Hi, everyone. Not too much to post about really, but I wanted to let everyone know that the scoring for “Up” has begun. And in keeping with the trend of having all the thread titles here start with the word “Up,” I decided to call this thread “Up Tempo” (hey, it was either that or “Up Beat.”)
For those who don’t know, I am NOT a Pixar employee, but a studio musician who has played on many of Pixar’s films. Please note that I have a strict “No Spoiler” policy and will not reveal spoilers (doing so is bad form, and not my place). However if no one objects, I’ll be happy to answer generic questions on scoring, and give you all an idea of what the “Up” sessions are like.
With most Pixar projects, there’s usually an initial day or two of scoring done early on… then the bulk of it is done later, as more of the film is finished. Well, the first two sessions for “Up” occured yesterday and today (December 8th and 9th).
In a change from previous Pixar films, the sessions took place at Warner Bros instead of Sony/MGM or Fox, with Michael Giacchino (the film’s composer) noting that this was the first Pixar film to be scored at Warner Bros (there used to be five large scoring stages in LA, but two recently closed, leaving only Sony/MGM, Fox, and Warner Bros). By the way, the stage at Warner Bros is now called the “Eastwood Scoring Stage” because Clint Eastwood was instrumental in keeping the stage open when the studio considered closing it a while back.
So the very first thing Monday morning, Michael came up to the podium with a very nice Pete Docter (director) and Jonas Rivera (producer) to welcome everyone and tell us a little about the movie. First, they showed us all the trailer (a nice touch; that never happens), then explained a bit about the film. Pete Docter called it a “Coming of Old Age” story, and said it was pretty much a tribute to their grandparents. Michael talked about what a wonderful film it was, and encouraged us to turn around and have a look at the screen every once in a while. Mr. Docter then mentioned that coming to the scoring stage was one of his favorite parts of the job, and talked about the difference in schedules between animation and scoring: he said a Pixar film takes around five years to make, and a year and a half before you begin to see the first results on film – yet he can come to the scoring stage and at the end of just one day, have a bunch of music finished.
For these initial early sessions most of the music was for the first part of the film, though we did a few cues for later in the film as well. Michael’s doing a fantastic job with the score… from the whimsical cues, to the poignant, reflective parts of the movie, the cues really fit the scenes well.
Looking at the screen, it was interesting to see the various stages the animation is in. Some scenes looked almost finished, but others were still only partially rendered. Sometimes there’d be no background, or a character would just be in underwear (clothes not added yet)… and in one particular scene, a character’s hair suddenly had a different color for one shot, then no hair at all for some of the other shots. But other scenes looked almost finished, and the film’s progress seems to be coming along nicely.
Tuesday was “Hawaiian Shirt Day” for anyone who felt like it, and a camera crew came in to film us for a bit (perhaps for the DVD). Then at the end of the day, the Pixar folk had us all squeeze together for a group picture on the scoring stage.
The next sessions won’t be for a while, but the film’s production is coming along nicely, and from what I’ve seen, Pixar has done it again. I’m already looking forward to seeing the finished film!
So, we might be seeing you on the second disk of an 
