When Will We Start Getting Cars 3 Information?

© Disney/Pixar

Is it only me, or is anyone else wondering when the Disney/Pixar marketing machine is going to ramp up for next summer's Cars 3? I can't wait for this film, and there's been so little information. It's killing me!

To be fair, there's been some information and light publicity for the film. First, we have the brief synopsis from Pixar's official website:

Blindsided by a new generation of blazing-fast racers, the legendary Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) is suddenly pushed out of the sport he loves. To get back in the game, he will need the help of an eager young race technician with her own plan to win, inspiration from the late Fabulous Hudson Hornet, and a few unexpected turns. Proving that #95 isn’t through yet will test the heart of a champion on Piston Cup Racing’s biggest stage!

Then, in late May we received some more story details regarding Lightning's new trainer, Cruz Ramirez, and the young upstart racer Jackson Storm, plus some gorgeous concept art by Noah Klocek (shown below).

© Disney/Pixar

Plus, there's been some social media activity. First, during the Toyota - Save Mart 350 race at the Sonoma Raceway on June 26th, Cars 3 director Brian Fee, Cars creative director and franchise guardian Jay Ward and supervising animator Bobby Podesta held a live Facebook video chat to talk about the Cars franchise. You can watch the video on the Cars Facebook page, or read about it in an excellent write-up by the Pixar Post.

Also, in late July, Jay Ward held a live video chat with automobile designer Chip Foose. Foose is well known for his car designs and has been involved with Pixar since the first Cars film. In addition to designing the flames for Ramone and Lightning in the Cars films, Foose provided some of his design flair to Ramone's House of Body Art and inside the Radiator Springs Racers attraction in Cars Land at Disneyland.

Finally, Pixar has released a set of fun animated episodes on YouTube called the Cars Die-cast Series. Each episode is only a few minutes long and take the Cars characters to different, real world environments. They're fun, full of detail and you may spot some Easter Eggs hiding in the backgrounds.

© Disney/Pixar

And just this week, we learned that long-time Pixarian Dave Mullins was directing the studio's next short film, Lou, which will play in front of Cars 3.  I loved Dave's quick sketch and am looking forward to learning more about this film, and seeing it in the theater next June!

So when will we get our first trailer for Cars 3? Your guess is as good as mine. It seems obvious to have a teaser trailer attached to Disney's Moana, which comes out November 23rd, but perhaps Disney will surprise us and attach it to Doctor Strange, being released on November 4th. And could we get a full-length trailer with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? What a great early Christmas gift!

Cars 3 is directed by Brian Fee and produced by Kevin Reher, and hits theaters on June 16, 2017!

Pixarian Birth and Start Dates, December, 2014 Edition

Wow, it's been almost a year since I last posted a birth and start dates article! Where did the time go? Well, let's jump right in with some Pixar employees who started with the company in the month of December:

• Mark Andrews (2000) -
  
  Before Mark came to Pixar, he had been a storyboard artist for a number of animated films, including The Iron Giant, for which he won an Annie Award. Andrews also worked on animated television shows such as The New Adventures of Jonny Quest and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (which he won an Emmy award). Mark has also worked on live action films including Spider-Man, and was second-unit director and co-writer on Andrew Stanton's John Carter. Andrews came to Pixar with Brad Bird and others in 2000, first working as story supervisor on The Incredibles. He also serve as a storyboard artist on Cars, then again as story supervisor on Ratatouille. His latest effort was as co-writer and co-director of Brave. According to an interview the A113Animation blog did with Brave Story Supervisor Brian Larsen, Andrews is working with Larsen in the early stages of development of an idea for a new film.

• Jay Ward (1998) - Jay started in the art department as a production assistant on Monsters, Inc. Then in 2001, he began working on Cars.
  
  With his deep knowledge of cars, he quickly became a key contributor on the film's development, acting as consultant to co-directors John Lasseter and Joe Ranft, plus as the character team manager. Ward's passion for automobiles has led to him being named the Guardian of the Cars franchise, and he has worked on Cars 2 plus other Cars-related efforts. Ward also organizes the annual Motorama car show at Pixar. Prior to coming to Pixar, Ward received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from the California College of the Arts.

And now for some birth dates:

• Jordy Ranft (December 24, 1991) - Jordy is the son of late Pixar story artist Joe Ranft. He is an actor and poet, and voiced Tad in Finding Nemo, and one of the ants in A Bug's Life. Jordy has a sister, Sophia, who has also done voice work for Pixar, voicing one of the monster children in Monsters, Inc. 

• Scott Morse (December 4th) - Morse studied character animation at CalArts in the early 1990s, then went to work at Chuck Jones' Film Productions. At Pixar, Scott has been a story artist on Ratatouille, Cars 2 and Brave. He has also been active with a number of the Cars Toons episodes, with writing credit on episodes such as Time Travel Mater, Unidentified Flying Mater and Monster Truck Mater. He is now serving as director for the next episode, To Protect and Serve. Morse is also a well-known author of a number of graphic novels and other books, including the Magic Pickle series and the rare The Ancient Book of Myth and War, which he did with other Pixarians like Lou Romano, Nate Wragg and Don Shank.

• Andrew Stanton (December 3, 1965) -
  
  Many of you may know that when Pixar started creating animated television commercials in the late 1980s, the first animator John Lasseter hired was Stanton. Since then, Stanton has written and directed a number of Pixar films, having writing credits on Pixar's first 5 films, co-directing A Bug's Life and having directed Finding Nemo and WALL•E. Stanton has also done a number of character voices including Zurg in Toy Story 2 and Crush in Finding Nemo. Stanton is busy directing Finding Dory, coming out June 17, 2016. 

• Ronnie del Carmen (December 31, 1959) - Ronnie was born in the Philippines and received a fine arts degree from the University of Santo Tomas. He worked at both Warner Brothers and Dreamworks before coming to Pixar in 2000. His first Pixar effort was story supervisor for Finding Nemo.
  
  He also did storyboard work on Ratatouille and was story supervisor on Up. del Carmen directed the wonderfully cute short film Dug's Special Mission, and is now co-director of next year's Inside Out. Ronnie has also published a number of books such as My Name is Dug, Three Trees Make a Forest (along with Tadahiro Uesugi and fellow Pixarian Enrico Casarosa), plus And There You Are, featuring beautiful drawings of Nina (from del Carmen's Paper Biscuit series) plus a look into his story and character creation process. I love both this book and Three Trees Make a Forest, and find myself often going back and flipping through the pages admiring his illustrations.

• Eugene Levy (December 17, 1946) - Levy is a well-known Canadian actor and comedian, having been in films such as Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and both Father of the Bride films. He has also done voice acting in Curious George and Over the Hedge. His first Pixar effort will be for Charlie, Dory's father in Finding Dory. 

Sadly, December has also held some Pixar-related losses. Japeth Pieper, an artist on Cars, Ratatouille and WALL•E, passed away on December 7, 2010. Pixar dedicated Cars 2 to him. And exactly 1 year ago today on December 14th, 2013, the amazing Peter O'Toole, the voice of Anton Ego in Ratatouille, passed away.

This Day in Pixar History: Motorama! (UPDATE 2)

About this time every year, the folks at Pixar get together on the studio's lot and hold an awesome car show called Motorama. With films like Cars and Cars 2, it should be no surprise that there are a number of gear heads at Pixar, including both John Lasseter and the guardian of the Cars Franchise, Jay Ward. Ward organizes the Motorama every year, inviting not only Pixar employees to bring in their unique cars but also car companies such as Porsche, Ferrari and Mini. In addition, they often get cars from Fantasy Junction, a car dealer right across the street from the studio specializing in vintage automobiles and race cars.

One of the featurettes on the Cars bonus DVD (I got mine as a Target exclusive, I'm not sure if this disc was available from other retailers) was Meet Pixar's Gear Heads, which includes footage from a Motorama event and interviews with both Lasseter and Ward. In the featurette, Jay states he owns 10 vehicles, including a '29 Model A Ford and a '39 Mercury Convertible.

The Disney Blog has done a couple of posts (and here) on previous Motorama events. AutoWeek did an article on the 2010 Motorama (thanks to Mike at Big Screen Animation for the link), and Minddrive brought their first electric car to one of the events. In addition, some Pixar employees and other attendees have posted photos on the web:

• Photos from 2008 Motorama
• Photos from 2009 Motorama
• Jon Sarriugarte's Flickr Photostream
• Craig Good's Flickr Photostream
• Mark Vaughn (from AutoWeek) YouTube feed

I haven't heard anything about this year's Motorama. If I get any information on it I'll post it here!

UPDATE (7/28/2012): Pixar artist Arik Ehle confirmed there was no Motorama this year. Here's looking to next year!

UPDATE (7/17/2013): The 12th biannual (it's now an every other year event) Motorama was held last week on July 12. If you'd like a recap of the event and see some of the photos, check out The Pixar Post's blog article covering the event! I have found a couple other articles on the 2013 Motorama with a lot of great photos here and here.

This Day in Pixar History: Pixar Weekend

Last year I attended Pixar Weekend at Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort. It ran for 3 days (May 13-15) on the last weekend of Epcot's Flower and Garden festival. The event was billed as a celebration of Pixar's 25th anniversary and included information and character meet-and-greets from all the Pixar films. But most of the activities focused on the upcoming release of Cars 2.

The main activities began on Saturday the 14th. For me, the highlight of the weekend were the presentations by Jay Ward (Cars Franchise Guardian), producer Jonas Rivera and composer Michael Giacchino, which took place in World Showplace (the building between the Canada and United Kingdom pavilions built for the millennium celebration). Each gave a presentation on both Saturday and Sunday. Their session were titled:

• Jay Ward: Cars 101 - Inspiration for all of the CARacters you Know and Love
• Jonas Rivera: Pixar: Celebrating 25 Years of Animation
• Michael Giacchino: Behind the Music: A Score is Born

In addition, each night there was a special session with all 3 filmmakers (on Sunday, Cars 2 Supervising Animator Shawn Krause replaced Giacchino). All of the presentations were inspirational and full of fun information. Jay's talk focused on the new characters in Cars 2 and included fun facts like why all but 1 of the racers came from real countries (at one point in the film development they planned on killing one of the racers and felt it would be "impolite" to kill one from a real country!). Jonas gave a great talk about the formation of Pixar and its history. My favorite talk was Michael's. He is so charismatic and told great stories about his childhood, his early interest in filmmaking and how he got involved with Brad Bird and Pixar. Unfortunately I didn't take notes but I think the story basically was that someone inside Pixar who had previously worked with Giacchino took samples of his music and snuck them onto Brad Bird's desk. Bird liked what he heard, and well, the rest is history.

Pixar Weekend also included the Car Masters Weekend. Held at Downtown Disney, there were full-size models of Cars characters like Lightning McQueen, Mater and Finn McMissile.

There was no Pixar Weekend this year, but as The Pixar Post reported a few days ago, the Car Masters Weekend is returning on June 2-3. It will include appearances by Jay Ward and Chip Foose, who helped designed Ramone and the Cars wing at Disney's Art of Animation Resort. I'd love to see Disney and Pixar bring back Pixar Weekend with more guest speakers and artwork. Maybe they could make it an annual event - the presentations were well attended and I'm sure would bring in a number of Pixar fans.

If anyone attends the Car Masters Weekend I'd love to hear about your experience!

Below are a few pictures I took from the event. I want to apologize in advance for the poor quality of the pictures - I took them from my iPhone, which struggles under low light. First are some pictures from the filmmaker presentations.

Jay Ward

Jonas Rivera

Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino

Giacchino, Rivera and Ward

View of the 800 person theater prior to the presentations

The Green Army Men showed up to entertain the guests before the presentations started

There were plenty of opportunities for character meet-and-greets inside World Showplace and other locations around Epcot.

Outside of World Showplace, there were large banners for each of Pixar's films, plus a couple for some of the Easter eggs hidden in their films.

 

There was plenty of other Pixar-related artwork and banners around the parks, mostly at Epcot and Hollywood Studios. And given it was the Flower and Garden Festival, there were topiaries of Cars characters.

Spaceship Earth is in the background with
the Cars 2 logo projected on it