FROM 2007
ANDREW JIMENEZ, RALPH EGGLESTON, KATHERINE SARAFIAN
talk about Pixar's short films

by Scott Wolf

When Andrew Jimenez, Ralph Eggleston, and Katherine Sarafian from Pixar were together at Comic-Con, it gave me the opportunity to talk to them collectively about how Pixar works and a bit about their own careers as well.

Each have worked on many of Pixar's films and also Andrew directed "One Man Band," Ralph directed, "For the Birds," and Katherine produced "Lifted."

HOW THE CONCEPT FOR "ONE MAN BAND" CAME ABOUT

Andrew: Well, the two musicians playing, sort of competing with each other with music, that’s been there from day one, the girl was a later addition. "One Man Band" really started out as a story without even any music in it. It's the hardest thing to do to come up with stories so Mark (Andrews) and I, rather thank trying to come up with a story we would talk about themes we liked or things that we had in common and then when we got down to starting to create the story, I had this idea book that we just kept, it was like a hundred ideas in this book. A lot of them had this theme in it which was whatever the talent is, not even music, just typically writing, sports...whatever the skill is that had to do with somebody being pretty good at something, but when they're not challenged they kind of get lazy and that's just a theme...I'm always fascinated by those people.

I think it was something we’d experienced in L.A. a lot, just this apathy of 'I don't have to try as hard, I have to be good enough to maintain but not explode.’ But then somebody else comes along who's faster, quicker, better at that thing, how does the first person respond to that? They do one of two things: they either say, 'Wow! That’s amazing! I want to work with you, let me learn from you.' They either do that which is the rarer of the two, what most people do is they get threatened by you. They have to either get you out of there so you never even make an appearance or compete with you. We had a lot of different ideas that had that theme in it.

I’m a really avid soundtrack listener, I listen to a lot of movie scores. The purpose of a music score film is to add the meaning behind a moment or accentuate a moment but always kind of in the background. I thought a movie where the music wasn’t in the background but it was the actual intent and dialogue of the characters would be good. Then it was just like “boom!” These are two street musicians fighting each other, so that’s where that came from.

HOW THE CONCEPT FOR "LIFTED" CAME ABOUT

Katherine: Gary Rydstrom, the Director, had this idea from his sound design days. Gary is a seven time Academy Award winner for sound design and sound effects editing, sound mixing. So for twenty years of his career he worked in front of this huge console of buttons and knobs that are not very well labeled.

He did “Saving Private Ryan,” he did “Titanic,” he did “Terminator 2.” He’s a highly regarded sound designer. He worked with this big board. He always had a director behind him judging him and saying, “Change this. Change this.” That combined with his high school driver’s ed. instructor, who also used to sit quietly and made notes, kind of came together for him. He said, “The toughest age to be is sixteen years old… a teenager, being judged by somebody while sitting at a big board that made no sense.” To him that’s pain and comedy all in one… a teenager being judged at a board that he calls the world’s worst user-interface.

So it was Gary’s idea from the beginning.

HOW THE CONCEPT FOR "FOR THE BIRDS" CAME ABOUT

Ralph: “For the Birds” was a school project I had as a design project. Someone suggested that I should make a short film out of it. I just couldn’t imagine having to draw all of those birds. This was before computer animation kicked in. So I didn’t do it. I set it down and when they had a call for short films at Pixar I kind of pulled it out of the “trunk” and they liked it.

More from Pixar's Andy, Ralph and Katherine:
How Pixar's different from other studios
Katherine's start with Pixar
Andy & Ralph's start with Pixar

See other interviews

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