Behind the Scenes at Pixar – How Projects are Chosen: “At Pixar, the movies are director-driven. What I mean by that is that really the stories that the directors choose, they writ e - and they come from their own hearts. We’re the only studio that’s like that. All the other studios are executive-driven. The movies are picked by executives in development and directors are assigned to them. So in the case of me, I pick stuff I like, you know? It’s like toys, bugs, more toys, and now Cars.
Cars was great. When I was making Bug’s Life I came up with the idea of doing something with cars. I grew up in Los Angeles. As you know, it’s car culture capitol. Cars are so important to everybody there. My dad was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership, so I’ve always loved cars.
At Pixar, we always choose the subject matter of our films that really lend itself to our medium of 3-D computer animation. I love matching the technology with the imagery in a way. I thought that you’ve seen a lot of animated cars through the history of animation, but I thought we could really bring them alive with the chrome bumpers, the metal flake paint, the rubber tires, the glass, in a way that no one has seen it before. Just kind of feel like you can reach out and touch it. I thought this could be really something, something really special.”
Directing and Juggling Other Duties at Pixar: Lasseter became more involved in the production aspects at Pixar after finishing Toy Story 2 in 1999. Returning to directing with Cars meant he had to figure out how to really manage his time. “Of all the things I do in my job, that’s the most challenging. What I do, because directing a movie you’re involved with every tiny little aspect - it’s really 110% of your time and focus - and so what I’ve done is I work very closely with Andrew Stanton. He’s like my right-hand man at Pixar. Up until the recent merger with Disney, I was the Executive VP of Creative. I made him my VP of Creative, so he kind of helps out overseeing the other projects, as I got so focused on my film. We’d leapfrog that way. I helped him make Finding Nemo and let him just stay focused on that, and I was overseeing Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles and starting to develop Cars. We kind of do this, we work together this way at the studio.
Early on I wanted to make Pixar a place that was more than just ‘John Lasseter makes a movie’ It’s a studio with really talented people and directors, and that was really important for us. We made the choice after Toy Story 2 that I was going to take some time to help develop the studio and these other directors. Meanwhile, I was developing my next project: Cars. That’s why I started on December 1999, but I was sort of slowly developing it as all these other projects were being made. Already, after Cars, I was going to take time to work with all the other directors. We have more directors and more films to be made. That’s why it’s a natural thing with my new job working with Disney, I’ll be helping the directors down there, as well.”
