inside. I saw the Buy N Large posters hugging the atrium, the huge display of every single WALL-E merchandise you can ever imagine, the mail room, the gift shop with a sign that read “Grand opening Tuesday, June 17th” (darn, I was a day late). Next to that is a mini arcade area with every version of the WALL-E video game, a nice kitchen area with cereal, and the Luxo Café. I recognized a few people walking in for work, including Jerome Ranft (sculptor who I met during Pixar’s Cars’ promotion) and Peter Sohn (recently known as voice of Emile). Lots of young 20-somethings hung around the atrium happily chatting with each other at the lounge area in the atrium. Some wore nice Pixar gear, one even had a CalArts sweater. I especially coveted the WALL-E jacket. It was a very social atmosphere, and by the looks of how hip and cool the students looked, I second guessed myself why I was majoring in something other than art, animation, or computer science. Yet I couldn’t have been happier to be sitting there, waiting for Mr. Stanton.
Although our appointment with Andrew was at 9:15, we didn’t get to see him until almost 9:40. A journalist was busy interviewing him. Meanwhile, the photographer and I walked upstairs with the Pixar public relations person and showed us around the upstairs balcony. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! First, the view from above was amazing and quite beautiful. There was original WALL-E concept art not unlike the art I saw in the Art of WALL-E Book (highly recommended), but better! There’s so much concept art of Buy N Large posters, the “gels,” robots, and color scripts. Although much of it was replicated, a lot of it was also original artwork, too! I saw Andrew with his makeup stylist get him ready in an office that looks over the atrium. The photographer quickly got his cameras ready and used me as a stand-in for the photos. We practiced three photos, two different set ups in front of nice color scripts of an essential scene at the end of the movie, and one of a nice pencil drawing of WALL-E roaming through the polluted city streets.
There he was. Andrew walked over to us and introduced himself to us. He was a happy man, excited to see his film released in theaters, and just as genuine as I expected him to be. The photographer took dozens of photos one after another in different poses. He made a few comments that the photographer was still using film cameras. Andrew talked to us about the artwork that he was standing in front of for a small bit, but I had to just observe. But as the 5 minutes of the photo shoot were over, I got the nerve to offer my hand and say, “Hello, Andrew.” We shook hands and he bid his farewell to go to the next media outlet.
And that was it—my dream come true.
Here are photos of my farewell. These are the only places they would let me take my camera, but the photographer I was with took some decent pictures of me inside the studio with his authorized camera, which I don’t have with me.
WALL-E in Emeryville (taken on a different day)
My Pixar guest pass
The Pixar parking lot!!!
Outside of Pixar building from parking lot!
Magic happens inside these walls.
The walkway to the entrance
Goodbye, Pixar!
Random shot of WALL-E poster on Market Street, San Francisco.
I’ll update this post with maybe more pictures and a link to the article.
Honestly though, I dont know what i’d do, seeing all those people that I knew from DVDs and whatnot. I’d probably be all nervous and try my best not to look like a Pixar crazed nut.
… we 
Not the gates of Olympus – the gates to an animation studio. Not the Beatles, the Brain Trust. See what I mean? 
