Wedding Adventures :: The Creativity Factory

As much as I hate travelogue-style blog entries, I'm making an exception. My sincerest apologies in advance.

Last weekend, I traveled to Oakland, California for my sister's wedding. The whole experience was filled with fabulousness, from the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on to the fact that I could stay in bed after I woke up without children crying for attention in the room next door. However, most people aren't interested in soft mattresses and how long I lounged in bed (the answer is from 4:30 a.m. when I woke up until about 6:30 when I finally gave up on sleeping any longer).

Most people want the hard-hitting news: "How awesome was Pixar?!?!?"

The answer is, of course, pretty dang awesome. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. As part of the wedding festivities, the whole wedding party was invited for a behind-the-scenes peek at the place where Pixar's magic happens. If this seems like an unusual part of a wedding, I should explain that my new brother-in-law has very close ties to the company.

From the top: We were picked up from the hotel in a tour van, which took us directly to Pixar HQ. Our first site of the huge PIXAR sign over the security gate was accompanied by our driver swearing as he hit the sidewalk and couldn't straighten out the van. I could tell this was going to be a fun evening.

When we first stepped into the building, we were flooded with stimulating imagery and sounds. To our left was a giant Sully and Mike (Monsters, Inc.) greeting us. Photo Op #1. Directly ahead of us was a robot (from their feature coming out next year, Wall-E). To our right was a gift shop which I was thrilled to see since my kids had been bugging me for days about bringing them a present from Pixar. My first order of business was, therefore, taking care of my #1 responsibility: keeping the kids happy.

Gift bag in hand, I was free to explore around a bit more. The entrance to Pixar opens into a huge two-story atrium with staircases on both sides leading to the second story. Beyond the staircases is a restaurant on one side, which was tastefully appointed for the dinner we were going to have after the tour. On the right side was Geek Heaven: a ping-pong table, pool table, air hockey table, numerous couches, a huge mural highlighting one of their movies and a plethora of empty liquor bottles. Employees were at ease in this lounge, winding down after work.

We then split into several small groups for tour time. The first place our guide took us was to the one place I was most anxious to see: the signature wall. This is a bright red wall that "voice talent" signs each time it comes to record a show. Names that grace this wall include Larry the Cable Guy (Mater) (which reminds me: the name "Mater" was inspired by another wall signer, "the real Mater" who was apparently a mayor of some town--get it? Mayor? Mater?), Brad Bird & several other Birds (one of which, at least, is Brad's son), Owen Wilson (Lightning McQueen), Bonnie Hunt (Sally from CARS, Flint from Monsters, Inc. and Rosie from A Bug's Life), and of course John Ratzenberger (Mustafa from Ratatouille, Mack from CARS, Underminer from the Incredibles, Fish School from Finding Nemo, the Abominable Snowman from Monsters, Inc., Hamm from Toy Story & Toy Story 2 and P.T. Flea from A Bug's Life.)

We then got to walk through the production area on the main floor where so much magic happens. The place was absolutely bursting with creativity. You could feel it in the air and it wasn't hard to spot all around. We saw, among numerous other things, two-story cubicles, tastefully appointed indoor tuff sheds, walls of quirky drawings, all the moving, singing characters from an old Chuck-E-Cheese, and the original D from the sign over the entrance to Disneyland (in pieces leaning against a cubicle.)


As we walked past an in-office bar where people were kicking back drinking and still at work, our guide told us two interesting things: (1) he had counted seven bars within the walls of Pixar and (2) we better drink up the scenes we saw projected onto the screen because we wouldn't likely see them again until the finished project was released in 2009.

After drinking up the atmosphere of colors, sounds, images and ideas that floated so freely on floor one, we headed upstairs to walk the corridors where a lot of the original artwork for Ratatouille hung. It was fascinating. So many different mediums were used by hand to create the mood, ambiance and universe that was later created digitally. A fascinating process. Later on, after the fabulous eats, we got to enjoy the game room where my husband took a beating at the Foosball table and I jealousy wished the Ping Pong table would open up. We all went home with a book titled, "PIXAR at the Museum of Modern Art." I'm sure I could look at that book for hours.

Many thanks to those who made us so welcome at Pixar and showed us such amazing hospitality.