'Incredible' Box Office
Pixar, the enormously successful computer animation studio, has released their latest film, "The Incredibles."
Last year, Correspondent Dan Rather took a look at the team that hit it big with the Academy Award-winning blockbuster, "Finding Nemo." Now, he reports on how Pixar has found new magic to do it again.
You might be tricked into thinking that "Finding Nemo" was shot underwater.
But it wasn't. Scenes from the movie represent the latest advancements in computer-generated animation. "Finding Nemo" was actually made on land, inside Pixar's colossal northern California studio where they make their films.
About 700 very lucky people actually get paid for working at Pixar. The studio proudly boasts of having employees with graduate degrees from some of the finest schools -- masters of the craft.
Making cartoons, or animated features, is what Pixar is all about. But it's also keen on nurturing the creative spirit, even when it comes to office décor.
Executive Vice President John Lasseter's office looks like a toy store. "I had so many toys at home my wife kept saying, 'Just take them to work,'" says Lasseter.
When it comes to making animated films, Lasseter has done it all as a writer, animator and director. He was also the executive producer of "Finding Nemo."
Work on "Finding Nemo" began by studying the sea, watching how light danced on the ocean's surface. And to get a true sense of the environment, they went scuba diving in the waters off Kona, Hawaii.
"The animators on Nemo had to throw out a lot of their innate sense of physics because gravity is different," says Lasseter. "It's fluid, they're floating and they're moving, and it's more of this fluid animation of the fins and the bodies and propulsion and all. It's very different than being bound to the ground by gravity."
Then it was time to start making the movie, by programming the characters into computers, using special Pixar software. But technology aside, Pixar is single-minded about what's really important in a film.
"The most important thing in the movie is the story and the characters. Everything that we do on a film is driven by that story," says Lasseter.
Pixar proved its proficiency at storytelling with its breakthrough film "Toy Story." Audiences were dazzled back in 1995 by the 3D imagery and the heartwarming story of Woody the cowboy and space hero Buzz Lightyear, who was modeled after Lasseter himself.
"I kept telling the guys he's got to always stand like this, arms akimbo with one eyebrow up, cause they always did that," remembers Lasseter. "And so I kept doing this, 'It's like this, guys. See, like that.'"
Their next films, "A Bug's Life," "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters, Inc." all became blockbuster hits. The "Toy Story" formula seemed to work - a touch of innocence, a bit of sarcasm, and a lot of heart.
Lasseter pours his talents and emotions into every film and every character. To fully understand his passion, listen to what happened right after the premiere of "Toy Story," as Lasseter was changing planes at an airport.
"There was a little boy standing at the gate with his mother, waiting for his dad to get off the airplane. He was holding a doll of Woody the Cowboy and clutching it. The look on his face was something so special. I realized by the look on his face that that was his doll, that was his character," says Lasseter.
"Woody didn't belong to me anymore. And I think about that boy almost every day in working with these films, because I realize they're like a child of yours that you raise. And when they graduate high school and they go off to college, you're giving your child to the world. And you hope you did a good job raising them. That's what these films are like to us. You know?"
Last Friday, Pixar premiered its latest film, which had to satisfy more than the critics. It had to maintain a legacy. But would "The Incredibles" be another mega-hit for Pixar? Would it live up to its title and pedigree?
The answer, to no one's surprise, was yes. The film set a record and brought in over $70 million at the box office on its opening weekend.
After animating toys, bugs and fish, Pixar stretched the envelope, and for the first time, it made a film in which all the characters are human -- actually superhuman.
Pixar's super fast computers and software allowed the studio to capture the details that define human motions and emotions.
"You want the audience to feel for the characters, and if the characters looked stiff, or if they moved weird, or if they didn't feel loose, you know, humans have a certain fleshiness and looseness to them," says supervising animator Steven Hunter. "If you didn't see that in the characters, then you'd never, the audience would never care for them."
Not satisfied with settling with success, Pixar is already finishing its next movie. The film, "Cars," is set for release next November.