Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur is joined by a new short film, Sanjay’s Super Team.
We went behind the scenes to meet the director and producer… We want to capture something real we can put on the screen.
Even though our characters are toys or cars or dinosaurs.
I cant stand it when you go to movies and you go, they dont mean that.
Its fake, its surface level.
And thats what we venture to do as artists and as writers.
Thats our job to make you guys feel something.
Patel joined Pixar nearly 20 years ago following a spell as an animator onThe SimpsonsTV series.
[Pointing to the artwork on the wall] Its a beautiful film.
Nicole Paradis Grindle:We were just admiring these as though wed never seen them before.
[Laughs]
Its so good that youve told such a personal story.
Sanjay Patel:When does that happen?
[Laughs] Yeah, Im beyond grateful.
NPG:I feel that all Pixar films are drawn from some core personal experience.
But never before have we been quite so explicit as this one.
SP:Yeah, exactly.
I was interested in the changes in texture.
What was the process of working through those?
This is his imagination its kind of a stew.
If what his fathers doing suddenly looks like the boys TV show, then okay, hes into that.
Ill embrace that if I can interpret it in a way thats entertaining or exciting for me.
SP:Thats exactly what I was doing in my books.
I had to redraw it in my own selfish, egotistical way!
I think it says something interesting about the way we do assimilate art and stories from other cultures.
When I think about anime when I was a kid, anime seemed so exotic.
It was hard to find but I naturally gravitated towards it.
SP:Me too!
And now youre seeing all kinds of feature film directors influenced by anime.
NPG:Oh yeah.
SP:And why wouldnt you?
Theyre the best at it, and they make tonnes of it!
You were saying last night that you didnt warm to the idea of directing this straight away.
NPG:He was reluctant to say the least!
But once you decided to do it, did you find yourself enjoying it?
And I really need to be as clear and precise as possible.
How much energy and enthusiasm you could waste if you send them in the wrong direction.
You want to do it the right way.
And you were fantastic.
Sanjay really rose to the occasion.
You still had the final say, and I know that was an enormous pressure.
But they were such partners for him, really.
He was calling them in the middle of the night because he was trying to work out these problems.
On a short, there are seven of us, we gotta do it!
Its all on us!
Its a high, it really is, for everyone.
I shouldnt speak for them, but…
NPG:It was, it was.
Because they dont usually have that access.
They felt like they were really shaping the film in a meaningful way.
Your presentation last night was a really interesting insight into the Pixar way of developing stories.
NPG:A lot gets thrown out along the way.
SP:But those two concepts did synthesise together.
We gleaned the best parts of one and the best parts of the other.
NPG:You have to have courage to do that, and the time.
SP:It was.
A boy learning to appreciate a wall, at bottom?
Versus a boy learning to appreciate his culture so that he can appreciate his father… Golly!
One has this level of emotion, the other one is all the way up here.
Its something everyone can relate to.
Johns advice was dead on you just have to have half a brain cell to go, Youre right!
So what was it like when you first started at Pixar?
What are your memories of those first few years?
SB:Well, it was great.
You have to know, it was just the best thing ever.
NPG:It wasnt like it is right now.
We were a smaller company back then.
SB:You saw everyone get boyfriends and girlfriends.
You saw everybodys wedding.
I mean, you literally knew everybody.
Youre in a very small space.
I dont know how to describe it.
NPG:It was more informal, and we worked ridiculous hours, we really did.
We lived together, almost, in a big group house we were making a film together.
When I looked around at other animation, I couldnt even find other examples to emulate.
It really did feel like we were breaking new ground.
Thats what people forget about withToy Story,is that you were in the dark, creating something new.
NPG:Oh, God.
Constantly trying to invent things.
Every single step of the way.
We need to do this.
Well, how are we going to do it?
I worked onA Bugs Life,and I remember inventing the raindrops.
That was a huge technical issue.
SB:But it looked amazing!
NPG:At the end.
[Laughs] But it was so engaging and inspiring to be on the cutting edge.
And you know that youre part of that.
Thats what keeps Pixar interesting, is that each film is different.
I remember how big a deal the fur was onMonsters Inc.
NPG:Absolutely.
And the landscapes onThe Good Dinosaur.We never make it easier on ourselves.
We all grumble about that.
Everyone thinks its like a factory around here, and theyve no idea.
Its R&D constantly.
But its also whats great about it.
Because you do a lot of public speaking at Pixar.
Whats it like to adapt to that?
They still live in and operate a motel on Route 66.
We didnt have employees I was one of the employees.
I can do that, luckily.
Or at least I think I can.
No, it’s possible for you to.
I hate speaking in public!
SB:Me too!
But I can rent you a room!
[Laughs]
Sold!
So what was the trickiest part of this to get right, from a visual standpoint?
Well, it was tricky all along.
I think its the thing about inventing something new.
The sequence with the deities was really difficult.
How do you convey that in computer graphics?
SB:Which tends to lend towards photo-realism.
This is something that I was asking people to go to: something they cant take a picture of.
The lighting and the way the environment melts away.
It becomes very abstract.
They had to do paintings for the lighters and say, This is the target.
Even with the anime lines, you had to build those.
An artist can draw those quickly, but we got something more cool.
Suddenly we had dimensional anime speed lines, which Id never seen before.
Those are ingredients that I liked, but put together in a way that was coherent and made sense.
There was a lot of blood spilled to get that look.
Pixar shorts are often a great proving ground for new directors.
And also the shorts themselves can provide the basis for features.
So could anything from this be the basis for a Pixar feature?
The fighting deities, maybe?
Multiple arms….
SB:Theres tonnes of stories.
Thats the beauty of these myths.
There are so many great stories out there.
I certainly felt excited reading them.
Sanjay Patel and Nicole Paradis Grindle, thank you very much.
Sanjays Super Team fronts The Good Dinosaur, opening this weekend.
