What has been the biggest change in animation from the first film to now Toy Story 5?

Uh, the biggest change I would say, uh, computers have gotten faster, of course, and our computer software for animating things has gotten, um, much more efficient.

Uh, but I would say, uh, it has become more accessible to artists.

I think in the early days, you needed to be a computer scientist in order to understand how to do some of the early animation.

And the further the technology has evolved, the friendlier it is to people who don't need to have a computer science background.

They can come from art school.

They can come from acting school.

Since the first movie till now, which one do you think was the hardest to animate or that you've had the most hurdles creating?

How do you, uh, you know, how does your department figure out like the line as far as like making it look, uh, realistic but also still fitting in within the animated world?

Uh, so with Toy Story films we, we definitely ask ourselves that e- every film.

Uh, how do we make this feel like it's still part of the Toy Story world without it feeling maybe too hyperrealistic? And, uh, when we rewatch the old movies, what we discover is that the, uh, the, the details, the textures, uh, of, of the materials are actually as hyperreal as we could make them.

Um, how do you see AI being valuable and like how do you approach it from being a, a tool so that you're not infringing upon the creative side of filmmaking at Pixar?

At Pixar we're always, uh, trying to be at the forefront, uh, the cutting edge of, uh, innovation and technology with respect to computer animation.

So we're always, uh, learning and experimenting with whatever the new techniques are, both inside and outside of Pixar.

Um, even if we're not ready to actually use them, we're still trying to be as familiar with them-

And I wondered, uh, you're looking for new tech- technology, but are you also looking for, like, the good kind of w- you know, the good, solid, warhorse, reliable technology that you've used kind of throughout?

Uh, absolutely.

We, we want the film to, we want the new film to honor, to honor all four films that came before it.

Uh, so there, there is a, um, there's an authenticity, uh, and, uh, to the consistency of it, but also, uh, just to the, the care and love that, uh, the filmmakers have been putting into all of them so far.

We love the Toy Story characters and world, uh, I- I'd say, uh, probably just as much as the rest of the audience, and so we wanna be true to what people remember.

When it comes to needing new technology, it's usually more about, um, solving new challenges, not changing the, the way things look or behave, but by, for example, uh, needing to have 50 Buzz Lightyears on screen at the same time in Toy Story 5 was not something we could have done three years ago, and so we had to find a way to develop that so that we could, uh, we could include that in this film.

And there's m- many things like that along the way.

Okay.

Yes.

So I would say Buzz Lightyear is definitely my favorite character because of that.

But growing up, I always, uh...

My, my playtime was definitely, uh, traveling from, uh, Earth to other distant planets and, uh, galaxies.

Uh, and, uh, I've- Star Wars has always been something-

Nice

... that is based on, uh, real-life lenses even though it, it's, it, it just, it's in the computer only.

But we have the ability to, uh, select what we would call, you know, a, a particular d- uh, like, a lens in real life, like a 35-milli lens-

Tell me about why that was such a challenge and how you and your team tackled that.

So a toy like Lilypad is a character in the film, so she has eyes and a mouth, and she's got little nubby hands and feet, but she also has a screen.

And so not only do we have to animate her body and her face, but we have to figure out what's on her screen and what's moving and animating.

And those two things happen with two different teams at two different times.

So when an animator's animating Lilypad, her screen is blank.

She might be... telling the character, maybe Jessie, about something that she's doing on her screen, but there's nothing there.

And we needed the animator to be able to convey an idea, so we gave them a new tool that allowed them to draw with a virtual sort of pencil what might be on her screen, and they could even animate it like a flipbook.

Tell me more about crafting those imagination sequences.