in conversation with jerome ranft
Presented as part of Pixar: 20 Years of Animation
29 June 2007
87 mins
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Pixar sculptor Jerome Ranft explains the role physical 3-D models play in the process of bringing a character to life.
Jerome Ranft: G'day. I really hoped that I could come through with that opening. What I'm about to show you is a very long, boring slideshow.
[laughter]
Jerome: At least that's what it is to me sort of, it's just what I do everyday. I tried to cut it down - I'm sorry, it's like 500 images. I hope, if you guys need to leave to go to the bathroom, feel free. So, how does this go on? I'm ready for slides.
Well to start, I've been in love with sculpture for a very long time, since I was a kid. I guess, I've been sculpting every since I can remember. I used to take my Mom's candles and melt them down and sculpt little dinosaurs out of them. I used to steal spoons from her kitchen and dig in the dirt on the side of my house. And when I got out of high school, I really didn't know what I was going to do with myself. I didn't test well, I wasn't really a smart kid in school; but I took my first sculpture class and fell in love.
And how many students are here? A few. How many industry professionals? Are there any digital modelers here? OK, now, when I have a digital modeling issue, I want you guys to speak up and speak for me, because I'm not a digital modeler at all; so I don't really know that side of it. I know how sculpture is used, but the specifics of how they use it and the terms, I'm not so familiar with. So, please help me if you can. Speak right up.
So, eight years to get my undergrad degree and my parents kicked me out after six years. I moved up north to San Francisco and got a degree from CCAC in Oakland, and when I graduated, I didn't know what I was going to do. Yeah, sculpture degree, what do you do with that? I was lucky enough to get a job on "The Nightmare Before Christmas." It was just going to be a summer job and it turned out to be a career. I just accidentally slipped into it.
I'm going to show you just a few slides from what I did before I was in stop motion animation, which "Nightmare" was stop motion; "James and the Giant Peach" was stop motion. Do you guys recognize these? I sold one of them on eBay.
[laughter]
Jerome: So, I've got to be really honest. I'm sorry honey. My wife is in front; she's going to laugh at me the whole time.
From "Nightmare" also... "James and the Giant Peach". Here's an example of an armature and how we used to work, sculpting right over the armatures, and then, this would be molded and subsequent armatures would be placed in those molds. These brown shapes that are clay would be cast right onto the metal armature. Puppets from "James."
So, stop motion animation was going to be my life. It was going to be my career; I was dedicated to it. "James" came out and made no money, and there was no more stop motion production going on in San Francisco. And I'm going to try to be very frank and honest, when I took the job at Pixar, I thought I was selling my soul to the Devil.
[laughter]
Jerome: I'm glad John's not here to hear it; so don't repeat it. But, my first job was on "A Bug's Life" - pre-production on "A Bug's Life."
A pretty standard character design, I think, that's what I'm trying to cover. I've planned nothing; this is very informal. If you guys have questions in the middle of these slides, feel free, just pipe right up, because I really get sick of hearing myself talk. At one point, I might make my wife talk for a while because I'm really bad at this.
So, "PT Flea" - the very first thing I ever did for them, it's very small. This is downstairs. I try to include stuff that's actually in the show.
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: Oh, no. That was a bigger match, actually. OK, I guess, I should describe that.
What I do at Pixar is pre-visualize character design. The director works with the designers, and they draw, draw, draw. He has an idea for a film. They give him money to start developing that film, and part of that development is visual. They want to develop the environments and the characters.
Character designers will draw these characters over and over again to try to get something that the director thinks is correct or that fits his idea of what these characters should look like. In this case, it was John Lassiter. So, he really loved this drawing, and I think, this was done by Bud Luckey. He said, let's do it in clay.
My job is to take those 2-D and pre-visualize what will be in the computer. It takes a long time to build a character in the computer and rig it and articulate it in a way that an animator could actually pose it and put the character in a pose that makes it feel like it's alive, that it has personality, a posture and a gesture.
What I do quickly in clay is, let the director see that before they spend the money to do it in the computer.
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: You know that's tough. It's like twelve years ago, now. I roughed it out. I did the armature in about a day or half a day, and then, I roughed it out in about a day. Then, it went through Bob Pauley, who was art directing this. I went through about a week of reviews with John and Bob until they said, 'you're done.' And then, I moved on.
This particular sculpture didn't quite fit the bill. OK, so they are not in order. Sorry. This is the praying mantis from 'Bug's Life.' You know, the guy from 'Lost in Space' was doing the voice for this character. I was very excited about that. I mean, I'm really just a geek. We had that discussion earlier. When I found out he was doing the voice... The age of this character - that really affected how the design came about... with the wrinkly lips and kind of saggy throat.
I had a group of slides that I used to show when I gave talks, but they were all of castings. I didn't want to bring slides here. I thought I'm going to embrace the digital age; so I took all of my personal photos and transferred them into digital format. Some of them are horrible, so I want to apologize beforehand.
Rosie from 'A Bug's Life.'
[pause]
Jerome: A larger version of PT Flea. They weren't happy with that little one. It didn't really describe form; so I did a larger version.
This is clay. I use a clay called CM50. It's an oil-based clay by Chavant. If you guys have ever used Roma Plasticine, Roma Plastilina, it's very much like that. It's a hard styling clay.
So, this one didn't quite fit the bill. It describes the body how the designers wanted it to be and how the director wanted it to be, but it didn't fulfill the needs of the face. This was generated to help the modelers go further with the building of the face of this character.
I also do a lot of environmental sculptures at Pixar. These are the only few that I have included in this talk, but, especially for 'Cars,' I did a lot of environmental pieces. There is a film going on right now. I just finished a really large environmental piece.
I really like these because it gives me a break from... although I love doing characters and doing the standard maquette stuff this is very abstract to me and kind of frees me to do something that... how can I put it, it's just easier for me to not. I don't have to think as much. It's more abstract.
I sculpted a couple versions of Ant Island. I know every square inch of that digital model. This one is pretty big. This one is probably like three feet by two feet. I don't know meters. It's probably about a meter long by almost two-thirds of a meter wide.
I didn't do much work on 'Toy Story 2.' I did Al and Jesse. This was a quick sculpt of Al's head. I don't really like it a whole lot. You can just speak right up.
Audience Member: I was just wondering. Do you do the wire frame lines or does some else do that?
Jerome: Someone else does that. I'm sorry.
I did 'Geri's Game' and worked with Jan Pinkava, who is the director. I didn't really design this one. He did a small version of this, and I just did a larger version for it so that they cast it in plaster and drew the lines on it to actually get it into the computer.
Downstairs you'll see a lot of larger heads, and in these slides you will see larger... I'll just call them digitizable sculpts because that's what we used to do. We used to take these larger sculpts. The technical team would draw the control mesh on it, draw the lines on it and use a digitizer, a little pin, to actually transfer those points three dimensionally into the computer. We don't do that much any more. We're doing more scanning of smaller heads, which is great because these big heads were very time consuming. Sometimes, they were fun. This one was, but some of them, you will see, are really kind of dull.
This brings us to... I was freelance on 'A Bug's Life,' and I went away, and for two or three years, I was working at Fox. I worked in Vegas on some hotels. It was kind of horrible living away from my wife and not... of course, it was. [laughs]. And my friend, Pete Docter, who was developing 'Monsters, Inc.' called me up and said, "do you want to be my sculptor and work full time?" And I said, "yeah."
I got over that selling my soul to the devil part. At that point, I just wanted full time employment because when I was laid off my wife would get really nervous. [laughs] No money coming in.
Monsters was kind of a debacle. A lot of what I am going to say is going to sound like complaining, but it's not. It's just struggle; it's the process of doing character design. When you sculpt and you try to get it right, and I based my reputation on being able to hit it fairly quickly and save time for the production. So, it was a yearlong, pulling teeth process for me. I'll get to that.
Pete wanted to discover what certain styles looked like in 3-D, and he really liked Calvin and Hobbes. So, I tried to do a Calvin and Hobbes. The guy who draws Calvin cheats it from every angle. If you guys want a challenge, if any of you sculpt, try to do Calvin. I got frustrated and stopped. Hobbes was a lot easier. I just couldn't get his hair. Every way, every angle he draws; you guys know Calvin and Hobbes? Was he big here?
Every way the guy draws him, it's the hair going right, the hair going left. There's no real distance between the hip joint and the ankle joint. It all works really good graphically as a drawing, but to translate it into 3-D was incredibly difficult.
This was a French comic strip - I don't know the character's name. Do any of you know this guy? What's that?
Audience Member: [indecipherable]
Jerome: I don't think so. Well, I forgot his name, but it's a famous French character for a French comic strip, and Pete wanted to just explore in and see how he translated into 3-D.
This is the first version of Sullivan. This is my favorite version of Sullivan.
[laughter]
Jerome: I spent over a year trying to get an approval from the powers that be at Pixar for a finished design for Sullivan. The only edict when I started working on Sullivan was, "OK. He can look like anything, but he cannot look like a guy in a suit."
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: Well, they did not like him. What do you guys think this guy looks like?
Audience Member: He looks like a Wild Thing.
Jerome: Yeah. See, that is a big bummer. Because when you hold it right next to Maurice Sendak's work, it does not look like "Where the Wild Things Are." But, if you get that impression, forget it, you can't use it.
Audience Member: Who owns the sculpts when you are hired by Pixar?
Jerome: Pixar. Pixar/Disney owns them.
Audience Member: And, when you a freelancing, that is the same contractually?
Jerome: Yeah. Whoever is paying me owns them. It is their intellectual property.
Audience Member: Bad luck.
Jerome: What is that?
Audience Member: Bad luck, huh?
Jerome: I don't know about that.
[laughter]
Jerome: There is only a small portion of these that I would like to have myself. I don't really have any of my own work. But, I have done so many things for them. If I had a casting of each thing I have done. My house would be, I would have nowhere to turn.
[laughter]
Jerome: I have done hundreds of things for these. And literally, OK, I told you this is a long slide show. I edited out 250 slides.
[laughter]
Jerome: Kind of brutal. Sorry. So, Sullivan changed. Every one of these is Sullivan. There is a group of these in the show downstairs, but it is only a portion of that development. So, Pete and the guys who were directing "Monsters" were desperately trying to find out who this guy was, what motivated him.
Oh, here is another little story. He had three names, during production - he was Barrymore at this point - or these first two or three versions. His character was a washed up actor.
"Monsters," at this point in development, were kind of like stage actors, theatrical actors. And they were; he was kind of snooty and stuck up and in to himself. You can see, every time he changes, he is a little more washed up.
They kept playing with him being a scarer on top of his game. And, then him being a scarer at the end of his career.
Both of these, this one and this one were off Nicholai Marles drawings. He is the guy that does lots of development work for DreamWorks and whoever else pays him, Sony.
And a lot of the versions were just; like this one, I loved. I loved it because it was a singular version. It was just one, simple shape. A good drawing, when it is really good, it just makes me want to sculpt it.
And then, they just changed the head and it killed it for me.
[laughter]
Jerome: Let's go back. See that is; do you guys agree? I think, that is really nice. And then, what?
[laughter]
Jerome: And these opinions are only in retrospect. When I am in the middle of doing the job, I can't have an opinion. I have to just... The job is to set your ego at the door and just try to make it work.
This whole time, Pete Docter, the director, was fighting for a really stylized version of the film. He wanted his film to be, kind of out there - not very conventional, not very real. He wanted to test the boundaries of the digital medium.
And John likes real. We know what "Bug's Life" is about. We know what "Cars" is about. It was all about realism.
So, they were up above, having this, kind of conceptual fight about style. I was just working day to day, trying to make things work.
[coughing]
Jerome: I have included in this slide show... I am going to start ripping through these. Sullivan.
Audience Member: When did his name change?
Jerome: I think, about here it went from Barrymore to Johnson. And I was at a meeting. And this is a little naughty, but....
[laughter]
Jerome: We were in a meeting and someone brought up the point. He goes, "Well, one of our other characters is named Woody and this one is named Johnson."
[laughter]
Jerome: We all agreed. We went, "Oh!"
[laughter]
Jerome: And that is when it became Sullivan.
[laughter]
Jerome: Same sculpture, different head. I think, these may be all the same sculpture with different heads. What a sad placement of that tentacle right there.
[laughter]
Jerome: That didn't... That is kind of why it changed. It is like, "Nope, next." And this was very early. This was five years before the film was released, I think. Maybe, four and a half years.
So, it was this free form exploration that can't be a guy in a suit. So, we stuck to tentacles.
Audience Member: Does the issue of how to animate the character, at this stage come, into it?
Jerome: The animators would like it to come into it, at this stage.
[laughter]
Audience Member: So...
Jerome: And you guys are asking great questions. It is... I have a mantra in regards to that. Any of your guys that design characters, you can't serve two masters at once. You serve the design first, and you try to get something that everyone likes, that fits the director's vision. Then you compromise it, where you have to, to make it work.
We do include animators early in design. On "Nemo," they fought us a lot on how we were design fish. If you can bring that up again, when I get to "Nemo," that would be great. But, in this early stage, I liked animators and the TDs to not even be in the room. Until we get like a toe hold on something, we think is going to work.
So, this is a good... my first shot on process. These images were provided by Harley Jessup. At this point, I really didn't take pictures. And this is way before I had a digital camera. So, thank you Harley, for providing these.
[pause]
Yeah. I think, he is really cute. He became a big bruiser. He became this big scary, scary monster. And that was something that John was very interested in, that Sullivan also be appealing. His job is to scare kids. So, he has got to be scary. But, he also wanted the character to be very appealing too.
Really liked this character, but when I really like something there are a lot more slides of that character.
[laughter]
Jerome: But, he kind of looks like he has Down's Syndrome to me.
[laughter]
Jerome: OK. The glasses debacle.
[laughter]
Jerome: [laughs] When the story development happened... At this point in story development, they were searching for a reason why Sullivan didn't want to scare anymore. So, apparently, he found out that kids weren't toxic. He had this relationship with Boo and Mike was all into being the high scorer - getting the high score for scream the whole time.
So, Sullivan convinced Mike, this was their logic, that he was exposed to kids and now he had eye trouble. [laughs]
[laughter]
Jerome: That was why he fell off his game and didn't want to scare anymore. The story went through so many changes and iterations. But, the glasses debacle was very deep.
[laughter]
Jerome: So, I had to put glasses on everything.
[laughter]
Audience Member: I have a quick question.
Jerome: [laughs] Yeah. Go ahead.
Audience Member: You mentioned earlier, some of the characters that didn't quite work or they didn't quite like. Do you always get the opportunity to repair them or to adjust them to what they want? Or, does that sometime go to other artists?
Jerome: What do you mean?
Audience Member: I mean, like, when you showed P.T. Flea and then some of the Sullivan characters, where you have done lots of different versions. Maybe, you create a character and when they see it, they are like, "Oh. That is not quite what we want." Do you always get the opportunity, once this becomes your project, do you always get to go back and adjust it to eventually find what it is they want?
Jerome: Sometimes, it depends. If it is really early in development and there is time to do that, sure. But, I am not working alone. It is a whole team of guys. I am constantly being reviewed. It is a constant, maybe, twice a week. So, there are sketch artists. There is a production designer who is usually a guy who is more emphasized towards character than environments.
And we are working together. I am not doing this in a vacuum. I am not doing it at home, freelance. I actually have an office there and it is constant in feedback.
Audience Member: Well, it is like; I noticed in the presentation downstairs. They have the name of each artist and there are several different artists, maybe, that did Buzz Lightyear. And, you'll see the one they used in the film. But, maybe, there are seven or eight other versions that were done by a multitude of artists.
Jerome: Right. That usually just development, like kind of blind. We don't have enough artists, and especially now, since we are doing four or five things at a time. When something is in early development, they will just send it out to a bunch of freelance guys, like Carter Goodrich and you know the names of a couple of others. There are all these guys that just do freelance development, and those are what you're seeing.
Audience Member: The drawings get chosen to be sculpted.
Jerome: Right.
Audience Member: They decide which drawings they want to take onto clay. This is your gig. Anyway, there are multiple drawings given on a specific character and each iteration of "Sullivan" may have been drawn by a different guy. Then, you take that drawing and sculpt it and tweak it to make it look the way they want it.
Jerome: Yeah, it's like a desperate search, especially on this one. I don't know if I mentioned that before. But, in the other films that we've done, like "A Bug's Life" or "Nemo," we start with archetypes for the characters. There's a million ways to do an ant, but at least you're starting with an archetype of an ant.
With a car, it's a Porsche: How do we make that Porsche cute? In "Monsters," not only were Pete and John fighting about general style, well the skies the limit for "Monsters" - it could be super scary, it could be super cute, it could be more like a Muppet, it could be more like a WETA monster, or an ILM monster. So,...
Audience Member: So, if you're given 2-D designs, do you have latitude to actually add your own touches into it then?
Jerome: That's what I bring to it; that's my creative input. My opinion, I usually express in clay. I'm going to show you some things that I hate. I told the director I didn't like what was going on, but they wanted it to be sculpted in a certain way to fulfill the needs of the design, and to help the digital guys get an idea of what the director wanted.
[pause]
Jerome: And here's a good example, that drawing was done right off this photo, that pastel. What we do is we take photos of stuff and we give them to each other. And when they want to develop color and how these characters can be, the sculptures are used for that also - just trying to push things forward.
And here's a good example of a really rough - a little one I did off of a little sketch, and it just developed. Ricky Nierva, the designer, did this little Super Sculpey head. Looking at this one, I said the head's not quite right. So, he did a little sculpt that influenced me. I didn't really go for drawing, I don't think for this. They did drawings after I did it, but that led to this. And then he's like, 'well, let's focus on the head;' so that's a rough based on this that led to that. After I spent all that time, it was immediately abandoned.
[laughter]
Jerome: This was the last character with tentacles. The technical department said we can't afford tentacles. So, it started to look like a guy in a suit - the one thing they said it can't look like.
And these little ones that I did were really quick; these were like one-day sculpts. This one was even less than a day. I really wanted him to have these sloth feet. It didn't work out that way, but at the time, it seemed like a good idea. Let's try different horns. When they start liking the general form of a character, they start playing with details. What were his horns going to be like?
And these were the ones that sold the "Sully" design. This rough turned into this, which again, was photographed and painted. It's all over the catalogue; it's all over the show.
[another angle]
And then there are a few steps in between those two that I don't have images of. And then, this was the final "Sullivan," without texture. This was when Pete said, "OK. That's my character. That's the guy. Let's make sure he can be scary too."
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: They get molded, and what's downstairs are castings out of those molds.
Digitizable "Sully": I mean, a pain. I spent a year doing these little ones and I had to this giant one for digitizing. And again it sounds like 'this is complaining.' I'm glad we scan now; I hated doing these. I mean, they were so neutral. This guy has a little more character, but when we get to the "Nemo" stuff, it just would kill the look of a character.
When we did these digitizable ones, they were the ones that ended up informing the mesh in the computer. And if the director couldn't see any character there, it was this back and forth and trying to say, "Well, that's the right form; just have faith. The modelers will get it there. They'll get it to look like that previous maquette."
Audience Member: What change made you stop having to do so many digitizable things?
Jerome: We scan. Now, we laser scan smaller.
Audience Member: Did that have to do with the math, the type of modeling that you used?
Jerome: No.
Audience Member: There was no distinguish between the nerves and the polygonal geometry?
Jerome: Do you guys scan at all? Go ahead. I don't have an answer to that one.
Audience Member: In scanning, is body language important to you? Can you capture that?
Jerome: The modelers want neutrality. They want something so they can make sure that everything is adding up and looking right; the volumes look right. And then, they only want half, because they.... I think, it's a little lazy, but they only want to rig and articulate half, so they can just transfer it over and get full articulation. I don't know any other way to put it, and I don't have slides that describe it.
[pause]
Jerome: So, here's "Mike." The first version of "Mike" had no arms; it was my favorite version of "Mike." Pete Docter said once that... The animators are always going to fight to make their job a little easier. But, Pete, who is an animator, said that if you give them limitations, it forces them to rethink how they do things, and they come up with innovative and new ways to animate characters.
"Mike" is a perfect example, even with arms, but this version without arms is my favorite. At the time, he was a little like a college guy, so I put a little sewn patch on him. And halfway through the "Sullivan" development that's when "Mike" started.
[laughter]
Jerome: A horrible version of "Mike". Horrible. I don't know why they made me do it. At the time, I thought, oh, maybe, this would work. But,...
This is getting closer. First "Mike" with arms. "Mike" with huge arms. That was the final body, and then we just reduced his arms. That's the final maquette that ended up informing the digital model.
"Boo": Everything on this show seemed to be hard. Nothing was easy just because the story kept changing. I like the little bunny slippers on this one.
[pause]
This one I liked, but then they said, put wrinkles in the shirt, make it be a man's shirt. And then, I was like, why is she wearing a man's dress shirt? That gave the wrong message; so, that was abandoned. We wanted to know what a real little girl looks like. So, Harley brought in pictures of his daughter and I did a quick sculpt of his daughter. But, I am confuses with... My degree in sculpture was based in anatomy - I did lots of figure sculpting. And when I'm confused or I don't know what to do, I retreat to anatomy, instead of stylized stuff.
"Boo" became a boy for a while.
[pause]
Jerome: Too cute, it just wasn't working. These are the sculpts that ended up being "Boo." And again, on "Monsters," sometimes you work on a maquette and you get it right there, you get exactly what the director wants. Sometimes you run out of time and the director goes, well that close enough. Let us start building it in the computer and then we will keep designing it from there."
[pause]
Jerome: How big is Boo compared to Sulley?
[pause]
Jerome: See and I got to choose the nose picking.
[laughter]
Jerome: Digitizable hand for Boo. We still do those. We still do digitizable hands. Any kind of surface that goes through major deformation, it helps to have them draw their mesh before hand. We would scan this now, but...
Digitizable head of Boo, kind of ugly.
Waternoose - this was the style of Waternoose. That is how he started - very simple, very bold and simple design. He was a cheesy, movie executive at the time. Because, Sullivan was an actor.
Dan Lee did a series of drawings, the late Dan Lee. He was a really good sketch artist who passed away a number of years ago. He really captured something. This drawing really put a stake in the ground that everyone, the directors and everyone else on the production, really liked.
[pause]
Jerome: This is an example of how I sculpt. This is how I start. I build a wire armature. This is probably one of the most complicated armatures I have ever made at Pixar. He is one of my favorite characters, just because of that complexity. Plus he turned out really good.
So, that is the first version of Waternoose on that armature. But, again, it did not serve the story. He was too... We call it 'ILMy.' He was just too 'Creature Shop.' He was too creepy looking.
So, we just changed a few things and he became that, put sleeves on him. Made his face a little more, you know grandfatherly. I put a cigar in his left hand, he is the business man. They pulled it out. Disney is like, "No cigars."
The Yeti was one of my favorite pieces, because it was a quick drawing by Ricky. We were running out of budget. We were running out of time. There was this great drawing that Ricky did. And, I am like, "Oh, can wait to do it." So, I sculpted out the Yeti.
If you notice on the film, they ran out of money to do these feet. They took Mike's feet and they tweaked them into the Yeti feet. And it is like he is a Bigfoot. It has got to look like a human foot. But, it does not, it has got three toes.
Fourthramp, one of the most over built. See, I am just complaining.
[laughter]
Jerome: She is one of the most over built characters we have ever done. She and Randall were, actually, the villains of the film. After we built her, there was a digitizable head of her down in the show. And, she got cut, after spending four or five months on her.
I am estimating that it could have been almost a million dollars of labor on her. Then, they just cut her. You do not think so? Well, it was a lot. I like to say "a million."
[laughter]
Jerome: [laughs] It is more dramatic. I like angry characters. It is an emotion I totally relate to.
[laughter]
Jerome: Right. And you will see. I always think there is something a little more special that I put in to my angry characters. I do not know what it is.
More background monsters that we designed off Geefwee Boedoe designs that we had no money to build. So, they were never used.
Stuff like it was used. But, these were never built. And pictures do not do this one justice. This one is really nice. It is probably about that big - super, crazy, thin legs, lots of eyes.
So, that is what I get. That is my review. That is what guys usually do to me when they come in to look at my work.
This is the only slide I have in regards to the Zoetrope. My role in the Zoetrope was to, I was sort of Quality Control. They bought this machine that actually output those characters that they put on the wheel.
And, when I first saw what came out of the machine, I was the Quality Control guy. I did not like it. I was like, "This is not good enough." And that's us complaining about it.
So, that brings us to "Nemo," which is one of my favorite films that I've worked on there. "Nemo" is the little blob on the right. That's "Father." I think, William H. Macy was scheduled to do the voice at the time.
And I really don't like this. I've included these shots of "Father" - we called him "Father." He became "Marlin," but we just called him "Father."
That's what a review looks like: Andrew Stanton with the big red face, facing the camera, the late Dan Lee, sitting in front there with the white and gray shirt, and that's me when I used to have hair, on the left.
In doing them in scale to each other, it was really important to make sure that these guys look good together and look like they can relate to each other. The eyes can't be too big on one character and too small on the other, otherwise, they're not going to relate to each other. Let's go through those.
I loved how "Dori" ended up, but the sculpt they made me do on her was very neutral, without character. I would have loved to sculpt her in a turn or a pose, but there wasn't time - just describe the form and move on.
[pause]
Jerome: Anger: "Gill" was a very angry guy in the script. When I worked on him and I just loved it. Very bad copies, I'm sorry.
As part of the articulation process at Pixar, we generate what we call 'squash' and 'stretch' faces. When they build these characters in the computer and they start to articulate them, it's really important to give them a direction to go for extremes. So, the far right is called a 'stretch'. So, we're stretching out his eyes and his mouth as wide as it will ever go. The middle one is 'squash,' where we compress all those features as tight as they'll ever go, because all the acting happens in between those two extremes. Sure.
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: They'd probably be scanned now. At the time, they were just trying to match them as they built in the articulation to the models.
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome Ranft: Sometimes. If the face is already established and the maquette is approved, I'll start these faces without drawings. I'll just go for it, and then take pictures. The director, the production designer or the art director will just do overlays. There are a few examples of overlays; I've got some "Ratatouille" stuff at the end.
I'm asked to do gifts for voice talent. Who's the guy who did "Gill's" voice? I forget.
Audience Member: Willem Dafoe.
Jerome: Willem Dafoe. So, they're like, "We really want William Defoe to do this part. Will you make this for us?" and I'm like sure. So, I sculpt a little "Gill," and we mold it and we cast it. I put it together and paint it; and then, they just ship it off to him, hoping he'll take the part. Because if we just go through his lawyers, it's almost impossible to get in touch with those guys - so a little smooching helps.
I started photographing my stuff on "Nemo"; it's really bad photography. I had this little instamatic, that little Prego camera we took to Europe. It's before I had a really nice camera, but at least it shows that's the drawing I was given and that's the beginning of the armature - how I build the structure that I'm going to sculpt into that character.
A lot of people will use aluminum. I use welded steel and wrap it with the aluminum, so the clay has something to grab onto.
[pause]
Jerome: That is not even two hours, maybe, after starting, to throw the clay on. Then, sometimes, like three weeks later - depending on the review schedule, depending on what the director thinks.
I really like this one, again, angry. [laughs]
Expression heads for him. Squash in a stretch. Jacques the shrimp, the cleaning shrimp.
Audience Member: Is that a sketch from "Ratatouille" in the background there?
Jerome: Yes, it was. Thank you. I was going to... [laughs].
So, way back on "Nemo," that is when I started doing development for "Ratatouille," which is not out yet. This was years ago. That is why it is hard for me to remember all the story, you know. I am on a film now that comes out in 2011.
So, this part of character sketching, sculpting, development; happens very early in the process on our films.
[pause]
Jerome: This was Deb from the tank gang. They made us watch "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for the whole dentist's office fish tank group. It did not quite come across. [laughs]
[laughter]
Jerome: This is how she ended up.
OK. Nemo's friends: I love the anger, I have stated that. They wanted me to do. They wanted to make these very, very, cute, lovable characters. I want to have a range of abilities.
[laughter]
Jerome: This is the development of those characters. The small one got an approval. I sculpted a big one, matched it. Then, you can see the control mesh that TDs drew on it. I did not even have time to make a mold off this one. They said, "Forget it. We are just going do it right on the clay."
Audience Member: When you get a drawing, is it up to you to determine the scale? Or is that pre-determined?
Jerome: That is a good question. It is up to me to decide on scale. If I am doing a whole cast of characters, and especially, if I am the only sculptor on that show, I want all the sculptures to be in scale to each other. It is only a best guess, because it is so early. They really determine final scale on the computer.
But, I usually ask for a line-up. I say, "We will do 'roughs' of all the characters and I will try to do..." Which was impossible for "Nemo," because Bruce was so big. I usually try to make, and it usually revolves around eye size. I try to make it so the eyes are not so tiny to do.
So, the smallest character and the biggest character - I like to do them in a range that the smallest character is not too hard to do and the biggest is not so big that when we do changes it takes forever. Does that make sense? That is my own little way of deciding scale.
[pause]
Jerome: Cute. [laughs] It was like a little Sanrio character. And Sheldon, the seahorse, took forever. Dan Lee and I worked back and forth. Dan Lee and I did not really, we had a very good working relationship, but he was a designer who I trusted as a sculptor. So, at some point, we stopped doing drawings back and forth.
I would rough it out and I would say, "As long as you do not really mess this up, go ahead and sculpt on it yourself. And make the changes you think it needs to be better." Then, it would come back to me and we would just pass this thing back and forth, for a couple weeks, until it got to be the way it needed to be.
And for Dan and I, that really... I think, we discovered that on "Nemo" and used it until we stopped working together, until he passed away.
And these were so cute. It was really horrible. I could not wait to get to the sharks.
[laughter]
Jerome: This was an early version of "Chum."
Audience Member: Before the take, do you have to make sure that they match with the other shot when you were doing these models?
Jerome: I don't really worry about that. It's the nice part about this. When I was working on stop motion puppets, the maquettes had to look good. But, then when it came to making the puppets work that was my only job to do. It was like six months of designing and then years of making animatable, stop motion puppets. Here, I just get to do the fun stuff. I make it look good, and then someone else has to make it work. I thought he looked better in clay. I only have a few of these shots, just him sitting on my desk.
"The barracuda": The barracuda has a very small part. It's going to kill Mom, and we kind of knew it going into it. I'm an angler, so I'm like are we doing an Atlantic barracuda or a Pacific barracuda?
"Ratatouille": Right before I ended "Nemo", I started doing development for "Ratatouille". Early versions of the lead character done by Carter Goodrich; his drawings are the ones I used to develop this.
[pause]
Jerome: Another sculpture done off a Carter Goodrich drawing.
"Cars": "Cars" was a challenge for me. It's not organic; it's symmetrical. The computer is really good at doing mechanical things. John and Bob Pauley, in particular, knew they could do straight forward cars in a computer, but Bob needed help trying to get them to look appealing.
The sculpts I did for "Cars" served a different role. They were mostly used by Bob, so he could get his own head around how these cars were going to look, how he was going to change the fundamental things about a car that make it cute, and not have it look like a 'Chevron' car.
Do you guys know the 'Chevron' cars - the ones with the little eyes in the headlights? That was a big deal for us: Do we put the eyes in the headlights or the windshield? And if they're in the windshield, if it's a convertible, his brain's going to be hanging out.
[laughter]
Jerome: Now, we had drawings; we were like, we had to think about - Do they have handles? Why would a car that was only a car with no humans around need handles on the doors?
[pause]
Jerome: And I had a digital camera at this point, so I started taking shots of process, of how it went from armature to finished sculpture. I would rough things out like this, and then Bob would come in and just throw eyes on real quick, throw eyebrows on real quick. We'd start throwing in elements, just trying to see if it worked.
[pause]
Jerome: This guy, Joe Ferrar, who teaches at Art Center, who sculpted the '66 Mustang' and sculpted a Shelby. It was great. They brought this guy in to give us a lecture, but it was pretty much a lecture for me. And by the end of the day, he was giving me a hard time about how I worked. It was really great to have that experience with this guy, and it really helped me get my head around sculpting cars.
Do you guys recognize this character? It's "Corivetta." I think, she's a background. "Flo" was a truck at first. What kind of car was she? Was she like a Falcon? The blue car? She started as a truck.
I did this sculpture just because they wanted to know how the mouth was going to work. How to put mouths on cars was very difficult. We spent a lot of time just sculpting and doing lots of drawings and just trying to figure out how that would work.
[pause]
Jerome: Mia and Tia, the little Miatas.
[pause]
Jerome: Sarge, the Jeep.
[pause]
Jerome: And Sally, the Porsche.
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: Well, the guys we had... I guess, who's the guy who did this mainly? It was Andrew Schmidt - he was the head modeler on this show; and he just knew how to do cars so we didn't scan these at all. They're so symmetrical and mechanical, it's really what the computer's best at.
So, no scanning at all in these guys, they're just free-handed. These were incredibly overbuilt. I whish I had some images of the digital models to turn around because they did everything from the leash springs to valve covers to... I mean, they pretty much built the engines internally also. They were way overdone.
[pause]
Jerome: The King, the Superbird. It was a lot of fun to work on.
[pause]
Jerome: I think, what I brought to this was just an... I'm not a car guy! Most of the guys who were on the show were passionately crazy about cars and I just want my truck to start when I turn the key! So, I think, what I brought to the show was just a sense of form and volume and I didn't have any opinions on what I liked about a car or what I didn't like about a car; so it was just pure exploration of form for me.
And like the landscapes I got into the real abstract qual... [audio cuts off]
Jerome: This is McQueen. He started out as a Monte Carlo. We were going to stick to a standard model of car for each character in the film but John decided that instead of just doing a Nascar and instead of doing some other rally type of car, that he would let Bob just invent this one. That was a lot of fun but very difficult because we had to invent it.
This is another instance where I'd hand the sculpt to Bob Polly, the designer, and he would sculpt on one half and I would sculpt on the other half and we just gave back and forth. We gave up at some point for about six months and worked on other things and then came back. We didn't really give up but Bob needed time to really figure out what he wanted it to look like.
[pause]
Jerome: So, in order to stay symmetrical, this was the rig I invented to just take profiles and make them consistent. I would rig up two squares and than clamp on a straight edge and then cut out in styrene the profile of the car and just clay it up and just run it back and forth until it cut it for me. Another lazy little trick.
[pause]
Jerome: And then, when it was time to put in the teeth, it was like rip off the face, put in some teeth and then glue the job back up. So, that's Bob. That's what my reviews are like.
[laughter]
Jerome: [laughs] Nice little poopie face. [laughs]
[pause]
Jerome: We didn't scan them but we put... This was the final sculpture and we put these lines on so that the guys who were modeling this could see how those profiles changed as you went from the front to the back.
[pause]
Jerome: Way too many of him. I'm sorry.
[pause]
Jerome: Phew! Way too many! OK. This is Mater. It was really nice because I didn't... like, when characters are on tiptoes or on two legs it's very hard to build armatures. My armatures for cars were incredibly simple, I just... I bored, I screwed in some screws, threw on some wire and just started throwing the clay on.
[pause]
Jerome: Now, that's the rough. That probably took a couple of hours from the start, and then the next day, I made the big jump from, you know, something that's just really rough to something that has some character and some life and has a direction.
[pause]
Jerome: In little details between this and the one that's in the show downstairs, there's slight differences, but essentially that was the character. That's the one that John said, "Yeah, that's him; that's our guy." I don't like the big buck teeth on him in the film at all. I like him better like this.
So, Doc Hudson. A lot of the sculpts I did for Cars were very symmetrical. They were very static and they had no movement or life, and I finally convinced Bob that I wanted to do some that were in character and I pushed to have them really distort and articulate. And John kind of shut that down because it just would look, he said it would look really weird if they...because we look at Cars everyday and if we see them bending and distorting it would look really weird.
But, I included this because it's downstairs and it has a good progression. This is how I work. There's the drawing, outline, screws, wire, clay. There's the neutral version of him, next to him.
[pause]
Jerome: I guess... What was her name again? This is Flo. I was already off the show and Bob borrowed me from another production for one day. We have one day to do Flo. This is what I did in one day. And it was all he needed to get his head around how she looks and to model packet her and get her into the pipeline being built by the digital guys, by the modelers.
And that's Bob happy. [laughter]
Jerome: I did all the sculpts for bounding working with Bud Lucky. Only have one really good story about that experience and it was fun to do this stylized lamb all psyched about his wool and all sheared and sad. But when it came time to do the jack-a-lope, I did a full other version of this jack-a-lope and spent weeks on it. And when I finished I showed Bud, and I said, "Well what do you think?" And he's the guy who sang the song he just went, you know he has that really deep voice, he just was like, "I don't like it."
[laughter]
Jerome: And they were off his drawings, and I'm like, "Well it's just like your drawings." And he was like, "I don't like the drawings."
[laughter]
Jerome: And I'm like, "Well why did you give them to me?" And he goes, "I just wanted to get you started."
I wish I did. This one's better. This was the second one. Yeah, it's kind of a self portrait of Bud. Oh the prairie dog, the prairie dog really had a good time doing that. It's one of our animators Steve Hunter. Canadian. Yeah, he'd kill me if... there's a couple things [indecipherable]...
[pause]
Jerome: And this is what happens to a clay when you make a mold. During the molding process the clay pieces are destroyed. So, just for your information, I don't know how many of you know anything about mold making, but to make a mold off a sculptor, you have to make it go through three states of change. You go from a positive to a negative and then, to a positive again. So, this is the clay sculpture with release on it, some urethane spray. So, it does not inhibit the rubber I want to put over the surface.
I made molds off "Monsters" - this is just an example of one of the molds I made. And it is hard to explain with these pictures. But, essentially, I rolled out some water-based clay, to about an inch thickness. And put it around this sculpture. I did a nice little clean covering.
It has nice, square corners. It is nice and smooth. Over that, I made two plaster mother molds that would come apart. After you make your mother molds, you pull off that water-based clay. Then, put the mother molds back in relation to where they were when you made them.
And there is a void in between the hard mother mold and the sculpture. You fill that void with rubber. Put them together and you fill it with rubber. And when it cures, you pull off the mother mold and then you have the rubber mold that coats and covers the sculpture.
So, that is your first state of change. And now, you have a negative in rubber. You take epoxy or plaster or anything that could go in as a liquid. It hardens, you pull it out of the rubber and that is your casting. That is what we have downstairs. Exciting, huh? [laughs]
Audience Member: The rubber is usually one part?
Jerome: No. It is usually two part. This is GI1000 silicone rubber.
Audience Member: So, you can only make one copy of it?
Jerome: No. You could probably make hundreds. The silicone rubber is really good. It lasts for a very long time.
Audience Member: It stretches.
Jerome: It stretches pretty good, depending on the durometer. [laughs] I know, I am using all these 'jargon' terms. The durometer just determines how flexible it is.
And it brings us to "Ratatouille". Which, I do not know if I am supposed to show these or not. But, I am going to.
[laughter]
Jerome: An example of; what?
Audience Member: They are in the studio, so you are fine.
Jerome: OK.
Audience Member: It will make people want to see it.
Jerome: What is that?
Audience Member: It will make people want to see it.
Jerome: Good. Yeah. People will want to see; I do not know if these are going to make people want to see it.
[laughter]
Jerome: That is a very simple armature. This is a bust of one of the chefs. It is just steel wire that I... I did not even weld this together. I just wrapped it really tight with some small, thin wire at the joints. And put some super glue on it. Glued it into, [laughs] I know, it is really simple, really quick. Wrapped it with wire.
Here is an example of how I came to that design. That is the drawing, a Dan Lee drawing, I started with. It is very simple to sculpt. You just make sure it fits within the lines. [laughs] Then, that is the first day.
And through working with Jon and Dan, he started to look like this, which kind of looks a little stupid.
[laughter]
Jerome: But, those were the drawings. That was the direction they were following. They did not really like it. So, I did another small version of a cooler, more French-looking guy, supposedly. [laughs] And, of course, he is smoking.
And that is the original piece. This piece informed this piece. I said, "OK. We like that little one. Make the big one look more like the little one."
That is finished. An angry character, another one. So, this was, at the time, he was the dishwasher. In the film, he became the waiter.
Audience Member: Did Disney ban the cigars again?
Jerome: Yeah. Always.
Audience Member: Strangely enough, they can drink wine.
Jerome: Yeah. They can drink wine in "Ratatouille." And they can get a little drunk. But, they cannot smoke.
Audience Member: [indecipherable]
Jerome: Good point.
Paul Topolos: They switched it out.
Jerome: Oh, thanks Paul. Paul Topolos.
Paul: Sorry.
[laughter]
Jerome: Digital map painter at Pixar. Horst, expression sculpts of Horst. I wish I had better things to say about these guys. But, it is just... I said it was a long slide show.
[laughter]
Jerome: This series of characters, which I really, really, liked working on were cut. Uncle Dodo, I didn't really like that with the tape around the middle. That was kind of, not so cool. Git was a lab rat that escaped. He's just this big, over steroided rat; kind of like a rugby player, I guess.
Audience Member: [indecipherable]
Jerome: Yeah, there was... How much of that can I talk about... the fact that these were cut? Well, we had a switch in directors. Bradbury came on to redo the film, and he cut my characters.
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: What's that? Yeah. Murder your darlings, that's what it's all about. You take the things you put your heart into, and you can't get too attached because you might have to just dump them, just get rid of them.
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: These, no. This was all before Brad came on. This was about '04, '03-'04. It's the last stuff I can show you guys. I've been working since then, but it's... I can't show it.
Twitchy... It wasn't until I had a good digital camera. Now, I'd better just start documenting my entire process - so drawing, rough armature, painted armature. So, the clay I use has a lot of sulfur in it. And for years, the stuff I did for Monsters they didn't cast it right away, this is what happened to it. Over a three or four year period the sulfur would react with the steel I use in my armatures and would create some sulfuric acid. And, it would start oozing and cracking, and look at that. Yeah. Nasty.
[laughter]
Jerome: So, when it came time to actually cast these, I'd have to spend a day redoing them even if it were eight years after the fact.
Audience Member: [indecipherable].
Jerome: The sulfur and the clay I like react very poorly with the steel I use for armatures. I am very heavy handed. A lot of people use aluminum for armatures, but I'm at heart a stone carver, so I just want to push it and the steel keeps everything stable for me.
Through that desire to have things real stable I end up getting that - between the sulfur and the steel. So, now, I prime them and it doesn't happen. There's a product called a BIN Primer. It's a white shellac primer. It's really good. It sticks to everything, and everything sticks to it; and it seals it. I have stuff that I had painted this way years ago that still haven't gone all oozy on me. Like that.
The development of Twitchy - this is the development on him. He was kind of a scared, really twitchy rat. This is how a lot of standard iteration happens on characters. I take photos of what I am working on. The guy who is doing the drawings, the sketch artist or the production designer will just do overlay drawings right over what I am working on and give me this back as a note. He wanted the nose to be droopy, and I ignored this one. I never did it because the director... That was someone else's opinion besides the director, and I was, like, you know, if the director want it I'll do it.
This was a character named Stinky. Jan was directing at that time, and he just happened to be a very proper Englishman who just happened to stink. Jan is from England, and he's like, make his teeth really bad. That was my favorite part about this guy, putting those teeth in.
[pause]
Jerome: [laughs] This character's name is Celine and, again, I revert to anatomy when I do not know what to do. So, this is kind of like a human in a rat suit.
[laughter]
Jerome: But it was my first, this one they did let me design. And work with this guy named Daniel Arriaga, who is a new designer who came on to Ratatouille. He was kind of thrown into the deep end. And he and I worked together on this.
He was having trouble making a rat sexy or feminine and appealing. So, I generated this quick sculpt and, again, reverting to anatomy, that led to this sculpture.
[pause]
Jerome: I think that [laughs], I know, I am sorry.
[laughter]
Jerome: When a designer really likes what I am doing, aw, it is so sweet. And that is it.
[applause]
Jerome: Questions?
Audience Member: How has your view with working for Pixar changed, from when you first started to now?
Jerome: Well, things are a lot more hectic. We are doing a lot more production. We are doing a lot more things at once. It used to be where you worked on a film, for me it was about a year and a half to two years. And then, there was a break. Then, you would work some more, on a new production.
Now, I am on two shows at once. I have not sold my soul. I am on Toy Story 3, which has been announced, right? OK. It has been announced.
[laughter]
Jerome: And, I am on a film that comes out in 2011 that I cannot really talk about. I would love to show you slides of what I am working on right now. But, I would get fired and I love my job with the devil.
[laughter]
Jerome: But, that is kind of, does that answer it? That is, basically, what has changed. Things are busier since we have made this deal with Disney. I guess, we really have sold out.
[laughter]
Jerome: But, it is a good thing. No, it is not bad. It is a good thing that we work for Disney now, more closely.
[laughter]
Jerome: Things are getting more; there are a lot more expectations. They want to make money. We have always wanted to make money, but we never wanted to sacrifice good storytelling or good design or any of those things, to appease the coffers of the company.
Audience Member: Good day. How is it going?
Jerome: Good, how are you?
Audience Member: Good, thanks. Just wanted to get your opinion about the future of traditionally animated cartoons and stop-motion movies and so forth. What is your opinion about the future of those other types of animation versus computer animation uplinks?
Jerome: People are still doing stop-motion. The stuff Nick Park does, I completely love, it is great stuff. Henry Selick, the guy who directed "Nightmare" and "James," is in production for... I do not know if I can, I can mention that. I have no legal, he is doing "Coraline," which is, kind of a dark, children's book.
They are doing that up in Portland, Oregon. A lot of guys from Skellington and "Nightmare" are actually up there, working.
Audience Member: Thanks.
Jerome: Adrienne Ranft...
Adrienne Ranft: The folks from Pixar have always been, sort of, adamant about the fact that it is not about the technology. It is not about the medium that you are telling your story. It is just about telling a good story. So, if you are telling a story, no matter how you tell it. If you tell it in the best way.
If that is 2D animation or computer animation or stop motion animation, they are all still very valid media. We just happen to use computer graphics. But, for instance, the end credits, for Ratatouille, we all done in 2D animation.
So, when you see Ratatouille, you will see that the film is done in computer. But, they did do hand-drawn animation for the end credits because they feel that it's still a very valid medium.
Jerome: Paul, you might have an opinion on that too. No opinions from Paul.
I hope it all goes forward. I hope people do 2-D animated films. I hope stop motion is still around. You know, the more the merrier for me. I'm not addicted to the medium; I like good movies. And especially, I like there to be other studios doing good films - it makes the people at Pixar stay honest. They need to not take us for granted. And when there's somewhere else to go, they have to keep you, not necessarily happy - but they have to keep doing good things, otherwise, people are going to bail.
Audience Member: This is a general question. Disney used to have two directors on their feature films. Is that the case with Pixar?
Jerome: Sometimes.
Audience Member: Are they used at the same time?
Jerome: It depends. I don't know what determines that. I guess, it's the workload of the story. Sometimes a story requires so much work. Some directors work better alone, like Brad Bird, and I think, Andrew Stanton. But Andrew collaborated with Bob Peterson quite a bit on "Nemo." But, certain directors need another guy to bounce ideas off of; it really helps move things forward faster. I don't think there's any kind of cut and dry reason to do that.
Disney was doing it just so they could - I shouldn't say this - have leverage over the other guy. They're like, if you're not going to do what we want you to do, we're going to fire you, and we have someone else. But, that's the 'old' Disney; the new Disney is different.
Audience Member: Under the direction of John Lasseter.
Jerome Ranft: Under the direction of John Lasseter that will not happen, I hope. Yeah?
Audience Member: Yeah, I was just wondering has Pixar incorporated a digital sculpting pipeline? And if so, is there any conflict between the digital guys and you traditional guys?
Jerome: Yeah, there's always a conflict.
Audience Member: What's the conflict?
Jerome: I feel that the digital guys need to be creatively encouraged. Because it's a computer company, they're held to a different standard than we are. Now, Paul works with the tech guys a little more than me, but in my experience, they don't have the freedom to explore; they just have to get it done. They're held to a tighter schedule with a different attitude about review. Whereas, if you're in the art department, you're the artist, so you get to just explore - and through that there is some conflict.
Audience Member: Are they not considered artists?
Jerome: It depends on the modeler. Paul? Please.
Paul: Yeah, I think, they're just considered to be 'egghead' artists. I agree with you because I think that it's too bad. We have to be artists, but I think, there are technical people that have to think artistically. They don't really get much credit or latitude to be artistic, whereas, I cannot complete sentences and be really dumb, and people expect that of me.
Jerome: Right, which is why I'm such a bad public speaker. Those guys just do what they do incredibly, incredibly well. They wouldn't be hired if they weren't really good at what they were doing, but they're held to a different standard than we are; and I think, that needs to change.
Audience Member: They get the sculpts from you to build into the computer and they get the designs. So, the design has reached its logical conclusion by the time they receive it.
Jerome: Sort of, but that's not necessarily true. Some sculptures are like a done, finished thought from the director. But, when you change mediums - when it goes through that phase change from 3-D object in front of you to 3-D object in the computer - you reinterpret it. A lot of times it needs to be rethought and the design continues in the computer.
I think, those guys should be encouraged to own it and have that production process. They need to be given a little leeway to have creativity and to not be held to such a tight standard.
Audience Member: How many hours a day on every show are you working? How many days a week? How much of your week is spent not actually hands on sculpting?
Jerome: It is different every week. I like to work a 12 hour day. [laughs] If I work an eight hour, I do not think I am getting anything done. But, I also love a long lunch.
[laughter]
Jerome: I know it sounds funny. But, a lot of the, that is when, I am in my office, listening to a book on tape or listening to music and sculpting all day long. And when lunch comes around, it is the time I get to connect with my fellow employees. Story artists, I have got a crew of guys that I go out with, of story guys and painters and art guys. And we go out and we talk about how much we hated "Spiderman 3," or how much we loved "Lord of the Rings," or how the "Fantastic Four" movie is garbage.
[laughter]
Jerome: Just like you guys, it is the same. "Transformers," I just heard it was horrible and the trailer looked so good. That is the stuff we talk about.
Yeah. I guess, that is a meeting component. I have meetings, but it is reviews. They are pretty regular. They are twice a week. Sometimes, they skip them. It depends on the needs of the schedule.
Audience Member: I was wondering how your job has changed since it joined with Disney.
Jerome: Since who joined, Ed?
Audience Member: Since Pixar joined with Disney.
Jerome: My job has not changed at all. It is exactly the same. I mean, we are not broken. They do not want to fix us. We have been doing good work, that is why they bought us, I think. I am sorry, is that too... the day to day has not changed at all. Has yours?
Paul: No. But, we were definitely worried for a little bit. They kept on saying, "Nothing is going to change."
[laughter]
Jerome: See and that is the difference. I was never worried. [laughs]
Adrienne: The big change is that John Lassiter and Ed Catmull are spending so much time down at Disney that we do not get to see them as much and we miss them.
Jerome: Yeah. That really is the biggest difference.
Paul: Oh, and the mandatory tattoos.
Jerome: Yeah.
[laughter]
Jerome: What is that?
[whispering]
Jerome: Yeah. A couple more questions would be great. If there are any.
Audience Member: Do you see the day when you can do character creation from start to finish on the computer?
Jerome: Yes. As these computer guys get better at what they do. And they are. We have got these digital painters now, who work exclusively in the computer. They do not use paper anymore. And, I think, the digital modeling is going to be the same way.
And as the programs get more intuitive and they get faster and faster, I am definitely going to loose my job. But, I don't mind, because I can do other things. I do lots of review of toys. When I was really slow, a year ago, I ended up, for about nine months, just flying down to Disney and art directing rides that they were doing based on our characters.
I get paid for my eye and my opinion. Right? So, it was really nice of them to just say, "Well, you know, just go down there and make sure it does not suck." [laughs]
[laughter]
Jerome: Sorry, but that is... "Just make sure it looks good," and that is what I try to do.
[laughter]
Jerome: One more.
Audience Member: How long is the development process for each movie?
Jerome: It is different for each movie. It is different for each one. Monsters was forever. But, in general, once the director gets a 'green light' on a concept, it can be anywhere from... Are you talking story development? Or development entirely? Or visual development?
Audience Member: The characters.
Jerome: Characters usually, it is usually a good year to nine months of just free form. And the development happens until you have to start feeding the production pipeline. Until you start having to deliver them designs that they have to build.
On average, I guess, it is anywhere between a year to two. That could be the development period.
Audience Member: A second ago, you just mentioned something about toys as well. Do your mock ups get used in the merchandizing that relates to Pixar?
Jerome: Not much. We use the digital data. Since it is authentic to the experience of the film, that is the stuff... We are trying to push more and more to have companies use that to generate toys. In the past, I have had to be involved in reviews, because they do not want to use the data. They just want to send to China and have guys eyeball it, and do it by hand...
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