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DIRECTOR’S CHAIR Lee Unkrich— T H By IAIN BLAIR He edited the first, co-directed the second, and is at the helm of the third. OLLYWOOD — Hard to believe but it’s been 11 long years since Woody, Buzz, Mr. Potato Head and the rest of the gang hit the theaters in Toy Story 2. In Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3, the toys’ owner, Andy, is going off to college and the toys have been donated to a daycare center where they meet Ken, Lotso-Huggin’ Bear and some other new toys. Meanwhile, the franchise continues to dazzle the eyes while exploring weighty themes of change and growing up. Here, in an exclusive interview with Post, director Lee Unkrich (co-director of Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo) talks about making the film, the challenges involved and the CG tools that made it all possible. POST: You’ve been onToy Story since edit- ing the first one back in 1995. Do you feel like you’ve also grown up with the project? LEE UNKRICH: “Yes, definitely. I was in my mid-20s when I edited the first one. I’m 42 now, and I’ve got kids. All that percolated into this one.” POST: What sort of film did you set out to make, and what were the chal- lenges you faced in producing an animated film of this scale? UNKRICH: “The first challenge was to make a film worthy of the other two, which are very beloved — we didn’t want to dis- appoint anyone. I think it was important to set it this many years after the last one, with Andy heading off to college, as that put the toys in a real crisis. “From a design standpoint, I really wanted to take advantage of the current state of technology and artistry.We’re able to make really beautiful films now, as evi- denced by Ratatouille and Up, and I wanted this to look just as great, but it had to still feel like Toy Story. So we spent a lot of time on how to achieve that and make it as visu- ally rich as possible.” POST: When did you decide to do it in 3D, and how did that affect the whole approach? UNKRICH: “We knew from the get-go it’d be in 3D.We released Up in 3D, and the plan is for all our films now to be released in 3D, but that choice didn’t affect my film- making — nor Pete Docter’s on Up. “In both cases we just tried to make great films and applied the same vigorous visual style to them that we would whether it’s 2D or 3D.We’re not interested 12 Post • July 2010 Lee Unkrich: “We are not interested in 3D gimmickry and things flying out of the scr een. For us, it’s just a window into a dimensional world; we never want the 3D aspect to overshadow the story.” UNKRICH: “Yes, we don’t make it in 3D. We make it in 2D and then we have a whole team that creates the 3D version. For live-ac- tion 3D, you have to shoot with 3D rigs on the set and make a lot of choices on the set. We’re so lucky since our whole world is vir- tual and malleable. So it’s just a matter of set- ting up a second camera on the same set for the 3D, and while there are variables that need to be tweaked, it’s not much more complicated than that.That’s why we could resurrect the data and create 3D versions of the first two Toy Story films that we released last year, even though we never had any in- tention of doing them in 3D.” POST: Obviously, this all required a very complicated digital pipeline. Can you describe how that worked? UNKRICH: “It all began with working very closely with Michael Arndt, our screen- writer. In animation, the screenplay is just the jumping off point, and you do a lot of story development using story reels. I have a whole story department of guys who draw very elaborate storyboards, not as previs, but as a rough draft. www.postmagazine.com ented artists and production designers de- signing the world and look of the film, and all the different sets.” POST: Is it tricky meshing the two processes? UNKRICH: “Yes, as you don’t want to over-design something if you’re not sure it’s going to be in the final film. Since our story process is so iterative, over two years and more, you run a lot of risks that you’re ex- pending creative effort for nothing. Luckily on this, it was a very efficient process and we didn’t throw out any major ideas. “So we’d design all the characters and colors and textures and costumes and sets and props, and once all those models are built in the computer and articulated — and the technical directors put all the controls into the models for the animators to use — and after we’ve recorded the final actors’ voices with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen and the rest of the cast, all the animators finally start their work.That’s when the film comes to life.We had about 80 animators and they did over 90 minutes of animation.” POST: In a sense, it seems like one big post process, with the editor at the center? oy Story 3 in 3D gimmickry and stuff flying out of the screen. For us, it’s just a window into a di- mensional world; we never want the 3D as- pect of it to take away or overshadow the story in any way.” POST: Don’t you animate in 2D and then have to re-render for 3D? “Then we edit those together with temp music and dialogue on the Avid to create a story reel.That gives us a rough version we can watch, and we spent two-and-a-half years writing and rewriting and re-story- boarding it until we were happy with it. At the same time, we have a lot of very tal-