What it takes to make a good dinosaur

Damian Gordon//Contributing Writer

“The Good Dinosaur” is Pixar’s latest release and it’s looking to push the technical boundaries of what animated films are capable of.

The film’s premise revolves around a world where Earth was never hit by an asteroid and dinosaurs never went extinct. A young dinosaur named Arlo falls into a river and is separated from his family after an incident in which he loses his father. Arlo meets a cave boy named Spot along the way. They team up to find their way back home to Clawed Tooth Mountain.

The “swept away” river scene alone is 17 terabytes. That is more than all of “Cars 2” and 10 times the amount of what was used to make Monsters University. The rivers are not only a spectacle to look at, but they also serve as a parallel between Arlo and Spot’s relationship as the story progresses.

Some notable voice talent for the movie features Sam Elliot from “Up in the Air” as Butch, Anna Paquin from “True Blood” as Ramsey and A.J. Buckley from “CSI:NY” as Nash.

Pixar artist Sanjay Bakshi took a break from working on “Good Dinosaur” to talk about the upcoming film, studio and more. Bakshi has worked on “The Incredibles”, “Up”, and “Toy Story 3” among numerous other Pixar projects.
Like most movies, the ideas behind Pixar projects change from inception to movie completion.

”Story changes so much over any production. The nugget of the idea, the boy and dog story was there at the beginning. We explored a lot of different ideas, at one point it was more of a western,” Bakshi said.
With the evolution of technology comes the evolution of cinematic art. Bakshi used the Maya 3D program when he first entered the industry. He built upon the knowledge and utilizes it today.

“A big part of my job is actually listening to people and working with people, so that’s something you have to learn. It didn’t come naturally for me to collaborate with people. I feel like I’m always getting better at that.”

The studio is well known for it’s 3D-animated films. On the subject of if Pixar would ever do a full length 2D film, Bakshi says “It’s possible… if a director like Pete Sohn says ‘I want to tell this story about the wilderness and a river’, we’re all scrambling to be able to develop the technologies to make that movie.”

Bakshi continued, “So if a director said, ‘I wanna do this story and the best way to do it is in 2D,’ then we would react and try to help that person tell that story.”

Pixar released “Inside Out” earlier this year. Movies like “Inside Out” are considered a large risk for the studio. This was a high-concept film that turned out to be a critical and financial success. If movies like these continue to succeed, future films like them have better chance of being green lit.

“It’s a different type of movie. A lot of animated movies have a lot of dialogue and are kinda shot the same way. This movie doesn’t have tons of dialogue it’s very cinematic, its observational. I hope that it’s successful just so somebody else gets a chance to try to make an animated movie in a different way,” Bakshi said.

“The Good Dinosaur” comes out Nov. 25 and is expected to live up to Pixar’s successful legacy.