Timing and Spacing

First we went to AM. These are my two partners in crime standing at the main entrance to AnimationMentor.


Despite dropping in without any advance notice, everybody was very friendly. We got to look around and see the AM offices in Berkeley. Everybody took time to say hello. Bobby Beck (CEO of AM and former Pixar animator) took a break from his meetings and came out and chatted with us. Bobby is as animated (so to speak) in person as he is in the AM lectures. He definitely has a passion for animation.

Then we headed off to lunch at Pixar with one of the AnimationMentor mentors who works at Pixar as an animator.


We immediately marked ourselves as visitors by standing in the middle of the road taking pictures of the "Cars" logo in the driveway.


At least one car of Pixar employees (Pixarians? Pixarites?) were amused at the antics. We went into the main building.


You've probably seen the standard picture of the atrium.

We had lunch in the cafeteria. Pixar has free drinks and free cereal. I got to see the free cereal room, but didn't have a chance to sample it's contents. I had a sizeable turkey sandwich with the hottest Dijon mustard I've had in quite a while along with a big pile of greens. The food was pretty good.

The building was designed by Bohlin-Cywinski-Jackson, which was also the architecture firm that designed Bill Gates' house in Medina (along with James Cutler Architects). It has the look and feeling of a rennovated loft or warehouse. As you come into the main entrance, the art side is on one side of the atrium and the technical side is on the other. We took a short tour through both sides. The artistic side is like one of the "Art of..." books that you can walkthrough. Human-sized statues of characters. Artwork everywhere. I really tried not to stare into the offices as we walked past, but it was very difficult. After the artistic side, the technical side felt a little depressing in contrast. It felt very much like walking through the corridors of Microsoft. The building was smaller than I thought from other pictures I've seen. Things I would have thought would be across the building are really just down the hall from each other. I couldn't take any pictures in the art section of the building, but you can see some here as well as some better pictures from the atrium.

"The Incredibles" displays are no longer in the center of the atrium, and they didn't have too much setup from "Cars". They had a little car next to the reception desk.



and then a set of cardboard cutouts standing up behind the reception desk.

Brad Bird rode by on a scooter probably half a dozen times. I tried to get a picture of him, but he was just too quick. He's a speed demon on those scooters. All I would have been able to get is his back receeding in the distance.

Everybody we talked to there was super friendly and really passionate and excited about animation.

Afterwards, we killed some time at a used bookstore in Berkeley, Black Oak Books. We saw a 1st edition slipcased version of "The Illusion of Life" signed by Frank and Ollie along with a section of film in the front from "Pinocchio". It's thicker than the current printings (by maybe as much as 150 pages). The only thing we could see that seemed new was some background images that are full-page in the earlier edition are reduced and shown several per page in the later editions. Unfortunately, it was a little out of our price range. It was in awesome condition.

Then back on the plane to Seattle. A nineteen hour day for me, but definitely worth it.