Pixar Cooks Up A Story

The Reporter (Vacaville, California) recently published an article on how Ratatouille's designers, including Mark Andrews, conducted their research for the animation studio's latest film:

"It was fun, but not in a recreational sense. We didn't have a whole lot of time to just hang out," Andrews said. "It was very structured. You're really trying to put on your observer's hat because what you retain goes back into the movie."

The trip included a motorcycle tour of Paris, visits to the city's sewer system and an exterminator's shop, as well as a few gut-busting gourmet meals. It also became a shared experience for the director and his story supervisor - and aided the creative process of making a great movie.

"Brad would go, 'You know this part where Linguini is going to kill Remy. We need someplace really moody and we need to get out into Paris,' " Andrews said, recalling a collaborative story session. "I'm like, 'What if we do it down by the Seine? Remember there was this bridge that we rode under during our motorcycle tour? And remember how the mist came off the river?' And Brad was like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah! Let's put it there.' "

"We could pick locations because we had been there," Andrews said.

Research for "Ratatouille" continued inside Pixar's Emeryville studios with live rats and cooking lessons for the nine members of Andrews' storyboarding team and many of the film's animators.

"To really observe how rats move, you got to be with them 24/7," Andrews said. "To know how to chop correctly or put stuff in a bowl correctly, or prep your food correctly, you have to learn how to do it."

The article also goes on to discuss how the film went from Jan Pinkava's tale to Brad Bird's direction:

While most everyone liked Pinkava's wildly inventive idea of this plucky little rat who aspires to be a great chef, Bird was brought on board to spice up a story that wasn't quite working. Unfortunately, the clock was ticking and Bird was facing a tight 18-month deadline. The preferred production schedule for an animated film is three years.

One of the things Bird had to do in taking over "Ratatouille" was to make it his movie, Andrews said.

"(Pinkava) had got 'Ratatouille' up to this point where we had all these assets," he said. "We had sets, we had characters, we had all this stuff, so that helped greatly. But we didn't have a lot of time. We had to get the story to Brad and get it working solid."

It was a bit of a struggle at first. But after enjoying a break for the Christmas holiday, Andrews said both he and Bird came back inspired.

"Brad says, 'I have some radical ideas,' and I say, 'I've got a radical idea,' " Andrews said. "I tell him mine and he's like, 'That's perfect.' And then he tells me his and I'm saying, 'That's fantastic.'

"(Bird) cut out most of the rat family. Remy had more brothers, sisters, a mother, an uncle. There were, like, eight storylines. We cut it down to one: It's Remy's story.

"I killed off the rat family when they go down the sewer drain and Remy gets separated. That was my radical idea - get the rats out of the picture and then bring them back at the most inopportune time. It put the focus on Remy and worked out great.

"Then Brad killed Gusteau (a chef Remy idolized who believed that anyone can cook). Gusteau's dead; he's a figment of Remy's imagination."

The plot and the structure were basically the same, but the whole story sort of transformed.

So be sure to head over to The Reporter to read the rest of the informative article.

Thanks Leo for sending us the story!