Pixar studios makes splash with latest film

By Nicole Rodriguez

From the moment you enter, you know that Pixar Animation Studios is not your typical movie studio. Located in Emeryville, CA, a far cry from the Los Angeles industry center, employees ride around the spacious two-story building on razors and often take breaks from their work to visit the facility's in-house gym and pool.

Creative Vice President John Lasseter doesn't see anything strange about it.

ìI've always said that if we can do three things we can have a successful studio: keep people creatively satisfied, be able to pay them a good wage, and have fun,î he reveals. ìHaving fun is so important because I think you really see it on the screen.î

ìI think one of the secrets of their success is that they've taken an old fashioned American philosophy to make a good product and be proud of it, love where you work, stay where you work,î explains actor John Ratzenberger (ìCheersî), who has lent his voice to all five of the company's movies.

And it seems as though these philosophies have worked. Pixar, which specializes in computer animation, has released four highly successful feature films and is slated to release its latest effort, ìFinding Nemo,î this Friday.

ìNemo,î the story of a father clown fish's search for his kidnapped son, has been many years in the making at the company.

ìAs you look around and you see all the mock up stuff you can only imagine how much research and development they do, and they like that as much as actually making the movie. It's fun to see people that really enjoy the whole process,î observes actor Willem Dafoe, who lends his voice to the character of Gil, a fish imprisoned in a tank with Nemo.

The filmmakers agree, claiming they spent two and a half out of the four years it took to make the film just preparing.

In addition to perfecting the story, director Andrew Stanton reveals that he and his team of forty-eight animators wanted to achieve the perfect visual experience for their audience.

ìIt was very important for us that this film be believable, like you were out in the ocean, but we didn't want it to be photographic,î Stanton explains. ìWe didn't want people to think we'd gone out and shot live action back plates and then just put animation over the top of it.

We found that to do that, we really had to tidy up what was out there in the ocean, so when we designed the film we made it as though God had an extra day to tidy things up in the ocean by simplifying forms and limiting the variations of coral out there. And we found that we could get a visual richness without overwhelming the audience.î

In order to achieve this, Stanton and his team became certified divers and went on both day and night dives in California's Monterey Bay as well as in Hawaii.

However, actress Ellen DeGeneres (ìEdTVî) claims that it is not just Pixar's impeccable animation that inspired her to want to take a role in their latest film.