Chatting and eating s’mores with The Good Dinosaur Director Peter Sohn, Producer Denise Ream, Supervising Technical Director Sanjay Bakshi and Lighting, Sharon Calahan #GoodDinoEvent

I was recently treated to a campfire chat with The Good Dinosaur Director Peter Sohn, Producer Denise Ream, Supervising Technical Director Sanjay Bakshi and Sharon Calahan who was in charge of Lighting. We all sat and chatted like a group of old friends talking about their most recent adventure. A chat filled with amazing exciting stories and slide show. A reception like only Pixar could hold, complete with a singing cowboy! There were plenty of treats from campfire chili, and corn bread, to s'mores and ice cream and cookies. 

When you make a Pixar movie, there is more that goes into it than you could ever imagine. From the initial brainstorming, drawing, modeling writing and eventual digital animation. That seems like a lot right? Well there is much more than just that, the great folks at Pixar want to make sure they are giving you the right look for their most recent film The Good Dinosaur, that a few of them took a trip out to the Midwest to experience life on the land to really get the feel of how things would look and should look for The Good Dinosaur . 

A research trip for a digital cartoon? Yes! They take their work seriously and want the film to look as realistic as possible.  The group visited the Great Teton’s, Colorado, and Oregon.  The group wanted to get the real feel how it would be like to be out in the mountains all alone like Arlo was in The Good Dinosaur.  

Peter Sohn, like myself is from a big city, being from New York he had never gone to the Midwest, being from Philadelphia I too have never gone on a camping trip like this, the closest I have ever been was flying over the Midwest. I know city life, I am a proud city slicker… a cowboy life? Not so much... I would feel like a fish out of water, but I am sure an experience like this would be fun. Peter Sohn wanted to  “go out there and get lost and start researching” the amazingness of nature “pictures could not describe it everything was horizon to horizon….this trip kind of changed my life.”

Interesting fact, the two lady guides they had on the trip were rough and tough real cowgirls. They only had  a horse, a dog and a gun living own their own in Colorado. The T-rex in the movie The Good Dinosaur is named Ramsey and she was inspired by this cowgirl.

These trips were not one time trips, they traveled back to the Teton area the next spring just to see if the snow was melting and take more and more photos. According to Sanjay Bakshi “part of it was to see if there would be difference seasons in our film and trying to showcase different seasons.”

Producer Denise Ream felt that “Films … from Pixar feel so rich and authentic and that was something that was really important to us. So taking pictures of the most minute details.” The group took hundreds and hundreds of pictures to be able to compare drawings, and great a real look for the landscapes in the film. Denise Ream   “even a dinosaur is going to feel tiny out here which was overwhelming” Visiting and taking photos seem to be all you need.. right? No, you have to go even further! 

To capture the feel of the water in the area, the team went rafting! The water was so rough that some fell out of the boat (I would have been scared to death!) and they even lost their Go Pro! It took its own adventure down the  river, but they did eventually find it! When you see The Good Dinosaur you will be amazed with the landscape in the film, the folks at Pixar have outdone themselves. The look of the water is spectacular, it looks so real, everything about it just screams a real video not a digital cartoon. 
According to Peter Sohn, Sharon helped capture the magic of the water scenes. “Sharon Callahan paints, it’s every color of the rainbow on the river, she understands the science why the footage looks the way it does is because of Sharon's understanding of what refraction's can do and how light bounces off. Just to understand that science of it and the beauty of it is amazing."

Here is a picture of myself and Peter Sohn, I texted this picture to my husband and he replied back, holy cow you met Russel! I wrote, back and said no his name is Peter! He wrote back to me that Peter was the physical model of Russel from Up! Russel is my husbands favorite Pixar character.  After meeting with these guys, I really have a new appreciation a the extreme attention to detail Pixar strives for.  I cannot wait to take my family to go see The Good Dinosaur, I loved the 30-40 minute preview I got to see on this trip, I laughed I cried and was in awe.. I am looking forward to sharing this wonder with my family when The Good Dinosaur hits theaters on November 25^th 2015.

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The Good Dinosaur is in Theaters on 11/25/15

   ****Disney provided me with an all-expense paid trip for me to cover this great event **** 

 



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