When [John] Lasseter and [Ed] Catmull came aboard [the failing Walt Disney Animation Studios team], they were encouraged to consider shuttering Disney Animation altogether and replacing it with the ascendant Pixar. But Dumbo is Lasseter’s favorite movie of all time. As a child, Catmull spent countless hours imagining himself in the worlds of Pinocchio and Peter Pan. It was Disney that inspired their careers in the first place.

“There was so much pressure on us to close these doors,” Lasseter says. “Ed and I absolutely could not do that.”

If you’re needing a little inspiration for your week, you NEED to be reading this amazing article from WIRED magazine. It’s an in-depth look at turn of the 21st century Disney animation and the heart John Lasseter’s team has put into turning the studio around. 

JUST LOOK AT ALL OF JOHN’S TOYS IN HIS OFFICE (in the first photo). We need to be friends with these men (Ed is on the left, John’s sitting down).

The second photo shows three more inspirational guys in Disney animation: Big Hero 6 producer Roy Conli and director Don Hall and Chris Williams.

Check out the full article here: Big Hero 6 Proves It: Pixar’s Gurus Have Brought the Magic Back to Disney Animation

- Courtney (HarmonicaCave)

WIRED magazine is doing some cool, cool things this month related to animation. Namely, Disney animation! We’ll be featuring their features throughout the week, kicking off with this: a behind-the-scenes feature on the invention of Baymax, or at least his movie character form. 

From inspiration from the original Baymax from classic Marvel comics to real-life robotics and even penguins and diapered toddlers, Disney artists worked hard to determine the most adorable, huggable and relatable robot we’ve probably ever seen. (Sorry, WALL-E… your dust-and-rust-covered shell doesn’t exactly encourage hugs). 

Here are more photos from Big Hero 6 development. You can read more about it in this coming month’s WIRED and online about halfway through this article.

On [a] research trip, this one to the Carnegie Mellon University robotics lab, Hall saw a vinyl-covered robotic arm used for nursing functions, like wiping a patient’s face. In an instant, he realized that Baymax could be a caretaker robot. “Soft robotics was the big lightning bolt,” Hall says. ©2014 DISNEY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

On a research trip to Japan, Hall and the movie’s designers saw a traditional copper bell, the bottom of which was punctuated with two holes connected by a slit. That inspired Baymax’s facial features—it’s easy for the audience to project various emotions onto such a simple canvas. ©2014 DISNEY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

To help define Baymax’s bottom-heavy shape and endearing penguinlike waddle, animators looked at videos of a full-diapered toddler. ©2014 DISNEY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Some of the photos above show a very different Baymax than the final product, but this proves an excellent point — in character design, revision keeps happening. Baymax could have been round. Hiro could have traveled by backpack, or Baymax, traveled by suitcase. Baymax could have been see-through and a clean freak and a number of other things that were cool, but Disney animators weren’t satisfied until they found the perfect product. May we always do the same in our own work. 

- Courtney (HarmonicaCave)