If you love movies as much as I do, you might have wanted to listen in or watch was goes on when filmmakers pitch their interpretation of their assignment to the director or to the screenwriter. As part of our exclusive tour of Pixar Animation Studios, not only did we get to listen to Director Peter Sohn, who directed The Good Dinosaur; but we got also got an inside look from the key people who helped made The Good Dinosaur a reality. Among them were Screenwriter Meg LaFauve and Story Supervisor Kelsey Mann. Today, I want to share with you some of The Good Dinosaur Fun Facts we learned from them.
The Good Dinosaur Fun Facts from Screenwriter Meg LaFauve and Story Supervisor Kelsey Mann
#GoodDinoEvent
So, let me paint you a picture. Not only we were going to get to hear from the movie’s screenwriter and story supervisor, we were going to do it from the actual Pixar story room. Yes, this is the room were The Good Dinosaur team met to figured out the vision behind this movie, the look of the movie, the relationship between the characters, and the overall story. Doesn’t that sound exciting!?
To get an ideas of what goes on in the Pixar story room, you can see in the picture above, some of the team from the movie hard at work. Director Peter Sohn (Right), Screenwriter Meg LaFauve (Upper Left) and Story Supervisor Kelsey Mann (Lower Left). The moment you step into this room, you immediately see that the team has great appreciation for their director and a lot of the passion that went into the movie.
While listening to them, you get to understand the process that goes into making a movie. Before the first scene is drawn, an amazing story needs to be develop and written, that’s where the screenwriter comes in. After that, every scene needs to be drawn, the animators capture the idea, draw the characters and present it to the director. So, knowing that, here is the first fun fact: for The Good Dinosaur, the team wanted to capture the good old days! In the good old days, animators would bounce ideas of one another and hand draw every single scene. That’s exactly what the Good Dinosaur team did and they did this by utilizing a Cintiq’s. Cintiq’s allow the animators to animate in rooms with other animators and not isolated in an office somewhere. This way they can see each other’s progress and rethink their concepts. Cintiq’s allow animators to draw, erase and manipulate their creations as they wish.
Another fun fact is, to keep the story on track, Meg LaFauve spent a lot of time in the story room. This way she could chime in as the animators were drawing the characters and scenes. The team even brought in a special chair were she could sit and read. So cool! 🙂
I won’t spoil the movie for anyone, but we were even treated to see how a story board is developed and how a scene gets pitched. Kelsey Mann, animated the scene to us, which included playing the voices and special effect sounds to a scene from the movie. The scene we got to see, made it to the final cut, but with a few changes. Lookout for this scene when Arlo and Spot play with prehistoric gophers.
Finally, when you are at Pixar Animation Studios, you cannot leave without feeling inspired to draw something. We were invited by Kelsey Mann, to grab a drawing pad, a drawing pencil and draw our own Arlo. Unfortunately, my drawing got misplaced on my way from San Francisco to Miami, so I don’t have a pic to show you. But it was so much fun drawing it and feeling like an animator. Thanks to screenwriter Meg LaFauve and Story Supervisor Kelsey Mann for their time and sight.
The Good Dinosaur opens in theaters on November 25, 2015. In the mean time check out the following The Good Dinosaur clips.
The Good Dinosaur Official US Trailer 2
The Good Dinosaur – Official US Trailer
Disclosure: I was provided an all expense paid trip to San Francisco to attend the #GoodDinoEvent, #MilesEvent, #Waltagram, and #InsideOutBloggers events. No additional compensation was received. I was provided with the information in this post by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.