Elyse Klaidman is the director of PIXAR Animation Studio’s archives as well as the director of PIXAR University (PIXAR’s internal training program for the staff to learn the newest software and progress their fine art skills). She and her team assembled the artwork for PIXAR: 25 Years of Animation currently showing at The Oakland Museum.

Q: You originally started out at PIXAR as a drawing teacher, correct?

Exactly. I was hired by Ed Catmull in 1996 to teach a drawing class. There was about 120 people in the company at that time.

Q: And how did you get the connection to become hired at PIXAR?

I was teaching. I worked with Betty Edwards, who wrote the book Drawing on The Right Side of the Brain and I had been one of her teachers. I had taught around the world with her and I was teaching out of my studio locally. A woman who was an artist at PIXAR took my class, before Toy Story came out. She recommended me to Ed Catmull, who is the president of the company, he had actually been looking for someone specifically to teach Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

Q: How has PIXAR: 25 Years of Animation changed over the last five years or so?

It is an exhibit that has grown over the years and changed as we’ve added new films and artwork from those films, but it is essentially the same concept and structure as the original exhibition PIXAR: 20 Years of Animation, with some relatively minor changes. The exhibit started at the MOMA New York in December 2005, and has been traveling around the world since then. The Oakland Museum is the 14th museum to display the exhibit, and as it’s traveled, it’s evolved. We work closely with each museum – they know what they’re getting largely, but then each museum has their own goals and their own ideas, and we add artwork from the newer films. It shifts and evolves along the way.

Q: Awesome! I understand the Oakland Museum has just finished expanding their exhibition space. Was the PIXAR exhibit the first to use this space?

We are the first temporary exhibition. They had opened the museum about 2 months before.

Q: Was the movie displayed on three projectors made for the Oakland Museum or was that already part of the exhibition?

That was already part of the exhibition. It was completely created as a media installation piece to accompany the rest of the exhibit, using the artwork itself in a very high resolution format that gives people the experience and illusion of entering into the magic of our imaginations and where the artwork takes us as far as the potential for one of our films. It’s technically higher resolution and more frames per second than anything you normally see, so it has an incredibly vibrant and detailed look.

Q: Many people, when they first think of PIXAR, immediately think of digital animation, but of course there’s a lot more that goes into that. How do you view PIXAR as a company itself? How is it different than competitors?

What I think is magical about PIXAR is the collaboration between art and technology. We are so clearly focused on what we love to do, which is to visually tell stories through animation, and it’s a process that takes a lot of

amazing people and constantly pushing the edge of technology. Innovating and changing is so inspiring to the artists, and the artists are all so continuously inspiring. The scientists and the technology allow to create new ways of visually telling those stories and the back and forth between all of these people is really one of the things that makes this place most extraordinary. This exhibition is able to share with the world that we’re not just pressing buttons on the computer and magically out comes a film. There is this incredibly artistic process that’s at the heart and foundation of our storytelling.

Q: And are you still involved with your original role as a drawing teacher, despite your new role as Director of PIXAR University?

The exhibition is a part of the archives of PIXAR University, which is our internal education and training department. I do not teach art classes very often. Once in a while I’ll teach a short class just because there’s so much else going on in my world, but a number of our other folks on staff do teach art classes, and as a matter of fact, they still teach the original class that I was brought in to teach [Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain].

Q: At what stage are you most involved in the making and developing of the PIXAR films? Are you more involved in preproduction, or towards the end when everything is coming together?

We don’t work directly in making the films. The drawings and paintings you see in the exhibit were directly part of the film making process. I look at the work and select artwork that’s beautiful and represents the film and represents the film making process. In terms of the PIXAR University side, we’re there to support any type of education, training, or needs that the filmmakers have and that the whole studio at large has. So in some ways you could say we are supportive of the film making process in the beginning, middle and end!

Interview by: Lauren Pattersonfrom PRESS - ISSUE 2A