toystoryfanatics

[toystoryfanatics]

Personnel Involved in the Process

The Toy Story 1 is a computer-animated comedy movie that was popular in 1995 (Northian, 2015) while Toy Story 4 was released in 2019. Both movies have an amazing bunch of people that play a significant role in creating the movie. Toy Story 1 was directed by Mr. John Lasseter who worked first in the Walt Disney Company but decided to create his own company, Pixar Animation Studios, together with the world’s most skilled computer scientist at that time, Mr. Ed Catmull and Mr. William “Bill” Reeves. Moreover, Mr. Lasseter cannot accomplish this amazing movie on his own that is why he created a group of talented artists to portray the role and voice of each toy in the movie. Mr. John Lasseter has been involved in the whole Toy Story Franchise as the director of the first and second movie while being one of the writers for the four movies. Josh Cooley is a new director and writer for Toy Story 4, even though he was not involved in the past three Toy Story movies, his reputation in the animation industry has become phenomenal in the past decades. The famous personalities in the movie were Mr. Tim Allen, Mr. Tom Hanks, Mrs. Annie Potts which played the role of Buzz, Woody, and Bo Peep, respectively. Furthermore, to make the movie more interesting Mr. Randy NewMan created beautiful songs that embody the story of the characters perfectly. These voice actors carried out the whole franchise especially the main gang until the final movie, Toy Story 4.

Figure 1. Portrait of John Lasseter and Josh Cooley.

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Objective of the Movie

Both movies express the idea of having a movie where the cast were toys. In addition to that, Mr. Catmull stated in the documentary that they want non-living things like toys to have their own life. While Toy Story 1 aims to create the first computer-animated film, Toy Story 4 aims to release an animated movie showing how much the animation industry has evolved and is capable of producing. The Toy Story Franchise has achieved such goals in which they received such respectable awards from different major ceremonies such as the Oscars and The Golden Globes.

Figure 2. Woody talking to Ducky and Bunny

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Tools or Software Used

In the documentary, it is stated there that during the 1970s the only animation is just a piece of light moving around. Mr. Lasster saw potential in this animation and inspired him to create a movie with moving objects which act like people. The animation is being drawn first by the artist then being polished and animated on the computer. Furthermore, during that time the sound effects are produced by the use of real material shown in the animation. In addition, the voice of the toys is being recorded by a mic in an enclosed room.

Figure 3. Disney’s Sound Production Process

Figure 4. Toy Story 1 Animation Process

Figure 5. Annie Potts voice acting as Bo Peep

The process of making the movie franchise has become more complex from the first movie to the fourth. This complexity has become vital to the success of the franchise requiring the studio to use advanced software and technology. The studio created and used software called “RenderMan” that can render scenes and frames faster than any animator from the first movie can ever imagine. The team also used advanced software of shaders showing how a texture of a toy would look like. Take a look at the Buzz from Toy Story 1 compared to a Buzz from Toy Story 4.

Figure 6. Texturing and Rendering Comparison

Another breakthrough for the film was the inclusion of advanced Physics Simulators. These physics simulators help the animators in the consistency of reality, such as how the fabric flows, how light touches the toys, how fast the raindrops, how toys fly, and much more.

Figure 7. Raining Scene from Toy Story 4

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Design of the Characters

Since the company is one of the first creators of computer-animated films they start from scratch in terms of creating the designs of the characters in Toy Story 1. It is observable that the color, texture, and lighting of the objects in the movie are not that fine. In other words, it is still not yet realistic when it comes to the designs.

Figure 8. Woody and Buzz talking scene from Toy Story 1

On the other hand, the designs of the characters improved drastically in toy story 4 compared to toy story 1 in terms of the design details of each character. Every part and clothing of each character are detailed to its utmost potential which portrays their history, age, struggles, and more. Some examples of these are scratches in Woody's hat, Buzz lightyear’s aging sticker, and Little Bo-Peep’s clothes.

Figure 9. Woody Hat Scratches in Toy Story 4

Figure 10. Bo Peep’s Clothes in Toy Story 4

Figure 11. Buzz Aging Sticker in Toy Story 4

[toystoryfanatics]

Animation

The animation of toy story 1 is not that good if it will be evaluated in today’s time. It also has a lot of limitations just like the details of the face of the toys that were shown in the movie.

Figure 12. Staring Dog Scene in Toy Story 1

The animation of Toy Story 4 is much more complicated than Toy Story 1. Cheng et al. (2020) stated that animation starts with the modeling of characters, along with the storyboard which is the inspiration of each scene, then animating each character using different kinds of software and different people under the animation team with the Simulation team giving animation to objects in the movie like clothes, fur, and more.

Figure 13. Toy Story 4 Animation Process

This animation created is soon improved and given to the shading team where more shading and lighting are given to each scene of the movie to give more life to the characters in the movie. This process is made for each scene of the movie and is said to take roughly 8 weeks per scene. Comparing it to Toy Story 1, the animations have greatly improved and more life was given to the movie making it better in terms of animation.

Figure 14. Shaded Scene in Toy Story 4

[toystoryfanatics]

Settings

There are also differences in terms of the setting of the two movies. The setting of Toy Story 1 only focuses on indoor shots which were Andy’s and Sid’s house. In contrast, Toy Story 4 had more scenes outdoors. Schaffstall (2019) stated that most of the plot happened in the San Francisco Bay Area which is located in California. The Francisco Bay Area is also known as the “Tri-state Area” as it lies across three states.

Figure 15. Setting Comparison

[toystoryfanatics]

Quality of the Movie

"If we try to use Toy Story 2, Woody, it's like putting a CD-ROM into a Blu-ray player," director Josh Cooley says. "It just wouldn't work." In this statement, the director said that there should be improvements in the movie’s quality or else it would not feel modern. This was achieved through the equipment and tools used in Toy Story 4 which are far more advanced compared to the past movies of Toy Story. The people who made the movie gave attention to more detail that includes the colors of each character, the lighting, and the general tone of each scene in the movie. This made the movie’s quality increase as each scene gives the viewers proper impressions and gave some aspects of the movie more realistic.

Figure 16. Quality Comparison

[toystoryfanatics]

References

Al-Heeti, A. (2019). Toy story 4 shows how far Pixar’s animation has come. CNET. https://cnet.co/3hjUPKC

Cheng, S., Geaghan-Breiner, M., & Desiderio, K. (2020). Pixar’s “Toy Story 4” won the Oscar for best animated feature. Take a closer look at how the movie was animated from start to finish. Insider. https://www.insider.com/pixar-disney-toy-story-4-how-animated-start-finish-2019-7#:~:text=For%20%22Toy%20Story%204%2C%22,each%20scene%20will%20go%20down.

Insider. (2019). How Pixar’s ‘Toy Story 4’ Was Animated | Movies Insider [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT_LdcWFHkA

Insider. (2019). How Pixar’s Animation Has Evolved Over 24 Years, From ‘Toy Story’ To ‘Toy Story 4’ | Movies Insider [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTPKGVrFtQU Schaffstall, K. (2019). Everything to Know About ‘Toy Story 4.’ The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/toy-story-4-everything-know-disney-pixar-animated-film-1202689/

VHSfx. (2013). The Making of Toy Story - (1995) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VdERcRJ3jI&ab_channel=VHSfx

Zorthan, J. (2015). How Toy Story Changed Movie History. Time. https://time.com/4118006/20-years-toy-story-pixar/