miafka - Do you think you will be called up to work on the Toy Story 3 score, or is it too early to know?
Oh, it’s way too early. But I can tell you I remember working on the original Toy Story back in… was it 1995? Nobody had heard of Pixar back then, and all of a sudden there was this fantastic CGI up on the screen at a time when nothing like it had been seen before. I remember watching the screen a lot while recording, seeing scenes in different stages of completion, and thinking “wow, this is neat!” The other memory I have of it is of Randy Newman. In a nutshell, the guy is like a Catskills standup comic. He’ll get up there, tell the orchestra jokes one after another, and then say something like “oh, I suppose we’ve got to record SOMETHING or we’ll get in trouble.” The guy is hilarious. One joke I’ll never forget was him saying “Oh yeah? Well I remember little Johnny [Williams] BEFORE he moved to the 310!” (the 310 being the telephone area code that covers Beverly Hills, the West Side, and other nice neighborhoods of LA).
But to answer your question, nope, have no idea. The way the studio orchestra scene works, it’s not like there’s a “Pixar Orchestra” (the way, say, there was the Fox Orchestra in the 1930s and 1940s). It’d be nice of course, but that time is long gone. As far as recording for Toy Story 3… that’s still way off in the distance. If it’s set for a summer 2010 (I believe) release, music wouldn’t normally even start being recorded until maybe fall of 2009, and the bulk wouldn’t be recorded until the spring of 2010. For instance, on Wall-E currently, we did one initial day last summer, then there were two days last October – but the rest (the bulk of it) won’t be recorded until this spring (a few months before the film comes out).
My only comment: Pixar has been very good at making story the strong point and avoiding gimicks. I don’t mind Toy Story 3 being in 3-D… I just hope they don’t make the 3-D dictate the story. But so far they’ve hit the mark each time, so I have faith.
miafka - Yeah, I thought it would have been a bit early, but by then sounds of things it seems as if you have been in the orchestra for every Pixar film (is that right?), so fingers crossed you will called up for more. 
Randy Newman sounds awesome! That story makes me respect him even more. It’s good to know that he is such a cool guy and is personable with the orchestra he works with. You must have been part of a group of people, outside of Pixar, who first saw Toy Story and the new technology before anyone else did, so that must be a neat feeling.
Do you know if Disney has their own orcehstra (or did when they were making their hit movies), or if Dreamworks has one? I’d love to hear that Pixar had its own orchestra in the future, too - I’m not sure how that would work with you, though: whether or not you would legally be able to work on outside projects, or you could only work with the for a small time each year and only with Pixar. Anyway…
Oh, and after you have completed work on the film, do you get any Pixar goody bags, or perks or anything? And, check back in here when you have done a bit more recording for WALL●E - I, and others, would love to know how the process is going. 
Thanks, miafka!
Will 3-D make a difference? Sorry, I haven’t seen many 3-D movies before… actually I’ve never seen one.
Oh, I guess I wasn’t too clear… when I said “that’s still way off in the distance,” I didn’t mean the formation of a Pixar Orchestra, I meant simply the scoring for Toy Story 3. (I’ve just gone back and edited it to make it clearer). The studios don’t have their own orchestras anymore – that time is long since gone (you’re talking the 1940s), so no… Disney, Dreamworks… none of them have their own orchestras.
I haven’t worked on every Pixar film. I guess you could say “A bunch, not all.” In fact I wonder if ANY studio musician has managed to work on all of them. If so, I’d be very surprised because of the way the studio orchestra scene is set up (I could try to explain it to you, but all it would do is make your head explode…)
Goodies? Sometimes. For “Ratatouille” we were given movie posters and special black baseball caps just for the orchestra with the nice “Ratatouille” logo on the front, and “I’m with Le Rat Band” embroidered on the back…
Oh, ok. Well, I hope you get called up to do future projects. I’m also very eager to know who will be composing the music for UP - I think Michael Giacchino would be a good choice since he has already scored The Incredibles which is an adventure film, but Randy Newman would work well on that genre too, but I think he may be a bit too busy with TS3. Anyway, that discussion is for another thread.
Oh, and if you want to explain how the orchestra works on that thread, I’d like to read it.
i hope toy story 3 is released in dual format, as i would prefer it as normal 3d. What does everyone think, will it be released in normal too?
I would think so. Back when Meet The Robinsons was playing, anybody could watch it anywhere while selected theaters showed the 3-D version. Unfortunately, it might be a long drive for many people…like myself. 
Welcome to Pixar Planet, mrpotatohead25!
~~=oP
thanks PixarVixen, and i was reading about toy story 3 on wikipedia, and it said that slinky dog will be voiced by lou romano(linguini in ratatouille), do you think this is just made up?
thanks PixarVixen, and i was reading about toy story 3 on wikipedia, and it said that slinky dog will be voiced by lou romano(linguini in ratatouille), do you think this is just made up?
Don’t trust Wikipedia for upcoming Pixar stuff. You absolutely can NOT trust Wikipedia for anything like that. They said WALL•E was going to be voiced by a celebrity (I think they said Ben Stiller or something but I can’t quite remember), and then they said no one was going to talk, and then they said that the official title of WALL•E was WALL-E, and all three of those statements have been proven false so far.
If Slinky is in the movie, he’ll most likely have very few lines, like Red in Cars, who was voiced by the late Joe Ranft.
I remember watching Atlantis (Jim Varney’s last movie; he died during the production) the other day, and I found out on the audio commentary that he did all the lines but one - apparently, during the line towards the end about “bacon grease”, Disney hired a Varney sound-alike (I think his name was Steve Barr). and if you didn’t know it was another guy, you couldn’t tell the differences in voices. Hopefully Disney will tip Pixar off on this guy.
Well, you can SOUND exactly like someone else, but can you ACT exactly like someone else? 
ok cool, thanks, just wanted to find out because i dont think lou romano will be able to do the voice of slinky dog anything like jim varney…
No, but in a CGI movie, you never see a person act. You only hear the voice, so it really doesn’t matter.
Actually, acting is more than just moving. But the Pixar animators do that part of the acting. The voice actors give the animators the inspiration.
By the way, welcome to Pixar Planet, Bacon! 
Yep, if you’re tone of voice and the way you present your lines is bad, then your total performance is ruined.
As posted about on the blog, could this be the TS3 plot as reported by the WSJ, and rumored for quite some time?
Source: WSJ Article [Via Upcoming Pixar]
That does sound reasonable, bawpcwpn. It was mentioned in Toy Story 2, and it would be an interesting test to see exactly how the characters react to being abandoned. So yeah, I don’t see why it couldn’t be a feasible storyline. Whether it actually is the storyline, well, I guess we’ll have to wait until we’re a bit closer to the release of Toy Story 3.
It seems like a bit of a retelling of Jessie’s backstory…
I always thought that they would have something happen in Toy Story 3 about [spoil]Andy growing up, then at the end of the movie (not the beginning), the toys are given to a child care centre to be played with forever and ever.[/spoil] Maybe they changed it.
Well, whatever Pixar do it will be great, so I’m not that worried. The first two were classics and I’m sure the third one will be, too.