UPDATED 11/30/12: Reader Review on the presentation at the bottom of this post.
The 2012 Graphic Festival returns to the Sydney Opera House this November 10-11, 2012, for a weekend that will be filled with presentations, discussions, and screenings. Filling one of the slots for this amazing weekend will be Pixar Director Lee Unkrich, who will be presenting Pixar: Behind the Scenes.
Tickets for this event are available for purchase by clicking here (UPDATED: Link removed as the event has passed).
Unkrich will also present Pixar in Concert at the Sydney Opera House, November 2-3. You may remember Pixar in Concert was previously held in San Francisco at Davies Symphony Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl this past July and August.
Tickets are still available for both of these great events.
Will any of our Australia readers be attending either event? If so, let us know – we’d love to hear your feedback from the show and would love for you to do a guest post on our site about the event.
Reader Review
One of our Aussie readers, Michael was in attendance for the Graphic Festival – Pixar: Behind the Scenes, here’s what Michael had to say in his own words about this great event:
“As an early Christmas present, I went to Pixar: Behind the Scenes. No cameras were allowed at the event, so I have only my memory to go by. It started with a special short made for publicity about the Graphic Festival. Then they announced the winner of a short film contest and showed the short – titled “Getting aHead” (by Norman Yeend) and it was amazing!
Then Lee Unkrich came on and was received with huge applause. He spoke about the stages that the scene goes through when being animated and used an example from Finding Nemo. That example being the scene when Dory asks the moonfish if they know Syndey. He showed the different stages and then moved on to the history of Toy Story, where he showed Black Friday reels (when it was suggested that Toy Story have a bit of an edge) and early test animation.
Then Lee showed some NEVER BEFORE SEEN videos of animators acting out scenes. One was the animator behind Spanish Buzz acting out as Spanish Buzz and it was hilarious! Lee discussed the process a Pixar film goes through from start to finish.
He also told us that out of all 13 feature films they have made, Pixar has only used four composers. Which he then announced that Randy Newman was scoring Monsters University where he then showed a clip of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra playing music from Toy Story 3 (as the previous weekend was the international debut of Pixar in Concert which was performed at the Opera House).
Lee also discussed “Wonder Moss” and noted that it is a program that grows vegetation onto 3D models that does not need any human guidance – a program that was used in Brave (to read more on Wonder Moss see our post on the Brave extras). Lee then started talking about the future where he showed some concept art from Monsters University as well as the Monsters University logo. However, what happened next was unexpected…he showed us the official logo of The Good Dinosaur and talked a bit about it. To my understanding, this is the first time this logo has been shown. Lee then showed a mock logo for “The Untitled Pixar film that takes you Inside the Mind”. He then showed a photo of the logo for Dia de los Muertos!
Lee stated that he had just come to Australia from his second research trip to Mexico. The first trip happened right after Toy Story 3. He said that after working on Finding Nemo for so long that it was like coming home being back in Australia – who knows maybe he was here getting ideas for the rumored Finding Nemo 2.
Then Lee showed….DUM….DUM…DUM…PARTYSAURUS REX!!!!!!! It was awesome and the acoustics in the Opera House made it sound even better.
After the presentation, there was a merchandise table with all the “Art of” books, even Monsters, Inc. The Art of Pixar book and both volumes of the postcard series were also for sale – as were all of the movies on DVD or Blu-Ray and some collector’s toys.
I picked up the encyclopedia and it has roughly 200 pages of characters! I then waited in line for half an hour to get it signed by Lee Unkrich. He signed it as “To Michael, – Australia’s Biggest Pixar Fan” and then his signature. He shook my hand as well. This is where I asked about “Newt” and he shared that “Newt” was only up to the storyboarding and scriptwriting stage and no animation had been started. Another fan gave him a hand-made Lee Unkrich action figure (photo below).
Overall it was a breathtaking experience. We laughed at the animators, we gasped at the original Woody, we cheered for PartySaurus Rex and we were surprised by the future.”
Thank you so much to Michael – Australia’s Biggest Pixar Fan for sharing this experience with us and our readers!
Really hoping he drops some info regarding dia de los muertos project!