The Good Dinosaur Pioneers Animation #GoodDinoEvent

 Creativity is the atmosphere at Pixar Animation Studios. It's a given. What impressed me most during my visit is that even on the technical levels creativity oozes. While in San Francisco for the #GoodDinoEvent we attended workshops that gave us a glimpse of the entire process of creating the soon to be released Pixar film, The Good Dinosaur.

One of my favorite workshops was with Sharon Calahan. It was a lot like attending an art exhibit, where the guest speaker is the artist. Her voice was soft, and while she appeared, perhaps, plain,--her talent with a paint brush and paint is extraordinary. Calahan is the Good Dinosaur Director of Photography and Lighting. She was the overseer of Visual Design.

[caption id="attachment_53252" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Director of Photography Sharon Calahan is photographed on September 17, 2013, at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)[/caption]

A process that begins with watching and observing other movies that reflected what she and Director Peter Sohn envisioned for The Good Dinosaur. Movies that have stood the span of generations: The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf, 7 Years in Tibet, Seraphin Falls, Heavens Gate, Dances with Wolves, Shane. All movies where the scenery had a lead role in the story.

[caption id="attachment_53260" align="aligncenter" width="960"] THE GOOD DINOSAUR - Color script by Sharon Calahan. ©2015 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.[/caption]

As an artist, she sees what the ordinary eyes don't. She spent time in Jackson, Wyoming and the Grand Tetons studying the wild and its vastness. How the rocks in the bottom of a river reflect light at different depths. Her workshop was stunning photographs translated into her artistic language as she narrated the adventure of horseback and river rafting. Her paintings seemed to freeze the sounds, the smells, and sights of the wilderness. Each stroke a tribute to mother nature and the environment as it fades to a new season. The colors were chosen for emotion, as well as beauty.

[caption id="attachment_53259" align="aligncenter" width="5760"] A press day for The Good Dinosaur, including presentations by Director of Photography - Lighting Sharon Calahan, as seen on October 1, 2015, at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)[/caption]

My time with Sharon Calahan reminded me how much I love art. How each frame in The Good Dinosaur is truly a piece of art that can stand alone, but when combined, becomes an art gallery of an amazing story.

[caption id="attachment_53270" align="aligncenter" width="960"] David Munier is photographed on September 16, 2015, at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)[/caption]

To help us understand the vastness that Calahan was painting, we met with David Munier. His role was environmental cinematography. The Good Dinosaur features an 11-foot Apatosaurus and to make it authentic, Director Peter Sohn, wanted 50-100 miles of scenery throughout the film. What a great way to showcase the film's antagonist. It seems simple, but The Good Dinosaur elevated what had been done before and took that simple sounding set-up and cast it through the film. The usual one shot, or a handful of shots, now became an entire movie.

[caption id="attachment_53271" align="aligncenter" width="960"] A press day for The Good Dinosaur, including presentations by Sets Supervisor David Munier, as seen on October 1, 2015, at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)[/caption]

Here's where art meets technology. Pixar Animation Studios used USGS to build the world that would become the world where Arlo lives. Rolling valleys, jagged mountains and cascading tree lines that are naturally occurring in the Wyoming Grand Tetons area, became the information pulled through the USGS. Through this software, Pixar Animators could download valuable data, such as height, and incorporate it into the computer. Once there, the Pixar Animators could manipulate it to create their own world. When you watch The Good Dinosaur, you will be looking at 64,000 square miles of actual North America data from the USGS, animated for the world in an alternate timeline in which Earth was never hit by an asteroid and dinosaurs never became extinct.

It was amazing watching the USGS date come onto the screen and then seeing trees and boulders dropped into it.

Munier and his team also were tasked with 3-Dimensional cloud formation. It was something not done before--usually, the FX department worked on cloud movement and the painting department paints static clouds. The Good Dinosaur is a movie that pioneers animation in so many directions....USGS data that becomes a new world and animated clouds that feature shading and lighting!

[caption id="attachment_53262" align="aligncenter" width="5612"] Jon Reisch on August 6, 2015, at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)[/caption]

We also met with Jon Reisch who is part of Pixar Animation Studios' FX department. Here the mood of the film is set and the WOW-factor comes into play. There were 31 FX animators that created 900 shots in the film--2X as many as other films. 200 of those shots were of the river. As the film opens, you'll see the scene Pixar calls "Swept Away"...this scene took the FX department 8 months of river work, and another 8-months of work to become the final scene on the screen. That scene also used 17TB of space. The Good Dinosaur has 300 TB of data--to put that in perspective that is ten times more than Monsters University!

See the completed work of Pixar November 25, when The Good Dinosaur arrives in theaters everywhere!