Jaws at 40

'Quint's Workshop'

Watercolour & gouache

To celebrate Jaws at 40 here's my visualization of Quint in his workshop - steaming shark jawbones and crushin' beer cans!

INSIDE OUT

My first credit on a Pixar feature - I worked on this film for the first 2 years of story development. The first team were myself, James Baker and Jim Capobianco working with Michael Arndt. Story Supervisor Josh Cooley joined after he finished work on 'Cars 2'. Sam Hood joined the team with Tony Rosenast, Valerie Lapointe and Domee Shi. Shion Takeuchi came on board after she finished on 'Monsters University'. Garett Sheldrew rounded out the 'first wave'. I remember Emma Coats joined us briefly before leaving.
We worked initially with Michael Arndt before he went off to write 'Episode 7'. After Pete, Ronnie and Jonas took a trip to NYC to go behind the scenes of Saturday Night Live they invited staff writer Simon Rich to join us. He left SNL and worked at Pixar for a year or so. Arndt and Rich were fascinating collaborators and really liked working with Story Artists.
Meg LeFauve came on board with the 'second wave' of artists; Dan Chong, Yung-Han, Tony Maki, Vlad  and Tony Fucile helped out before he joined the animation dept. to consult on the character posing and do draw-overs.

L-R: Writer Simon Rich, Editor Kevin Nolting, Director Pete Docter, Producer Jonas Rivera

Bill Hader in the story room.

Pics from the wrap party May 2nd Oakland.

The wrap party was a blast-the Fox theatre had lobby posters from Dream Productions!

Story & Editorial at the crew wrap party!

The opening weekend at Disney's 'El Capitan' theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

For a long time the working title was 'The Untitled Pixar Film That Takes You Inside The Mind' and crew T-shirts were made with a spoof logo.

Inside the Storyroom. Valerie and Emily work out the plot structure.

 Pete Docter wanted those of us who were 'newbies' to see the 'Hidden City' café in Point Richmond. This is where the historic lunch happened where the first film ideas were dreamt up. Sadly the place closed down not long after- fittingly to reports of a rat in the kitchen!

The team was so small here-10 people! Very early days-around October 2010.
L-R: Jonas Rivera, Pete Docter, Matt Jones, Ronnie DelCarmen, Samantha Wilson, Elissa Knight, Stacey Newton, Kevin Nolting, Ralph Eggleston, Jamie Baker.


I tried to brainstorm an idea for a film at the very table where A Bugs Life, Monsters Inc. and Wall-E were conceived!

b

Being permitted to observe Pixar's fabled 'BrainTrust' sessions on 'INSIDE OUT' (believe me, we often pitched 'BrainTrust' as a title for the film!) was an honour and a privilege. Although at times frustrating; Bird or JL would often make suggestions that the Story team had been banging on about for 6 months! Stanton was preoccupied with JCOM in the early days of 'Inside Out' so wasn't present at the first BrainTrust sessions. But it was fun to watch him get worked up on later occasions. If you weren't at 'the' table you had to sit along the wall, listening not talking. Delicious lunch buffets would be put on and those in the second tier without the benefit of 'the' table would awkwardly eat off our laps. This was the 'long' table before Ed made it square. Inevitably sketches were made amongst the note-taking. . .

Venice Beach sketchbook

More sketches from the neighbourhood . . .

Furiosa

'King Kamehameha' painting process

'King Kamehameha Comes Ashore'  -my interpretation of the legendary Hawaiian King.

Venice Beach

Sketchcrawl around Venice Beach

'Hula Girl' Painting

Oakland

The Christians

In San Francisco while waiting on the cable car at Market & California I would kill time by sketching the locals. There would be police standing around directing traffic or a construction worker in an orange vest stopping pedestrians from getting crushed by the cable car. Amid the chaos, standing quietly and patiently were the Christian representatives with their leaflet stands and bibles. They would be there in all weather. The masses scampering to or from work never engaged with them. About the only souls to interact with them were aggressive drunks who would hurl abuse but the Christians would remain stoic or smile politely.

On the trail of Replicants . . .

I headed Downtown Los Angeles to hunt down locations used in Ridley Scott's 'Bladerunner'. I made a short film of the sketch I made of the iconic interior of the amazing Bradbury Building. It was used memorably in the film as the iconic building where toy-maker J. F. Sebastian lives.

On this trip we got access to the top floor where I sketched the iconic elevator that Darryl Hannah exits in 'Bladerunner'.

 Deckard's apartment in the film was the famous 'Ennis House' in Los Feliz designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
 

Phases of Funny Faces

'The Tank Gang'

Drawing Venice

Venice, California that is. I explore the tranquil Venice canals with its beautiful houses only a few blocks from the craziness of Venice Beach.

You can see more of my painting & sketching videos here , here and here !

Gesture

Happy Holidays 2014!

Isn't it Christmas yeti?

Ensemble

Some friends and I have been getting together once a fortnight for an evening of improvised sketching and painting. With Manu Arenas, Stephane Kardos and Nicolas Weis. I cut together the footage I shot on my phone.

On the second occasion we worked with the themes of 'Greek Mythology' and 'Fairy Tales'. We covered 2 huge reams of paper in spontaneous character designs. Both pieces are for sale.