Prospectus

Issue date: 10/7/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Shagun Pradha

"Ants don't talk!" said Michael B. Johnson of the Moving Pictures Group at Pixar Animation Studios, referring to the ant creations that roamed the silver screen in the motion picture "A Bugs Life."

Johnson, a University of Illinois alumnus, returned to his alma mater last Tuesday as a part of the University's Designmatters3 lecture series. The Pixar exec regaled the audience with stories of his work and shed light on how the good people at Pixar do what they do.

After briefly being interrupted by a fire alarm, students and Champaign-Urbana residents filed into the auditorium in the Wohlers building located at 1206 South Sixth Street just a little after 5:30pm. The house was packed and the room buzzed with excitement as everyone waited for Johnson to begin. The title of the lecture "Making movies is hard fun - building tools for telling stories" opened the door for CU residents into the world of making movies.

The main points of Johnson's talk regarded Pixar's history, they way Pixar operates, and his role in that operation.

In brief, Pixar spun off from Lucasfilm in 1986 and had roughly 40 employees. They eventually merged with Disney and now find themselves in an ideal situation: a financially stable studio that has produced ten critically acclaimed animated feature films.

Johnson entertained the audience with a story from when he first started at Pixar 16 years ago. He had asked a colleague where the name 'Pixar' came from. Apparently, Pixar's 'Brain Trust' wanted a simple two-syllable word that sounded similar to 'Kodak' and brought forth the idea of the word 'pixel'. That is not the story Johnson's colleague told him.

"Pixar was a moon near Yoda's home planet Dagobah," Johnson was told. His superiors enjoyed that story and encouraged him stick with it. This mind-set just attests to the amount of fun that the men and women of Pixar bring to their work.

This attitude of positivity influences the Pixar philosophy. "(We look at filmmaking) as art; as team sport," said Johnson. Pixar stresses a strong relationship between the creative people and the technical people.

"We are a director driven studio," said Johnson. With most Hollywood studios, the producer is the point man. The producer would hire the screenwriter, the director, and be the main driving force during the early stages of development. While Johnson had nothing negative to say about this way of doing things, he stressed that if a director had a story to tell, it would be the director who pitched the idea to the studio and got the ball rolling. "(It is) a question of passion and love, not necessity," said Johnson. This love could explain Pixar's excellent track record of never once having a flop.

Continued...

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