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Pixar Cars – Lightning McQueen
When making the lead character of ‘Cars’, Lightning McQueen, a few aspects of production had to be taken into consideration. From visual to psychological developments, everything had to be done in such a way that they were consistent to his basic personality, so that the character would seem more real and believable.
The visual identity of Lightning McQueen was created based on sketches done by the animation designer, Bob Pauley, and director John Lasseter. With a stock car for reference, they began thinking about their dream cars and produced them on paper. After a few drawings, they picked out the best ones and employed a sculptor to make a model of it. From the determined shape, features and details would have to be added to give McQueen a facial identity, but before that, his personality had to be determined first.
Lightning McQueen is a rare breed of snobbish individual who is totally obsessed with his own talents and winning is most probably the only thing that means anything to him. To determine a behavioral pattern for McQueen, the animators and the vocal performer studied famous snobs such as Muhammad Ali and Joe Namath who were close models for McQueen in that despite their cockiness, they were still adored by their fans. However, John had a more specific idea of who McQueen should be modeled after, and he instructed the team to extend their research to stars like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan when they were in their rookie years. He wanted McQueen to be an extraordinarily gifted individual who seemingly came out of nowhere to shock the world.
With the personality of McQueen already set and ready to go, animators busied themselves with the development of facial expressions and gestures. Since McQueen is a self-centered character who believes in himself a great deal, it was decided that he is to have a young, strong face with suggestions of innocence and fearless confidence. However, that would not be enough to last the whole movie as McQueen was expected to go through a host of different emotional states, from being the cocky racing sensation, to the humble little boy lost to the selfless hero at the very end. Through a grueling process of trial and error, the animators succeeded in developing a complete range of facial expressions and gestures to accompany McQueen throughout the length of the movie, while still able to maintain his basic character.
Owen Wilson, the talented vocal performer for Lightning McQueen had to go through much the same challenges as the animators. Blessed with an extensive range of vocal expressions, Owen was able to effortlessly adapt to the McQueen’s flight of emotions as he went through different phases of experiences. He delivered a most stunning performance, thrilling the audiences with a fantastic display of his unique and charming voice.
This great collaborative effort by some of cinema’s most talented individuals resulted in one of the most memorable and believable characters in the world of animation. Lightning McQueen has indeed won the hearts of the fans, on and off the screen.
