Notice Anything Familiar In Pixar Animations?
Steve K
Posts: 3,232
Yup, if you look quick:
https://www.facebook.com/PixarToyStory/videos/10154597909999130/
Comments
so they reused all their models as extras in their other movies
cheapskates
They also used many of the same voice actors, and even at the end of Cars (I think) had a short joking about it.
I think the character actually says, "What kind of cheap outfit is this?"
Quite funny, actually.
Quite nice also to see them re-use and even plug some of their other characters.
Yes, I'm pretty sure that was Jonn Ratzenberger ("Cliff" in "Cheers"), who has been a voice actor in every Pixar animation. He was the perfect choice for the gag you mention.
That's ok, Michael Bay is the worst of them, he have reused complete scenes from Pearl Harbor -> Transformers (ship) and from The Island -> Transformers (truck), and it's pretty common, there are recycled explosions in Star Trek Movies and also Back To The Future II reused a scene from Back To The Future I.
I think it was Ed Wood ("Plan 9 From Outer Space"), a great user of stock footage, who once said he could make an entire movie from stock footage. I actually tried this once with a big collection from Digital Juice, 34 DVD's. The result was ... well, "forgettable" is probably the kindest word.
I recall a full length (I think) movie made entirely from old Western B movie clips. It actually made sense, sort of, since all those movies were basically the same movie made over and over. But I can't find it online.
This sound effect may be the alltime king of reuse, more than 225 movies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_scream
It makes sense - background objects and characters still need to be designed and constructed, even if they are only on screen for less than a second. So it saves a bunch of time and money. Almost no-one will recognise them and for those that do, it's a nice little "Easter Egg" for them. And if someone produces a reel like this on re-used models, it's all good publicity for the films. Everyone's a winner!
For the movie, Up, there is a flash-back scene where the villain of the movie is departing in his airship with a crowd of people sending him off. The perspective is looking over the heads of the crowd at the airship, so all PIXAR animators did was model the hats and animate them. Brilliant!
That's the importance of doing pre-production work - if you know the camera angles and what will be seen in the shot, you only need to model that rather than making lots of stuff that won't be seen.