Worshipping on my knees at the shrine of 'Pixar"!

Wow! I’ve just got back from one of the most amazing road trips I could have ever imagined. A wonderful show in San Francisco, a scary Goth-lined film festival in Hollywood, a meltingly-hot book signing in Burbank, a moving memorial at the Disney Barn in Los Angeles, and then the ‘piece de resistance’… a personal tour of the mighty “Pixar” studio in Emeryville! Could life get any better?

But first things first...

The incredible adventure started Tuesday last (May 11^th, 2008) when we… my partner Saille and I… departed from close to the Seattle region of Washington state to head south. We started in high spirits. Before the journey even began I heard that our plans to take this November’s “2D OR NOT 2D Animation Festival” to Seattle were confirmed… it is going to be in the fabulous “Imax Theater” in the Pacific Science Center, within the shadow of the world famous Seattle “Space Needle” on November 14th/15th 2008.  Amazing!

(But more of all that in a later blog!)

We nearly didn't start at all! The week before we left my car was broken-into and the GPS stolen. I can actually live without the gadgetry but it was heck of a rush to get the car repaired and ready to drive in time!  Thankfully VW pulled off a miracle for us and we made it away just fine!

1st stop… Corvallis, Oregon:

Our first stop on our magical mystery tour down the West Coast of the USA found us staying in Corvallis, Oregon for the first night.  Saille keeps lizards and through a wonderful forum she is part of, she discovered that another ‘Blue Tongue Skink’ fan had a female who needed a male for breeding.  Saille has a male skink called "Chuff-Chuff", so it was agreed that by perhaps bringing them together for the duration of our trip, we might eventually end-up with some baby skinks running around our respective homes.  Consequently, we met and stayed with Rene and her husband Martin for the night, so we could introduce the Herpetological (lizardy) lovers to each other in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. We resolved that we would leave them together for the duration of our trip and pick Chuff-Chuff up on the way back.

Our infamous and unquestionably intellectual lizard (or is he just a big Harry Potter fan?)... "Chuff-Chuff".

The initial meeting of our lizard pair was not an auspicious one. When they saw each other they wriggled and shimmied and attempted to escape in opposite directions! But they calmed down in time and so we all went to bed that night, hoping for more productive relationships between the couple while we were on the road over the next six days. If nothing else, we all had our fingers firmly crossed!

2nd stop… Napa Valley.

As night fell on our eternally long drive from Corvallis to the next objective on our trip, San Francisco, time, exhaustion and aching ‘gluteus maximus’ muscles caused us to fall short of our original plan.  We chose the famous wine center of Napa, California as our place of rest.  As with every other location on our trip, we had no prior reservations for accommodation, so we just had to drive around the town to find somewhere convenient to rest our aching bones.  Our first attempt at finding a place was no good… no vacancies and extremely expensive (for us) anyway.  Therefore we continued to patrol the streets of Napa to find another possibility. Yet there seemed nothing, anywhere.  Effectively giving up, we resolved to drive back to the nearby freeway and try one of the convenient motels that we had seen an hour or two before. Clearly the ambiance they offer would hardly be the same as any in the quaint and attractive Napa but at least they would offer a clean bed and a safe place to rest our weary souls.  Then, desperately seeking an exit sign from Napa to the freeway, we quite accidentally stumbled on the oasis we were looking for… the ‘Travel Lodge’ on 3^rd Street!  We’d actually been past it before but in the twilight of the evening had not noticed its modest exterior the first time.  Yet sure enough there it was.  It looked clean and welcoming… and the place had clean and affordable vacancies too.  Woo-hoo!

Pretty clear to see in the daylight but in the twilight hour the Travel Lodge in Napa is much harder to recongnize!

What I should mention now is the exceptionally unseasonable, burning-hot weather we experienced from this moment on during the trip! We had left a wet, rainy and mid-50 degree Washington state and were not really aware until we opened the door of our (luckily air-conditioned) car that the temperatures in the area was something like the mid 90’s, plus extreme humidity! Needless to say, even late into the evening in Napa, was an ordeal. This was further exacerbated by the fact that I had mainly brought Washington-wise clothes for the trip… i.e. long-sleeve shirts, long pants, a couple of dark and thick T-shirts, etc.!  Consequently, after a (thankfully) good night’s sleep in a cool and well air-conditioned motel room, the first thing I had to do the next morning was hit the stores before our short drive into San Francisco.

Downtown Napa... sizzling in the heat!

On the surface it sounded a simple plan.  We had scouted the town the night before and I had seen some attractive, if not a little outlandish, short-sleeve shirts and light shorts that would fit the bill.  The shirts were in the window of the popular downtown store, McCaulou’s, so all we had to do was walk a couple of blocks over from our motel, buy the clothes and be off.  We set out in high spirits before the day had heated-up too much, entered the store and located the required clothes in my size. However, just as we were about to pay for them, there was a huge electric flash in the back of the store… which effectively shut-down the entire power supplies in downtown Napa, leaving everywhere without lights and without electricity! Of course this not only completely disabled all the air-conditioning units in area too, but also the electric-powered cash till we were about to use. It additionally meant that the local fire department was insistent that the entire store be evacuated as a precautionary measure until the fault could be safely fixed! 

The temperature outside was by now up in the 90’s and it was as humid as hell. I wondered if we should just drive on to San Francisco, but eventually reasoned that I would probably not find the equivalent clothes, or price, in that city. So we resolved to sit it out for a while and wait for things to get back to normal in Napa.  Luckily, one insightful smoothie bar in town was resourceful to have its own independent power generator. So while the rest of the town was powerless and sweltering, we enjoyed the one place around that was cool and offering cold drinks that would soothe our savaged brows! It was finally around 12:15 pm when we were at last able to return into McCaulou’s and buy the chosen clothes.  Very soon afterwards, and now cooling down in the efficient air-conditioning of our sturdy little car, we were at last speeding-off to San Francisco, newly-purchased clothes as part of our traveling entourage.

On the road in sizzling California... with apologies to all the bugs that sadly hit our windshield!

3^rd stop… San Francisco.

Crossing the Bay Bridge... at last!

“Teatro ZinZanni” was a show we had recently seen in Seattle for the very first time.  It was an amazing mix of chaos, fine food and unique entertainment.  The best way to describe it is as a cross between “Cirque de Soleil”, “The Muppets” and “Moulin Rouge” (as Saille so accurately put it).  The best way to describe our experience of it was… ‘fabulous’!  I had heard that there was a Teatro ZinZanni in San Francisco but it had never featured in our travel plans… that is, until recent events before our departure.  FYI, I am currently developing a new animated film project and had written the first-draft script for this some time ago. I was very pleased with my script but wanted to take it to the next level and make it as an imaginative and as ‘cutting-edge magical’ a story experience as possible.  I had experienced a similar kind of feeling when attending the Teatro ZinZanni event and wondered if the person who had written that might be able to contribute to my project.  I discovered that it was a man called Michael Davis and so I did a little contact research and emailed him about my project. He replied and that he was intrigued by what I was doing and although he has never worked in anything film-related before, he would be keen to meet with me and discuss it.  He then said that he was working as one of the performers in the San Francisco ‘Teatro ZinZanni’ show till it ended on May 18^th… and ‘would I like to see the show and meet afterwards?’ I couldn’t believe how synchronicitous the whole thing was and immediately agreed.  It was therefore arranged before we left that Saille and I would travel to San Francisco during our road trip, meet with Michael before and after the show and then have a fabulous time in watching the performance inbetween.

Teatro ZinZanni... a 'must see' in either Seattle of San Francisco!

Approaching San Francisco with barely two hours to spare before finding accommodation, meeting with Michael, seeing the show and surviving a temperature somewhere near the low 90’s in the city, the situation was not initially conducive to a calm and casual approach.  However, we somehow navigated the insane San Francisco traffic and found ourselves outside the Teatro ZinZanni tent in the Pier 23 district in good time.  I called Michael to see if he could advise us on accommodation site nearby.  He suggested a ‘Travel Lodge’ he knew of and so we duly headed off to it.  Our previous experience of the Travel Lodge in Napa had been excellent and so this seemed a perfect suggestion. It was! The only surprise to us was the fact that the cost of a room in the San Francesco motel was almost double the amount we’d paid in Napa… and there was even an additional surcharge to park our car in the motel parking lot! But that said, it was a good (and welcome) suggestion and I never for once regretted it.

Twice our saviour!

Safely registered in our motel room, we reasoned that the safest way to get back to the theater was to take a taxi cab.  Thankfully, unlike all the cabs I’ve experienced in places like New York City during my many travels, the cab we got in San Francisco had a wonderfully efficient air-conditioning system. We got there pretty quickly too and found Michael Davis already waiting for us.  We shared an enjoyable snack and iced drink together in a local restaurant and spoke of the project… details of which I will share with you all on a later date when it is more fully developed. Suffice it to say, Michael was great and the meeting set us up well for the show to come.  At one point my cell phone rang and although it proved pretty insistent that I answered it, I preferred not to interrupt the fun meeting we were having with Michael at the time.  However, after the get-together… when Michael left to prepare for the show and we wandered aimlessly around in the heat trying to kill time before it began… I phoned the unrecognized number back.  Saille had intuitively said that it was probably an animation colleague I knew from Pixar who was trying to hook up with us.  It turns out that she was right! He’d called to say ‘hi’… and ‘did we want to meet him at Pixar in Emeryville on Monday for a personal tour of the studio?”!!! I jumped at the chance. For us this was like some long dreamed of pilgrimage to a sacred shrine of greatness and so we just couldn’t miss this opportunity of a lifetime. It was therefore so easy to say ‘yes please’!

Inside the Teatro ZinZanni show/restaurant tent in San Francisco.

The San Francisco show of Teatro ZinZanni was very different from the one in Seattle.  It had entirely different characters and relied much more on rib-tickling humor.  Comparing them therefore is just like comparing apples to oranges.  The bottom line is that it was hilarious and yet another of those unforgettable life experiences. Michael Davis was hillarious as "Tad Overdone' the ZinZanni chef.  We learned later that many people come back and see the show again and again. (The record number of visits for one person is 200 apparently!) The program is changed every few months to keep it fresh. Indeed, in the audience of the performance we went to were the artists who are in the next show… “Hail Caesar”… which is probably running already as I write.

Writer and performer Michael Davis as "Tad Overdone" in the Teatro ZinZanni show.

Perhaps the most amazing thing throughout the whole evening however was actually nothing to do with the performance or the food.  (Which was really delicious incidentally!) We found ourselves seated as close to the performing area as possible. (There is no stage by the way. Most of the action takes place ‘in the round’ so to speak, in the center of the theatre tent.) Our table was set for four and the couple already there when we were shown to it seemed extremely pleasant and very easy to talk to.  With initial pleasantries aside, we ventured to ask what they did for a living.  The wife Kit (who was treating her husband Andy to the evening out for his birthday, which was actually on that day by the way) was a midwife. Andy’s answer on the other hand blew me away… he is a layout artist at “Pixar”!  My jaw dropped. What are the odds of that happening anywhere… quite apart from it happening at Teatro ZinZanni on that night at that time of the year on our now Pixar-bound road trip, in San Francisco?  Turns out we had a huge amount of things in common to talk about and we duly ended the evening by promising to meet again when we visited the studio the following Monday.

 4^th Stop… Hollywood!

Driving from northern California to southern California is no picnic, especially with temperatures of over 108 degrees!  I thank the heavens that my car has efficient air-conditioning but even so, we were still hot and sweaty by the time we finally unpacked at the “Motel 6” we managed to find for ourselves when we arrived.  The big challenge for this part of the trip was to get from San Francisco to Hollywood in time for the 7:00 pm "Mockfest" directors’ meet ‘n greet that same evening.  We actually did it with a little time to spare but I’m sure the pressure of having to do so added to our sweaty, tattered arrival.  That said, we were soon showered and changed and ready to attack the legendary LA freeway labyrinth. I’ve driven in LA several times before and each time the traffic seems to get more and more intense and chaotic.  This time was no different! 

We actually found where we needed to be quite easily, thanks in no small measure to the ‘Google map’ we’d printed out at home before our departure.  Finding parking was much more difficult when we got to the theatre of course. So with the temperatures in the high 90’s we were relieved when we eventually discovered a lot just two or three blocks from the Pine Theatre, where we needed to be.  The walk from the parking lot to the festival event seemed just as bizarre as the Teatro ZinZanni experience the night before. However, aside from the usual strange expressions of humanity we found ourselves walking through while making our way up Hollywood Blvd, an endless line of predominantly black-robed, Goth-style youngsters lined the street to one side of us.  They were waiting to see the latest Japanese goth band sensation which was performing there that night.  I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the band was called as there were scant posters outside the theater they were performing in and I’m not up on these things.  Suffice it to say though, the chattering, predominantly Valley-girl teenagers clearly had strong emotions for what must have been a famous performing sensation!

"Mockfest"... a unique festival for 'mockumentary' films!

The Mockfest festival… the 2^nd annual festival of ‘mockumentary’ films to be held in Hollywood… had a sense of the same outlandish and almost rebellious Goth spirit about it too.  The Vine theatre is a small cinema on Hollywood Blvd that has clearly seen better days.  However, it was still nevertheless charming and reminded me a lot of the Everett Historic Theatre when our last two “2D OR NOT 2D Animation Festival” had been staged.  This festival started out on a strong note with a powerful rock band, “The Shock” taking the stage, bringing a considerable amount of unique energy to the event.  My film, “Endangered Species”, was to open the festival during a collection of four short films.  I do believe this film was actually the only animated film in the entire event… something I was congratulated on beforehand, as a result of the huge amount of work I had put into it. Sadly the showing was very disappointing.

"Endangered Species"... my homage to the classical moments in animation's history.

Somehow the digital transfer of the projected version they showed… or else the intense illumination the projector they were using generated… effectively burned-out all the neutral and mid-spectrum color tones of my film.  Consequently, much of the work that took 4 years to create was not even visible on the screen! It was somehow bleached-out, leaving nothing but brilliant whiteness in its wake.  This was particularly damaging over the end title sequence, where I had used as a backdrop of subtle gray and ghostly images of drawings from the animation… shot in reverse to their order of appearance in the film. This was meant to sensitively accompany the credits of all those who had helped me complete the film, showing a nostalgic reverse of the featured history of animation portrayed in the body of the storyline.  The absence of these images must have been particularly taxing on the audience, who had to sit through endless title cards, black on white and with no hint of movement.  We left later that evening, somewhat deflated, and hoping that this would not be an ill omen for the rest of the events we were to experience over this melting weekend in Los Angeles.

Things didn’t pick up much when after leaving the cinema we walked along Hollywood Blvd. We passed the Kodak Theatre where I believe some of the televised Academy Awards have been held and read the names of the numerous celebrities who have had a ‘golden star’ dedicated to them on the sidewalk… some famous, some not so famous in this day and age.  But what was particularly appalling was the dark and dubious people (and places) that shared that once hallowed Hollywood turf. Assorted pimps, hookers, dealers, drunks and druggies mixed shoulder to shoulder with tourists and innocent families who came just to see that magical place they knew as the ‘City of Angels’. How the ‘good’ and the ‘great’ must be turning in their graves as they see what has happened to the place of magic and wide-eyed imagination that Hollywood once was.  I was told later that this actually is a ‘much more cleaned-up place’ than it used to be.  The mind boggles of what it may have once been!

5^th stop… the Book Look event.

The exterior of the Book Look tent in the cool calm before the crowds arrived!

The next day brought light where there had been darkness the night before. The Creative Talent Network, in association with the Van Eaton (animation art) Gallery, had arranged a wonderful event where 'animation authors', 'animators' and 'animation fans' might meet and talk over a sharing of signed books.  The event was wonderful. The weather was not! Temperatures of over 100 degrees inside the marquee that was erected for the purpose meant that everyone and everything had to move in slow motion.  Enthusiasm, talent and inspiration was evident in huge amounts but the heat and the humidity took the edge off activities… or perhaps that was just the way it seemed to me, who never could handle such things, as I mentioned earlier.

Looking cool and relaxed at the event... but it was far from that in reality, with temperatures at over 100 degrees. The colorful electric fan helped though!

I met good new friends that day.  The public seemed not so much interested in learning of the ‘process’ of animation, which is what my books were all about.  They seemed much more fascinated by books containing concept artwork, or biographical books, or those based entirely on films or TV programs that they knew well.  That wasn’t to say that I didn’t sign any books. It was just that more earnest discussion was in greater evidence over my table than confirmed book sales.

Explaining the principles of movement with some Japanese students.

And the new friends? 

It was a joy to meet with folks who, like me, are devoted to animation and consequently build their entire lives and work around it.  Remarkable individuals such as Stephen Worth (Archive Director of ASIFA Hollywood) and Jerry Beck (animation historian and producer from Animation Brew) were there. I found some interesting books that the authors signed for me too. There was the fine art of David Colman in his book, “The Art of Animal Character Design”. Delightful animation veteran Martha Sigall was sharing her experiences in the golden years of the industry through “Living Life inside the Lines”. Don Peri’s fascinating interviews with some Disney legends about the great man himself was gifted to us through “Working with Walt”. Finally the pricey (and yet priceless) record of animation created by the rebellious anti-Disney studio animators, “Inside UPA”, was signed and presented by Tee Bosustow. 

Two of the signed books I brought back with me from the Book Look event.

All that said though, the most revered book I came back with was “The Disney Villain” by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas… and actually signed by the maestros themselves!  Saille first saw it in the Van Eaton gallery and we both agreed that we just could not leave without it, being that Frank and Ollie were THE great legends of the previous era.

The prized signed edition we came back with... and I hear its a great book too!

The biggest surprise of the day came when I found myself looking at a smiling face looking back at me across my signing table later in the afternoon.  He smiled. I said ‘hi’. He continued to smile as if he knew me.  I wasn’t sure I knew him. He then took pity on me and said “Paul Shardlow’. I was suddenly transported back to a London of over twenty years hence, when Paul and I last worked on a production together.  How the gray hair covers the years inbetween… for both of us!  Paul and I first met when we both background artists at the legendary “Halas & Batchelor” studio in London in the mid to late 1970’s. However, years later, when I had established my own studio, ‘Animus Productions’ (my first having spent the seven preceding years at the Richard Williams Studio) Paul and I worked together again when I hired him to produce backgrounds on one of the TV Specials the studio produced. He is now a top artist for “Sony” in Los Angeles. He explained that he is now using the latest state-of-the-art technology to create concept art for studio’s various productions.  I had to reflect on that fact that we had both come a long, long way from our early ‘cell animation’ days in the industry, where the only cutting-edge technology we had was ‘pencils’, ‘paper’, ‘brushes’ and ‘Gouache watercolor’ paints!  It was great to see Paul again after all these years and am delighted to hear that he is doing so well.  Maybe we can work together sometime again in the future… I never will give up the pencils or paper though!

6^th stop…  Chewing the fat at “Bob's Big Boy Restaurant” and the Ollie Johnston dedication.

It was getting cooler.  The hideous warm spell in the upper 90’s was now down by at least a whole 2 degrees! What joy!

Even the 'Bob's Big Boy Restaurant' statue looks as if he's sweating!

Breakfast with friends was the order of the day.  Vicki and Matt from the emergent PlexiPixel animation studio in Seattle were in town too that weekend. Indeed, we had all conferred about our schedules before leaving and knew that our paths would cross more than once during the LA part of the trip. Vicki is a fine producer and so naturally she immaculately created our itinerary and meet-up point maps via Google, so that meeting would be that much easier. "Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant" was her suggestion for breakfast and it was a really good one. Situated on W. Riverside Drive, just along from the Disney ‘Hat Building' it proved a noisy but entirely necessary preparation for the more sedate and reflective Ollie Johnston dedication on "Walt's Barn" that was soon to come afterwards.

The famous Disney 'Hat Building'... the place that promised so much but delivers so little these days!

Vicki and Matt had actually visited us at the 'Book Look' event the day before and, like us, were eagerly anticipating the Ollie memorial too.  We’d also shared a sushi meal with them and Don Peri the night before, so we were quite used to seeing their cheery, smiling faces by now.  Although I didn’t know of it myself, Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant was quite famous and with the food that was served up that morning I can quite understand why.  High spot of the meal was when Vicki saw the fresh strawberry pie and cream she had ordered.  Her face lit-up brighter than the Hollywood Blvd skyline at nightfall!

Bob's famous eating place in LA!

The Ollie Johnston dedication was held in the sweltering open air of Griffin Park but fortunately was entirely tolerable, due to the lush trees that shaded the burning sun above the entire event. 'Hurrah' for Walt's Barn and Griffin Park!

The official entry pass for Walt's Barn.

It is a part of Griffin Park that contains a scaled-down steam train track, complete with stations and crossings and the kind of sounds that only came from this earlier (and much more palatable) mode of passenger travel.  The barn itself harks back to the times Walt Disney spent in his family barn in Marceline, Missouri. The barn has been subsequently rebuilt and now contains much of the railway memorabilia that dates back to those days when Walt, Ollie and animation legend Ward Kimball shared a love for scale model trains and track layouts.

Ollie in earlier times, driving his train with author Don Peri as passenger.

This particular Sunday marked the day when one of Ollie’s prized artifacts, the prized railway station he once used on his home-based track layout, would be opened and dedicated to his memory within the Walt’s Barn layout. The day was well attended by about 100 visitors, including several Disney artists and imagineers.  The event, hosted by the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society, was both poignant and moving. It was hard not to be touched by the tributes paid to Ollie, his grown-up railway ‘toys’ and the fabulous body of work he left to the world. I saw it not the end of one solitary man but the end of an entire era that will never quite be witnessed in the same way again.

Part of the large crowd that gathered for Ollie's dedication.

7^th stop… Worshipping at the shrine of “Pixar”.

Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for the great achievements of Pixar and its inspiration, John Lasseter. It was a time when animation was in sharp decline, where the Disney studio (a once great and unconquerable force under Walt) was a pale shadow of itself during the mercenary Eisner era. Then there emerged a unique young animation studio called Pixar that held firmly to the beliefs of storytelling magic and artistic excellence that Walt held so dear and they triumphed.  Let us be clear about it, without Pixar there would be no industry… at least, not an industry worth talking about. Pixar proved that the Walt philosophy will always work… that if you tell great stories and push the creative limits you will always find your audience and it will remain faithful for generations to come.  The emergence of Pixar actually marked an apparent end of the 2D animation era in the minds of many people… didn’t Michael Eisner say ‘2D animation is dead’ when he closed down the traditional animation studio in 2002? (Although I don’t for one minute believe this myself and will spent the entirety of my life disproving his words!) However, it did clearly herald the arrival of a magical new era in the animated artform… where the excellence of the quality of this new era would be marked by the evolving genius of that studio called Pixar.

Saille and I... and 'Luxo Jr." of course!

Imagine therefore the feelings I held when entering the gates of that now mighty animation ‘Mecca’. It marked the end of a kind of pilgrimage for me, where I had retraced the steps along the old path where some fine giants had trod before and now I was following a new path where a new kind of giant was walking! As I have intimated earlier, my introduction to Pixar came through animator Don Crum, who had animated on “The Incredibles”, “Ratatouille” and now ‘Wall-e”.  I had been introduced to Don through an ex-Disney faculty colleague, Geraldine Kovats, who worked with him at Disney, in Florida before that studio had been so ignobly closed.  “Dean” had asked Don on my behalf to present his work and give a couple of masterclass lectures to our senior students at DigiPen in Redmond, and he had generously obliged… twice! Don is a really interesting speaker and was inspirational to the students at the time.  (He was inspirational to me too, if the truth were told!) He said over one of the dinners we shared together at the time that if I was ever in the Bay area I should look him up and he would give me the Pixar tour.  This was therefore that invitation fulfilling itself.

I was delighted to find that Don Crum's office at Pixar included a 2D animation lightbox!

I can see the young and the uninitiated (in animation terms at least) walking the Pixar tour and being transported to the world of Woody, Buzz, Nemo, Sulley and soon Wall-E.  There are pictures and life-sized models of all the most popular Pixar characters littered about the place.  In the courtyard outside the main entrance there is even a huge white sculpture of Luxo Jr. (which started it all when all is said and done… as Mickey had at the Disney studio!). This had apparently been donated to Pixar by an Australian outdoors sculpture company and it had only been installed barely a month previous to our visit. However, as interesting as it all was, none of this was the main attraction for Saille or I.

That said... we certainly couldn't ignore part the the classical Pixar legacy. (Pity I couldn't have been as well color co-ordinated as Saille though!)

Where my wonder lay was in the artwork on the walls of the halls and lobbies of the tour. The same was true for Saille too... she also being a traditional 2D animator at heart! Truly fine art… both 'digitally advanced' and 'marker-pen traditional'… underpins for me the core secret of Pixar animation. Pixar is a place that is filled with great  individual artists! True, the magnificent work that the studio produces is entirely dependent on cutting-edge technology. But the main impetus on the genius of Pixar is that it is packed to the gills with fabulous artists who have simply learned what buttons to push to get the work done… and thus will it ever be as long as it remains vital and cutting-edge!  I had been particularly impressed with the artwork of Dan Holland, which graces the walls of the tour in a number of places.  His work appears more than once and the art he produces is fabulous (although ALL the work at Pixar is fabulous to be honest!). It was therefore a extra special thrill, while we were later eating a delicious lunch in the Pixar cafeteria, when Don strode over to a stranger he saw there and led him over to us. It was Dan Holland!  Needless to say, it was an honor to meet him. Dan was not the only wonderful person we met that day. We briefly chatted with animator Kureha Yokoo (who had presented her work for us at last year’s “2D OR NOT 2D Animation Festival”) and layout artist Andy Cadelago (who we had met in Teatro ZinZanni just a few days previous!) Perhaps the biggest surprise in all this was the fact that Dan Holland knew one of my ex-students from Washington State, Digger Jensen, and one who was actually in Saille’s class at the time! You know, I am constantly reminded that this world is indeed a very small place!

The Pixar lobby restaurant... exceptional food and more than a little hint of what's to come filmicly through the "Wall-E" posters that are suspended above!

Final stop… lizard pick-up and home!

We were eagerly anticipating our return visit to Rene and Martin in Corvallis.  Would we be the proud parents of young Blue Tongued Skink babies in the month to come?  Apparently not!  It seems that although our lizards showed a great deal of respect and affection towards each other, they didn’t actually consummate their hastily arranged marriage!  We suspect that it is too late in the mating season for this to be a reality right now, so the new plan is make a second attempt at it in March next year, when the mating frenzy should be at its peak.  Still, it was a nice idea… although it is clearly and idea what’s time has not yet come!

And so ended a whirlwind, fascinating, breath-taking, sweltering, unbelievable week of a road trip! In all we must have covered over 3.000 miles, or more!  I cannot even begin to express here all of the revelations and the aspirations we shared on that amazing journey.  Time (and this blog) will reveal more eventually I am sure. Suffice it to say however we are both totally exhausted… as well as being totally inspired by what has transpired. I dare not believe that there will be such a week like this again. Yet experience has shown me that animation is an unexpected and unpredictable world and although I have spend the majority of my time fixed to an animation lightbox, endeavoring to make things move in ways they never have before, that lonely and sedentary place has actually taken me halfway around the world and to places I could barely dream of before the whole crazy thing began.  I hope I can share more of my future adventures with you as time goes by and they are revealed to me.  Let us hope so at least.

My magic pass into Pixar... I hope it won't be the last time I use one!

Phew!!!  Now I’d better get back to the real world for a while!

Tony.   :^{)}=-