Pixar Exhibition Opening Day

[WayneG]

Come back on late Thursday evening the 28th to read about opening day at the exhibition.

Wayne

As you see the exhibition please add your comments to this thread.

Come to the club meeting on the 30th June to hear all about the exhibition.

[WayneG]

The Pixar Exhibition opened in Melbourne today. With touch screens to learn more about the animation process to Storybaords on some of your favourite scenes. To concept art from each of the Pixar animated movies including the just released in the USA Ratatouile. This was very good with concept artwork and 2 clay models of Remy with a spoon adn Lugaugi(?). On the walls of the exhibition were great quotes by a number of the creative people at Pixar.
The exhibtion gave you a great feel for the creative process at Pixar. Tow outstanding exhibits were the Toy Story Zoetrope which was an amazing illusion of continuous movement featuring your favourite characters from Toy Story. It is a rapidly rotating sequence of still objects creating a amazing illusion of life.
The second was Artscope a 4 screen scronized movie where you went through concept art of Pixar films woven around boards of concept art from Toy Story to Cars that come to life and in various artworks you plunge into the concept art.
Thursday evenings when the exhibition opens late is a great time to visit it is quiet and you nearly have the exhibtion to yourself.
I recommend you dust of your Pixar DVDs and watch them before coming to the exhibtion it will bring to life more of the exhibition having recently seen the movies.
A must see exhibition a once in a life time opportunity.

Come to the meeting on Saturday for some give aways from the exhibition and a couple of great raffle prizes.

Wayne

[KeithS]

Hello everyone.

Della and I have just returned from Melbourne and the Pixar: 20 Years of Animation exhibition at Federation Square.

If you have any interest what-so-ever in preproduction art that is used to develop animated movies, you must go and see this exhibit.

Before you even enter the building at the Australian Centre of the Moving Image, you will see on the footpath out the front a giant lamp and ball from the famous Luxo Jr short film that is so synonymous with Pixar.


Inside the building entry, we came across a life-size "Suzie" - the blue Porsche from the movie Cars. We were there around 11am on a Saturday morning and the queue for tickets was fairly short, however we were lucky as the queue rapidly increased in size.

Although there was a good sized crowd in the exhibition, it was never uncomfortable and you could get to see everything without any trouble. The crowd was made up of about 80% over 15 years old, the remainder under that age.

We opted to get the iPod audio tour which was well worth the extra $5.00 and it included two video introductions from the opening day - one by John Lasseter, and the other by Geoffrey Rush. There are marks on the exhibits which tell you what track to play.

So what is in the exhibit?

It is split into various areas, beginning with the early days - this section is constantly showing all the old Pixar shorts (including the original, non edited for political correctness version, of Knick-Knack the snow dome - where the females of our hero's desire are much better endowed than the newer - Disney-corrected version! )

From here, we move into the room dedicated to Character - where it goes through character design, with amazing original artwork from all the Pixar features, showing how characters develop over time.

You will then come to the Zoetroppe room - this just defies explanation - so I won't even try, it is just amazing and should not be missed!

The next section is Story and has great storyboards from the films, with a fair bit dedicated to the late Joe Ranft who developed so many story lines and was also a great storyboard artist.

The next area is about World, and the wonderful layout art and colour scripts from all the Pixar films. Once again this just holds amazing artwork and shows the detail that goes into to making the sets look so real and bring belief to the audience.

Finally, be sure to see the Artscape film - this is an amazing, super-wide screen presentation of all the artwork in the exhibition, but brought to life. If you've seen the new Wall-e trailer, you will see just a tiny portion of this 11-minute Artscape film featured in it. The preproduction art comes alive in 3-D and is a highlight of the exhibition. The camera flies through the pictures as they are brought to life.

Now this is just a small sample - I haven't talked about the amazing machetes on display, or the interactive screens that you can spend a long time on, plus a kids activity zone as well. Oh yeah, there is also a shop that you can visit above the exhibition that has various merchandise for sale including the official exhibition catalogue with all the artwork in it. This version of the exhibit includes a lot of Ratatouille artwork, machetes, storyreels etc that were not on display at the New York version of this exhibition!

One thing we thought was interesting, although Pixar are 100% owned by Disney - you will not see a Disney logo, or mention of Disney throughout the exhibition. This is purely about Pixar. I just wonder if they thought that by tagging the Disney name to this exhibition, it may be seen to be a "kids" thing, rather than the true art exhibition that it is? We have debated on this website before that "Disney" in Australia means "kiddie" and nothing else...

Finally, on exit we were asked to do a Newspoll on the exhibit, which we did (you never know when you'll get free stuff...we didn't...but you never know!!) The Newspoll asked us whether we were from interstate, had come solely for the exhibit (which we had), how long we were staying, how much money we would spend in Victoria etc. They were gauging the impact the exhibition had on the state (and I guess how worthwhile it was for the Government to invest in future ones as well). Do it if you are asked, as this is how we end up getting more of these things out here!

Anyway - get down there if you can. Remember the club is having an informal get together down there on the weekend of the 11th August. I can't make it, but I'm sure you'll all have a great time.

[mushu mama]

This just sounds better all the time.

I'm planning on catching the exhibition at some stage, not sure when yet. I hope to make it on Aug 11th,work dependant.

I'll definitely be using the iPod audio tour, that sounds cool.

~ Lisa. ~

[churros]

I saw the Pixar exhibition last Sunday - a special Birthday treat! It was really a great experience and I agree the zoetrope was fantastic I also enjoyed the 3D movie & sound of all the artwork. They also had a pretty amazing Mars Bar Cake in the coffee shop!

Next Birthday I intend being in Florida but I can't quite decide with my intinerary whether to spend the actual day in a park or on the cruise! Ah if only all of life's choices were this challenging!!!