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Pixar Cars – Production
‘Cars’ proved to be the most daunting venture undertaken by Pixar Animation Studios in 20 years of filmmaking. It involved great technological expertise in order to build a believable setting for cars with human characteristics, but producer Darla K. Anderson rose to the challenge and delivered most admirably.
From the very onset of the production process, Darla and her team made it a guiding principle to remain faithful to director John Lasseter’s vision. The first challenge faced by the production team was to make the physical appearances of the characters as true to life as possible. It was a most difficult task to create reflection on the metallic surfaces of the automobiles, but by employing a technique called “ray tracing”, this was achieved to very remarkable effect. Efforts were also made to give the automobiles more flexible bodies and swerve motions were applied to give them a more dynamic look while on the move.
Since the personality of a character is also represented by its movements, the animators had to find ways to make the characters move in their own special manners. Jim Murphy, the head of the animation team, did a close study of different types of cars to understand their particular movements. For instance, sports cars are bound to have stricter suspensions while older cars tend to have more bounce. By taking note of these details and allowing every animator to include their own habitual gestures in the development of characters, every automobile in the movie became a unique individual of its own.
John Lasseter had thought the cars would look like snakes if the eyes were located at the headlights. Therefore, to make the cars appear more unique and humanlike, he insisted that the eyes should be placed on the windshield, which also did well to give them a self-driven look. The wheels of the cars were made flexible such that they would serve as hands to enable the characters to perform certain gestures and actions. With good imagination, the animation team also managed to give the cars a full range of human expressions by skillful manipulation of the eyelids, eyebrows and the mouth.
A major part of the movie took place in Radiator Springs, a remote town on Route 66. The production team had done tremendous research on the famous highway, which is a landmark of American cultural development. The buildings and backgrounds of Radiator Springs were adopted from certain scenes and actual buildings along that historical road.
A talented band of vocal performers was employed to give each character a unique voice. From Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen to Paul Newman as Doc Hudson, the vocal stars brought the characters to life with their very own brand of humor and drama. Racing legends such as Richard Petty and Michael Schumacher were also called upon to give the racing scenes a more authentic sound.
On the whole, the determination and faith of the production team were the elements that made ‘Cars’ a major cinematic success and definitely, a most admirable achievement in the history of animation production.
