Pixar Founder, Utah Native Talks About Latest Film

Pixar Founder, Utah Native Talks About Latest Film


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John Hollenhorst reporting One of the most anticipated films of the year opens, tomorrow.

It's the latest offering from the Pixar Company. And if it's a hit, it will be another feather in the hat for Utah native Ed Catmull.

He not only founded Pixar, he's one of the pioneers of computer animation.

"Cars", Pixar/Walt Disney: "Morning sleeping beauty!! Hah, hah, hah! I was wondering when you was going to wake up."

Could it possibly work? A movie about talking trucks and chatty cars?

"Where am I?"

"Shoot! You're in radiator springs."

You ought to bet on it being a success, based on the track record of Pixar. It's the company that brought you the comic adventures of toys in "Toy Story", fish in "Finding Nemo" and cartoon superheroes in "The Incredibles".

Now a movie called, simply, "Cars."

Pixar Founder, Utah Native Talks About Latest Film

Ed Catmull, President, Pixar-Disney Animation Studios: "The story basically is about a race car who gets stuck in a town that gets bypassed by the freeway."

Ed Catmull started Salt Lake and set Hollywood on fire. The company he founded, Pixar, showed that computer animation could breathe life into almost anything.

Ed Catmull, President, Pixar-Disney Animation Studios: "Insects, superheroes, none of it is the real world. Films are fantasy. They're not about the real world. We all live in the real world. The whole idea is to use fantasy as way of informing us and teaching and touching people."

Cars and trucks are, well, shiny. So bringing them to life required special computer techniques to capture the reflectiveness.

Ed Catmull, President, Pixar-Disney Animation Studios: "So this is a great looking film. Story is the heart of everything we do. But at the same time we try to knock ourselves out with something that's drop dead gorgeous."

And just what is the story?

Ed Catmull, President, Pixar-Disney Animation Studios: "It's really an American story about technological change and how you hang on to your values as you go through that technical change."

Even before "Cars" proves itself at the box office, the next Pixar film is in the works. It's about a rat in Paris who wants to be a chef. The title? "Ratatouille".

Catmull is part of a group of University of Utah alumni who are often credited with being the Founding Fathers of computer graphics.

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