A Look Into Pixar

Yesterday I listening to this incredibly inspiring podcast from The Pixar Podcast. It a fan-based podcast for Pixar. The particular interview I heard was with animators Austin Madison and Chris Chua. Chris worked on Wall-E, Up, the upcoming films Brave and Cars 2. Austin worked on Wall-E, Toy Story 3, Up, Ratatouille, and the new short for Brave. Talk about living an animators dream!

One of my favorite parts of the interview was when they talked about their education at Cal Arts. I had images of my college years flash before my eyes the whole time. Sitting in the labs for hours and hours surrounded by nothing but computers and fellow designers. They mentioned that some of your greatest teachers are your peers. And how true is that? As much as I loved and learned from my professors, I learned so much from the kids in my classes. We really had to rely on each other to learn new techniques, get critiques and feedback, and just for moral support. I really love the community in the design world. It's definitely a profession where everybody has each other's backs and are very supportive.

Austin Madison- CalArts/Pixar Internship Interview

Chris Chua- Animation from CalArts, junior year

I think as designers we always sit in front of our work and think or hope for perfection. Chris talked about his sophomore year while taking a class and feeling down on himself. We look at our work with such critical eyes and wanting to push ourselves to make something better and better. But he received some advice from a professor about how the people we strive to be like, our role models, it took them years to get there. So if we just keep pushing ourselves and striving to reach that level of greatness we will get there. Never stop pushing yourself and your work. It can always be better. Design is always a learning process and the work is never going to be absolutely perfect. There is always somebody out there who's better.

"Don't be under the impression that this should just be a cinch. If it's coming real easy to you, you're probably not doing it right." Chris Chua

These two guys were somebody I would love to sit down and have a conversation with. They are very humble and appreciative of their success in the field. And you can hear the passion in their voices when they are talking about what they do. 

They have a monkey running around. A monkey...

Monsters Inc. is one of my absolute favorites.

What an amazing place.

. How do you know that a person is a great animator?

"They're probably either acting their scene out in front of a mirror or they've got headsets on and their eyebrows are deeply furrowed. Whatever mouth shape their characters are making, they're slowly making that mouth shape. So basically you can tell who is a good animator by who looks the most deranged and completely lost in thought." Austin Madison

How true is that? Very. 

Pixar's next movie? Cars 2. 

Want to listen to the interview? Click here. Austin Madison has a blog you check out here and Chris does as well that you can find here.