Pixar Story Process Uncovered

Ever wondered how Pixar artists pitch their storyboards? In this excellent video, we see the awesomely talented Joe Ranft pitch the opening sequence for Toy Story. It's a great insight into how animated films get made, where sequences are worked over and re-worked in the story department long before animators get their hands on them.  When animators worked on paper by hand, many used to move fairly seamlessly between the story dept and the animation dept. Now that our tools are digital, this is less common, but being able to tell a story in pictures is still a great skill for any animator, digital or otherwise.

Here at Bucks we teach storyboarding as part of the animation process. Animators are storytellers, and film is a narrative medium. You can't really understand animation properly without a good grasp of story, storytelling, and how to make the shots flow seamlessly from one to another.

For more on the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days, take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK. Find out why we're giving free laptops to all our students, and why we give all our students free access to videos at Lynda.com. Also, see what financial assistance might be available to you. Learn which is better for animation, a PC or a Mac? Get hold of a copy of a map so you can find your way around campus, and learn aboutmotion capture at Bucks.