The Art of Pixar – Book Review
If you an animator or animation fan looking to ignite a little inspiration, you can do no worse than sampling the cinders and sparks from the roaring fire that is the enduring and endearing success of the Pixar animation studios. Not only are the Pixar films a joy to watch with their colourful characters, delightful designs, luscious layouts and superb storytelling they are also generous enough to share the process with fans and animators alike. There is nothing more inspiring than seeing good animation art, and the series of Pixar “Art of” books that accompany each film offer a variety of visions by different artists that all lead towards a finished film at the San Francisco studio. You may only hear bad things about Pixars latest film “Cars 2” but the level of imagination and artistic effort put into creating the sequel, especially the layout designs and the re-imagining of landmarks and scenery, perhaps make the art of book and its bountiful displays of such pieces a more worthwhile way to spend time than watching the actual film.
“The Art of Pixar” by Amid Amidi is the latest in these books. Unlike its predecessors this book gives more of a focus to the mood of all the films by way of the colour scripts, which secretly hypnotise the audience into feeling the emotions the director desires. You may not consciously know it, but when Mike and Sully are banished to the Himalayas the screen is bombarded with cold blue tones to enhance the experience. The frosty mood also reflected the relationship between the two monsters as their friendship was being tested and had reached an all time low. It is little touches like that which are best displayed in the form of colour scripts that are the main focus of this book. It’s fun to take a step back and look at how the films “work” by way of these series of successive thumbnail images and the variety on display goes to show how each director approaches a film, from the bold striking cutouts of Brad Birds “The Incredibles” to subtle pastel tones of Andrew Stantons “Finding Nemo”. Its not so much taking a look behind the scenes as it is taking a look at the mechanics that drive these animations in the right emotional and visual direction on screen.
The author gives quite a brief history of the Pixar process and a few stories from the people behind the artwork. One such tale is how Ralph Eggleston developed the first colour script whilst working on Toy Story (first for the studio, the actual process has a long history) and how much of a breakthrough it was for filmmaking at the studio. It’s a touching story as Eggleston relays his tale from the days before Pixar was a household name. However you may be left feeling that the write up and further stories are pretty brief, which is a minor criticism as it is always nice to read interviews and stories from the people behind the films. As it stands maybe it’s a criticism hardly worth noting as the purpose that this book sets out to accomplish is done so using the artwork, which given the standard and variety of work that task is accomplished without further authored embellishment required.
As well as being packed with colour scripts from both the features and a selection of the short films, the book is also filled with wonderful sketches and production artwork from all the Pixar feature films up to Cars 2. Making this book noticeably thicker than previous books of this nature. This area of filmmaking has not been covered as ultimately or as efficiently as it has been in this book before and I would recommend it for all those wishing to discover a large part of the je ne sais quoi that makes the Pixar films as fantastically successful as they are.
Items mentioned in this article:
