It’s not every day that you get to see the “embarrassing” childhood attempts at animation of professional SCAD alumn artists. Colin Levy, a camera and staging artist at Pixar animation studios, took to the Trustees Theater stage last Friday April, 22, to do exactly that.
Joined by Becky Tower, one of Pixar’s animators, they gave an insightful presentation as part of an insider’s look at the creation process of “Inside Out.” This 3D animated long-feature film made it to this year’s “Best Animated Feature Film” at the Academy Awards.
“Snow Wars” and “Ping Pong Hustler,” were amongst some of the titles Levy worked on for his pre-university resume. Levy’s passion for film was clear when he told an anecdote about writing a personal letter to Martin Scorcese, who wrote back a list of films that Levy should watch to gain experience for a film career. Films that he actually “didn’t get around to watching” for about six years, but did manage to get around to eventually. The experience inspired him to propel forward in his passion.
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Left: Colin Levy Right: Andrew Price Photo by Andrew Price (www.blenderguru.com)
Levy is a layout artist; a process similar to working with a camera on a live film set, but with staging, blocking, and choreography involved. Levy did the layout work for “Abstract Thought” sequence in “Inside Out,” where the animation style is very different from the rest of the film. Such a complex scene required a lot of “back and forth” between different areas of the Pixar community, from design to modeling to layout—a clear example of the constant collaboration happening at this organization.
Tower graduated from SCAD in 2008 and worked on other Pixar hits like “Up,” “Toy Story 3,” “Brave” and “Monsters University.” During her presentation, she spoke about some of the characters of “Finding Dory,” such as “Destiny, the Whale Shark.” With a smile and a few laughs Tower caught the attention of the audience, talking about her work, and sharing her experience working for Pixar.
Tower gave the age-old advice to work hard to get to where she is today: “If you want to be better than the next guy, work harder than the next guy.”
Finally, Levy and Tower spoke together about job opportunities at Pixar and what their installations are like. Both of them agreed how the collaboration efforts they experienced at SCAD immensely helped prepare them for the professional environment.
Tower and Levy insist storytelling is the most important aspect of the animation.
“Make your work part of a bigger story,” said Tower. “You can’t say you did something because it looked cool. There has to be a reason for everything, but at the core of everything is passion.”
They emphasized the importance of loving your work by saying that one does not have to be perfect at everything, because “[passion] will make up the difference.”
For some final advice, Tower quoted words her mother spoke to her when she was nervous about applying to Pixar. About life after college. “Becki,” her mother said “someone has to get the dream job. Somebody has to be the best, work the hardest, and have the most passion; who’s to say that can’t be you?”
