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I ts easy to forget that Pixar is a technology company. Mostly
becausethe invention that they do is in service of a narrative.When
done successfully, your attention is held by that narrative, not by
the technicalachievements that made it possible.With Inside Out,
its newest feature due later thisyear, Pixar had its own unique set
of technical challenges to overcome. A bigger visionled to scaling
problems, the duality of the films narrative meant creating not
one, buttwo worlds and visual languages not to mention a main
character made entirely oflight.
Inside Out is the story of a young girl named Riley who moves to
San Francisco from themidwest with her parents. To some extent, the
story is about how she adjusts and howher relationship to her
family changes along with their locale.
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But, in parallel, there is an internal story being told about
her emotions Joy, Sadness,Fear, Anger and Disgust. Emotions which
influence how Riley feels, acts and reacts toevents in her life as
reflected by some very clever construct building that I wont
spoilhere. This dual story led to some sticky issues when it came
to representing anddifferentiating them in ways that contributed to
the story.
I spent some time at Pixar recently, watching just under an hour
of Inside Out andtalking to some of the creative people behind the
movie. Though there were dozens ofanecdotes, a couple of them stood
out to me as unique examples of Pixars ability tosolve technical
and creative problems through tool building.
A More Human Camera
One of the major technical hurdles to overcome was how to shoot
the movie in a waythat communicates the tumultuous, expressive
world of emotions yet can alsotransmit the subtleties and nuance of
our outside human world.
Typically, when you want to direct a camera in a virtual world
for an animated film, youdo it point-by-point. If the desired
effect is a mechanical, tracking, dolly or evenhandheld shot, each
of those is programmed in by a camera operator to mimic the
real-world equivalent.
For Inside Out, there were a couple of unique issues because the
worlds inside andoutside Rileys head had to be significantly
different. They looked and felt different fromart direction and
design viewpoints, of course. But they also had to feel different
to theviewer. So different virtual camera techniques were used to
film the two worlds.
In addition, as the story progresses, the camera techniques move
from a swooping,30s-style mechanical camera into a much more modern
hand operated camera style.
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Were just like a live action camera crew, Director of
Photography Patrick Lin said. Ourbig tool, our main tool is a
camera only, our camera is virtual. But although its virtual,its
mathematically true. It has lenses, focal length, focus, F-stop,
distortion, depth ofview and everything. We mimic real camera
movement as if its on track, dolly, crane,steadicam or
handheld.
The more mechanical, on-track mimics of standard filming
techniques were used infilming the world insideof Rileys head. This
lent it a more fluidfeel. Outsidethe head,however, the world of
Rileys realitydeserved a more handheld, stedicam-type vibe.Looser
and free form techniques, in general, were used to highlight its
much morerealistic landscape.
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In order to do this, they created rough physical cameras and
attached sensors to them.They projected those cameras into the
virtual world and had human operators walkaround a physical space,
allowing all of the subtle details of a camera operatorsperformance
to inform the scene.
Things like an ever-so-slightly missed focus that makes a scene
feel more energetic as acharacter moves quickly. Or the very human
flex of a knee stepping down off of a curbto follow the action.
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A beeb box similar to the one used on Inside Out courtesy Adam
Habib
Some of the designs look like black boxes with mechanical camera
wheels attached tothem in a similar configuration to actual camera
cranes. Others look like shoulder-mounted blocks of wood with wands
attached one rig was even a cobbled-togetheraffair with a cheap
plastic tripod dangling from the bottom that gave it mass like
asteadicam.
Lin had previously used the technique while making The Blue
Umbrella, a short that ranbefore Pixars Monsters University. The
version they used then was significantlyimproved for use on Inside
Out.
On Blue Umbrella it was really in its infancy. The gearbox that
we have, that is actuallybuilt by one of our lead layoutartists
Adam [Habib]. He also built a focus ring, too, thatcan actually do
live focusing, so that we can get that perfect focus more
naturally.Everything we do has to be deliberate, and nothing is
accidental.
TheBlueUmbrellaCameraCapturePolishSessionfromsaschka PLUS
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For Inside Out, Lin and the photography department used
extensive camera capturetechniques. The scenes are set up
virtually, blocked in by a process called Layout alsoin their
wheelhouse and then animated. The cameras movements through the
sceneare then shot just like a live action film, following the
actors as they move through thescene.
Both handheld and gear box rigs were used to get the camera
movements just right,depending on the act of the movie and whether
we are inside or outside Rileys head.Its a solution thats both
technology heavy and very aware of the value of a humantouch.
RenderMan Saves The Day
One of the main characters in the movie is Joy, as voiced by Amy
Poehler and featuredprominently in the trailers and other
marketing. As you can see here, Joy glows. Not onlydoes she glow,
but shes actually a full on light source.
Having a light bulb walking around in your scenes presented some
difficulties to Pixarslighting staff.
Character lighting lead Angelique Reisch says that Joys glowing
nature was one of thetougher technical challenges to overcome.
00:43
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We needed really believable light cast from her, so when she was
animated, we wantedto feel that light moving around on the set, she
said. Additionally, we wanted it to bepretty detailed. If she
picked up, for example, a frog, we want to see the light betweenher
fingers. We dont want to just put a spotlight on there and make the
whole thingbright.
Joy is a main character, not a single-scene issue to be dealt
with, so she was going to bein a lot of the shots of the movie. In
addition to the other lights (some scenes have asmuch as 175) in
the shot, they had this mobile light source walking through,
causinghavoc.
Pixar CEO Ed Catmull started work on what would become RenderMan
with his researchat the University of Utah in the 1970s. RenderMan
became an internal tool used by ILMand Lucasarts to create
photorealistic imagery for their use in movies its been usedin
Titanic, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, among many others. In
1989, it was offeredto the public for the first time. Now over 25
years old, RenderMan is a legendary Pixarproduct, and one of the
things that initiated its purchase by Steve Jobs in 1986.
Recently,RenderMan was even made free for budding filmmakers with a
non commercial license.
When Reischs lighting department needed a way to represent the
light coming off of Joyin a way that would be accurate to her bodys
exact structure, and not just a big light
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that glowed around her, they were stumped. Until they saw what
RenderMan wasworking on.
RenderMan was working on what they call geometric area lights,
or a geometry light,says Reisch. What this light does is it allows
you to select a model and thenturn thatmodel into a light source.
This was music to our ears.
RenderMans geolight wasnt scheduled to be ready for Inside Outs
production in time,but after some internal red flags being raised,
Pixars global technology and lightingpeople got together with
RenderMan and were able to run it out in time.
Around December 2013, I was telling everybody, All I want for
Christmas is Joysgeometry light working,'says Reisch. We deployed
it with very little testing in March of2014 into production, but
thankfully, it ended up working out and we used it in
almosteveryactually, as far as I know, every shot in the film.
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Of course, audiences wont notice. Thats how Pixar knows it has
done its job correctly.When problems are solved or tools are built
there, theyre in service of the only thingthat matters: the story.
The temptation to flaunt a technical filmmaking feat on screen
isset aside, and the lighting effects on Joy or the camera work
inside Rileys head arein the end incredibly subtle. Most people
will never know the work that went into themor even notice her
innate glow. But they will feel it, and thats what matters.
Ill have more on the movie from my time with it and interviews
with creative staff likedirector Pete Docter, producer Jonas Rivera
and supervising animators Shawn Krauseand Victor Navone in the
weeks to come.
Post updated with name of lead layout artist, and to clarify
when camera techniques were
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Sign Up To Volunteer At DisruptNYPosted Apr 12, 2015
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LanceTrimingtonHongKongThanksMatthew.Thiswasinterestingwithoutbeingdumbeddownorfawning.ReplyLike
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DarrenSmith TopCommenterPixarareremakingHerman'sHead?ReplyLike
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MartinBlase
TopCommenterWatchthetrailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HFv47QHWJUReplyLikeEditedApril13at6:45pm
MerrillNuttallRyersonUniversityAsusual...youciteSteveJobs....EnoughofthisBADtechjournalism.3DrenderingisnotaninventionofAmericans,GeteducateddumbassReplyLikeFollowPostYesterdayat6:14am
AlexanderGregoryMoranoWell,bittermuch?LastIchecked,WilliamFetterandIvanSutherlandwerebothamericans.AlongwithEvans,Wylie,Romney,andErdahl,andHenryGouraud.Thefirst"non"americantomakeamajorcontributiontothefieldwasPhongBuiTuong.Educateyourself.ReplyLike11hoursago
AntonGroszDoyouknowwhothecharacterwhoisalllightissupposedtobe?ReplyLikeFollowPostYesterdayat11:53am
GaryL.Friedman
HuntingtonBeach,CaliforniaIrecallSony's"Surf'sup"usedthesamehandheldcameratechniquethathisarticleinferswasinventedbyPixar.Isthereadifference?ReplyLikeFollowPostApril13at9:59am
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MartinLutteral
TopCommenterMontreal,QuebecIndeed,itwassony'ssurf'sthatusedthistechniqueforthefirsttime.ButI'mprettysurethatpixardeveloppedsomenewtricksaboutit.ReplyLike12hoursago
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