Pixar: 20 Years of Animation (With Photos!)

Went to the Pixar: 20 Years of Animation exhibition exhibition at the Singapore Science Center yesterday as part of Omy.sg’s blog club.

I’ve read about Pixar’s history in the book iCon: The greatest second act in the history of business that detailed Steve’s Job’s struggles after he was booted out of the very company he founded. It was during this time that Steve Job bought Pixar (although for the hardware rather than film production capability), but it was because of Steve’s funds that Pixar could survive and produce Toy Story. Everything else, as they say, is history.

All Pixar’s movies are about originality, creativity and art. This is their winning recipe that allows them to be so successful. At this exhibition, we are all given a chance to witness the behind-the-scene effort of artists and animators at Pixar.

While photography of ANY kind was not allowed, we bloggers were allowed to freely take photos of the exhibits and share it with you guys!

One of the most cool stuff in the exhibit was this thing called Zoetrope. Using 150 3D models spinning on a huge dish to illustrate how animation actually works. Of course, using a digital camera, everything is a blur!

A video of how the zoetrope looks like to human eyes:

There is also this Artscape movie, presented in super high definition using 4 projectors working together to produce an immersive experience. Artscape showcases how the illusion of a 3D environment could be created with just 2D drawings. I watched Artscape twice:P

The exhibition also showcases many “art work” that gives the visitors an insight into the amount of work Pixar put in to design our favorite scenes and characters. Here are some photos of what I think are the more interesting ones.

This is the face of the baby in a Pixar short titled “Tin Toy”, which inspired Pixar to create Toy Story.

Sketch drawing of Tin Toy

Pencil drawing of Cars with feature highlight!

Sketch of how the character should be animated

Manga version of Ratatouille?

A story board detailing the process of story boarding

All the fish created to populate the environment of Finding Nemo.

There was also a movie showcase where I watched the various animation shorts that were created in Pixar’s early days, including Luxo Jr, Tin Toy, etc.

There was also a section in the exhibition dedicated to showcasing local animation works. Surprisingly, the quality of animation done by local poly looks alot like what Pixar’s shorts created 20-30 years ago. Hmmmm…

To finish this off, the exhibition is well worth your $20 as it has many many interesting tidbits, things that you will not find elsewhere. Singapore Science Center has also spent quite a sum of money in bringing equipments to maintain the humidity of the exhibition hall (much like an arts museum) so that they can host this exhibition. However, I felt that it is more suited for budding art students or animators. I doubt that most general public/bloggers would appreciate the content without knowing the background of Pixar before hand. For kids, there is nothing particular interactive or exciting (they would have a more exciting day playing masak masak at home), and there was little focus on the “science” of the animation. However, if you would like to find out how Pixar come up with the design of your favorite characters, and the talents of those working at Pixar, this exhibition is for you.

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