Channel Frederator Blog

The Orange County Register has a story about 10 year old Colby Curtin, who was diagnosed with vascular cancer. Colby enjoyed Pixar’s films quite a bit, and was looking forward to seeing Up in theaters. Unfortunately, she was much too ill to travel to a theater. Doctors told her mother she was fading fast.

A friend of the family began to cold call both Pixar and Disney. She was able to guess a name in order to talk to a real person via Pixar’s automated phone system. She got through to the right people and Pixar agreed to send someone out with a DVD screener the next day.

Pixar sent an employee (who is not mentioned by name) to Colby in the hospitol with a screener of the film and some Up memorabilia. Though she couldn’t see the movie (the pain kept her eyes closed during the film), her mother gave her a play by [Read more…]

“I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.” - Walt Disney

Jim Hill Media has reported that Pixar has no less than three sequels in the works. In addition to Toy Story 3, and Cars 2, Pixar is in the beginning phases of Monsters Inc 2.

First off, I don’t believe the first Toy Story warranted a sequel. Yes, the film was good, and the Sarah McLaughlin montage was a tear jerker, but did Buzz and Woody REALLY need a sequel? What more of their story needs to be told? Who will lose their arm in the third film?

I thought that Cars was the weakest film in the Pixar library thus far, but the sheer amount of Matchbox sized toys sold to date has got to be enough to buy a small island. I didn’t really feel for any of the characters in the first film, so maybe they [Read more…]

Disney/Pixar’s Up has had a great opening weekend.  The film has brought in an estimated 68 million dollars, which places it just behind Finding Nemo ($70 million), but ahead of WALL•E ($63 million).

It will be interesting to see how much of the revenue was due to the 3D release, which carries a higher ticket price due to the stereoscopic projection. Up is Pixar’s first RealD release.

Congratulations to the crew!

-Floyd Bishop

You have probably already heard about the plans for a Disney/Pixar Vancouver studio. I’ve been trying to find out more about the studio, and I have found that some of the information in the newspaper article was factually inaccurate and a bit misleading. Over on Mark Mayerson’s blog, he has a quote from someone at Pixar (south):

The Vancouver studio will only be producing ancillary work with legacy characters, like Cars and Toy Story. All the stuff that Pixar doesn’t have the time or money to do to keep the franchises alive. The original shorts and DVD shorts will still be done in Emeryville. As I understand it, Pixar will still generate all the stories for the ancillary work, and the Vancouver studio will be strictly for production.

So it would seem that, in regards to outsourcing, Canada is to Pixar what India and Korea are to Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. It would also seem that [Read more…]

The Vancouver Sun is reporting that Pixar is planning to build a 20,000 square foot facility in Vancouver to produce its short features. The Walt Disney Studios is currently scouting locations in the downtown area, and hopes to be up and running as early as this fall.

From the article:

Amir Nasrabadi, who will run the Vancouver operation as studio general manager, said Vancouver was attractive to Pixar for a number of reasons. It’s an English-speaking city in the same time zone as Los Angeles; the B.C. production tax credits are attractive to an American company; and the city, with its numerous animation studios and quality schools, is a good source of talent.

“There’s a huge, very robust, and mature talent pool in Vancouver that we’d like to tap into and continue to develop,” Nasrabadi said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he has been vice-president of operations and finance for DisneyToon [Read more…]

The Superbowl is going to be on TV this Sunday. While the Superbowl is usually not an event that is considered a “must see” for many artist types, there are many animated reasons to watch this year.

First of all, there are the commercials. Even in such an economically depressed times, there should be many animated commercials. In other years, the Superbowl commercials have been like a mini film festival, with many different styles and techniques on display.

Secondly, we should be seeing a new trailer for the Disney/Pixar film “Up”. I would love to see something along the lines of the Mike & Sully through the closet door type of thing, where the trailer is not made up of content from the film. I think that tends to give away too much.

Another great reason to watch is the 3D trailer for the Dreamworks film “Monsters Vs Aliens”. Before the game, be sure [Read more…]

The Golden Globe nominees for Best Animated Feature Film are Disney’s Bolt, DreamWorks Animation’s Kung-Fu Panda and Disney/Pixar’s WALL•E. Both Bolt and WALL•E have songs nominated for Best Original Song. “Down to Earth” from WALL•E features music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, with lyrics by Peter Gabriel, and “I thought I Lost You” from Bolt has music and lyrics by Miley Cyrus and Jeffrey Steele.

The animated documentary Waltz with Bashir from Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman is up for Best Foreign Language Film.

-Floyd Bishop

Pixar Planet has posted some images from the short film “BURN•E”, directed by Angus Maclane, who served as supervising animator on “WALL•E”. The film will be included on the “WALL•E” DVD and Blu Ray release on November 18th.

On a related note, check out the Lego WALL•E that Angus made for Brickfest 2007. Hopefully the Disney and Lego people get together and make some kits like this.

[Read more…]

In 2007, animation artists and Pixar colleagues Scott Morse, Lou Romano, Don Shank, and Nate Wragg collaborated on The Ancient Book of Myth and War (AdHouse Books, now out-of-print.) They’re reuniting for a tasty follow-up tome called The Ancient Book of Sex and Science. The book is currently in production, but a set of four prints was for sale at Comicon this summer. See images of the complete set here. (Art above by Nate Wragg.)

We’ll just have to wait until next spring for Sex and Science, but until then, check out the artist links above for more information about this fantastic foursome.

And in particular, I’m really loving the ultra-abstract paintings that Lou Romano has been posting on his blog lately. Here’s one:

Check out a few more after the jump: [Read more…]

Ever since the release of “Toy Story” back in 1995, movie audiences seem to have been in love with all things Pixar. This goes for many animation fans as well, sometimes to the point of fanaticism. Is this a healthy thing? In this post, I’ll be asking some questions that challenge that fanaticism, and I hope that Pixar fans will try to provide some answers in the comments section.

When Dreamworks released “Shark Tale”, many people implied that Dreamworks was trying to follow in the footsteps of Pixar’s “Finding Nemo”. They are both films that are primarily based underwater. The similarities end there for me. When Pixar released “WALL-E” this year, no one seemed to remember either Blue Sky’s “Robots” from 2005, nor the design of Johnny 5 from “Short Circuit” (another robot who becomes self aware and gains a personality). Granted, the Pixar films were stronger films in both cases, but the similarities are there [Read more…]