In Touch - Inserts

"Bugs"
From the creators of TOY STORY comes a whole new animated feature film.
Hollywood has always subscribed to Jung's theory of a collective unconscious: films on a particular topic tend to come out simultaneously from different studios. So it's little wonder that Disney and Pixar have answered Dreamworks' brilliant offering "Antz" with their own "little" story.
"A Bug's Life" stars Flik, an ant anti-hero, who travels to the city. He needs to find bigger bugs to defend his ant colony from the vicious Grasshoppers.
After their success with Toy Story, the first ever feature-length fully computer animated film, the animators from PIXAR feel that they've gone significantly beyond that, with "A Bug's Life".
John Lasseter, Director, explains: "Insects are the perfect match for computers because of the exo-skeleton, because of the beautiful iridescence of their shells, the transparency of their wings. It is lovely."
Says Bob Pauley, Art Director: "We created a small camera that we can follow bugs along the ground with and that can go down into holes or up branches or onto leaves. It was very exciting."
Before the actual animation begins, actors read their voice parts for the film. Artists can then begin to animate the scenes.
The basic building block for computer animation is a three dimensional computer model for each character. The more flexible the model, the more animators can do with the character. When the animation is finished, the characters and backgrounds go through several more steps. Colour, then texture is added to the plastic looking surfaces of the computer models. Finally, subtle light is added to the picture.
"We usually start with the sound track," says Richard Quade, Supervising Animator "which we listen to over and over again, trying to get the feel of what is going on. We also have story board panels, which are little drawings from the story department."
Says Kevin Spacey: "We have been doing sessions now for the better part of the year and each time I come, they're farther along and more advanced in the rendering of the actual picture, so I get to watch its progress as we keep recording. But they discover as they go along. The great thing is they film you when you are doing it and then give those video tapes to the animators and they begin to render it with the actors playing it in mind, so it begins to develop and change in shape as you continue working."
With voices like Kevin Spacey, David Hyde Pierce and Julia Louise Dreyfus behind the project, the acting quality seems assured. And Randy Newman, responsible for the fantastic soundtrack on Toy Story, delivers in his inimitable style.
Randy Newman: "It's what's on screen calls forth. If it's there I play it. If it weren't there I wouldn't do it because it would be overdoing it, but the thing soaks up allot of sound".