I thought I'd try another art survey!

First of all, I owe a big THANK YOU to the artistic angel with sexy horns who donated me a one-year subscription! She knows who she is and prefers (like me) to remain in the shadows.

Second, what are your favorites within your Favorite Gallery?

Send me up to five links of art and I'll pick one deviation to feature in my next journal. Yay, for exposure and community participation!







Well, dimension hopping can really take it out of a soul. On top of that, I went back to school ya see -- college. This is a big deal after many years of first working to support my family and then doing whatever it took to hang on to health benefits. I'm not saying this for pity, just perspective. Although I'd always been told I was "smart" (nearly a curse), this was still a giant step financially and emotionally. This last quarter was a real doozy, a lot of hard work, but my grades made it worth the effort!

I have also been finding time to enjoy life. And a highlight of those experiences, for someone like me, was attending a special appearance by one of Pixar's main animators, Michal Makarewicz, as he answered questions about the studio's latest film Wall-e.


Michal has also worked on The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille. His work was focused on Wall-e, The Ship’s Wheel and The Captain.

He is a huge sci-fi buff and the reference to H.A.L. as well as Space Odyssey 2001 was entirely intentional and his idea. As was the entire design of The Ship’s Wheel which he was told, “Make it look cool.”

He began by addressing the initial objection and fear of creating a film with such little dialog in Wall-e. I don’t get people. Honestly, I thought there was plenty of dialog and found the lack of it refreshing! Many older and international cartoons that I grew up with didn’t depend on words either.

When the subject of real people in contrast to animated ones in the film was brought up, he explained that he felt it initially worked with the movie footage but didn’t like it once animated cartoons appeared. However I liked the chance they took with it and it ended up working for me. As you might imagine, some ideas and accuracy for Wall-e’s design came from filming assembly and industrial robots.

It was stated that this film was actually one of Pixar’s first ideas, so the audience member wanted to know what took so long to make it?! Again, there was the hesitation of the notions of it and we were made aware that the films take approximately 5-6 years to complete (ones for 2011 are already in the works, for example) although a new film comes out once a year. This statement tied into another blunt question about whether the studio would collapse if they had a failed film. The answer is:

1. Not at this point
2. That’s why Disney comes in handy.
3. That’s why they release a movie every year. There was nearly a disapproved shock that each film takes approximately 100-120 million dollars to produce.

I say it’s worth it. Unless you actually want more “Reality TV.”

When asked to address how much Disney had changed or influenced them lately, the artist joked that we could be there for hours discussing that! Basically though Disney is a funder and a name, they have no true control over the creative aspects and Pixar is doing them a favor by improving and reviving their tarnished name. An example of how Pixar chooses to do this is by generally not making sequels. Interesting!

One person playfully brought up the fact that the film’s main villain could be argued as the very system that Pixar is a part of. Mr. Makarewicz acknowledged the point then jokingly spoke into the collar of his shirt, “Yes, man in an Incredibles T-shirt, end of the fourth row.” As if a S.W.A.T. or Secret Service agent would sweep him away. But in seriousness, he mentioned that when they first began and Disney would bring out a procession of products for approval for hours and hours: dolls, T-shirts, candy, toothbrushes, diapers -- eventually it gets surreal.

It was discussed that the people in the film were originally going to be made transparent or gelatinous that, ala Planet of the Apes, it would be a shock to us that they were actually human. Another altered concept was when one robot gets hurt and the other tries to rescue it, toward the end, that was actually going to be the other way round. Animators generally only work on scenes that have final script approved, but that change involved scrapping some efforts. That’s just the way it goes sometimes!

In cases, where the artist is so key to characters, he has to and gets to work in conjunction with the writers as well as the voice actors. Jeff Garlan who plays The Captain, loved his part for example and is proud of the work (as well he should be).


I thought the artist was being put under a lot of pressure to represent all of Pixar and the animation industry as a whole. Gack! However, he was patient and took things in good humor, the company can be proud; it was a pleasure to meet him.