The Troubled Story of Toy Story (Part 2: The Production)

Hello, welcome to part 2 on the troubled development history of Toy Story. Sorry about the long wait. Lots of stuff I have done in real life, which is really killing me since it resulted in my writer's block. Also, it's a real pain in the ass to survive COVID-19. But now I'm back on track. Before I continue, I just want to say that I saw Toy Story 4 last year in theaters. I didn't want to see the movie because I thought it would be a cash grab. Now that I have seen the film, I can honestly say that this is another winner in the Toy Story series, with an interesting story and characters, great visuals, and genuine heart. A surprisingly good sequel. Now we got Toy Story 4 out of the way, let's move on!

Let's Back Up A Bit!

Before we continue the story behind Toy Story, I think a brief mention on how Disney was operating between the mid-80's and early-90's is in order. In 1984, 18 years after Walt's death, the company was threatened by a hostile corporate takeover from financier Saul Steinberg, who intends to sell some of the company's assets. Attempting to save the company, Walt's nephew, Roy E. Disney hired 3 executives from outside studios. The outsiders were Paramount's Michael Eisner and Jeffery Katzenberg, and Warner Bros' Frank Wells. Their output in the studio resulted in what was called The Disney Renaissance, an era of Disney animated films that lasted between 1989 (or 1988 if you count Who Framed Roger Rabbit) to 1999. With the studio's new influence in Hollywood greatly increased, Disney was looking forward to expand it's empire, which leads to an independent computer animation company called Pixar, who signed a contract with Disney in 1991.

Early Development, Casting, and Temporary Shutdown

During the early 90's, Pixar was focusing on television commercials and were planning to make a Christmas special based on their Oscar-winning 1988 short film Tin Toy. When the Pixar singed Disney's contract, the Christmas special was scrapped in favor of a feature length animated film. Originally, the feature film was conceived as an expansion for Tinny, the main character from Tin Toy. Early ideas feature Tinny teaming up with a ventriloquist dummy, and together they embark on a sprawling adventure. At this point, it was decided that Tinny was too "vintage" to be played with, so Tinny was scrapped and was replaced by a spaced themed action figure named Buzz Lightyear. As for the ventriloquist dummy, he will later be transformed into a cowboy pull-string doll named Woody, partially inspired by a pull string doll director John Lasseter had as a child. Lasseter liked he contrast of the western and science fiction genres and included it in the film. Inspired by buddy films like 48 Hrs and Midnight Run, Lasseter decided to turn the project into a buddy/adventure film.

Once the concept has been established, screenwriters Joel Cohen (not to be confused with the Cohen Brothers), Joss Whedon (yes, that Joss Whedon), Alec Sokolow, and Pixar story man Andrew Stanton were hired to write the screenplay. 

After the script was finally approved, it was time to cast the film. For starters, Woody was created with Tom Hanks in mind.

To convince Tom Hanks to provide the voice of Woody, they made an animation test with sound clips taken from the 1989 comedy Turner and Hooch. Hanks later saw the test and agreed to take part in the film. 

For the role of Buzz Lightyear, Billy Crystal was offered, but he turned it down (Crystal said that this is the biggest regret of his career). So they turned to stand up comic turned TV star Tim Allen, then known for his work on Home Improvement. 

Toy Story is the first animated film they ever worked on and they recorded their lines together to make Woody and Buzz Lightyear's relationship more believable.

Throughout development, Jeffery Katzenberg, then chairman at Disney, often interfere with Lasseter and his team because he wanted the movie to be more "edgy" to appeal for an older audience. This lead to stripping Woody away from his charm and turning him into a cold-hearted character. Tom Hanks even admitted that Woody has turned into an unlikable character.

    

On November 19, 1993, Lasseter and his team showed an early version of the film (in edited storyboard form) to Disney. The test screening bombed. Disney executives were shocked by it's grim tone and unlikable characters. They even considered shutting down the project, but Lasseter and company begged for a second chance. Disney reluctantly agrees. By early 1994, the Pixar team came back to Disney with a new script, this time altering Woody's character from egotistical tyrant, to a wise and gentle leader. After Disney executives read the new script, the film was finally back into production.

Design and Animation

To design the world of Toy Story, art director Ralph Eggelston was tasked to create the color scheme and look of them. Eggelston and the art department would draw concept art, so that the final look will be approved.

Once the designs are approved, they are later formed into blueprints called "model packs", which will instruct modelers and technical directors to create these designs into the computer. 

To model characters with complex and believable organic curves, clay statues were sculpted into the computer by an electronic device called a digitizer. A grid was drawn into the sculpture so a technical director would connect the surface dots. 

Layout artists are the camera crew for computer animation. They arrange the character models into position and create camera movements that are common for live action film making. The "camerawork" in Toy Story is not done by a physical camera, but by a virtual program in the computer.

After layout is finished, the characters are ready to be animated. First, they animate the rough body positions, then they go into finer details, like facial animation. Each character's articulation and motion controls acre coded, so the animators were given the freedom to move them in a variety of ways, such as talking, running, walking, or jumping. Out of all of the characters, Woody was the most complex, as he required over 700 animation controls, including 212 for his face and 58 for his mouth. The animators often videotape themselves as references to create realistic movements. For the Green Army Men scene, the animators nailed tennis shoes to a board and filmed themselves wearing them.

After the characters are animated, it's time to apply the surfaces of the characters and objects by shading. The purpose of shading is to define the surface, its texture and color, and how it interacts with light. Examples of shading includes scratches on wood, rough asphalt of streets, and dirt on cars. Some of these surfaces came from real sources. For example, the curtain fabric in Andy's room is created by scanning real cloth. These details were often too time consuming and expensive to draw frame-by-frame in traditional animation. Lighting is done by breaking the shot down into various light sources, then they combined them until the desired effect was achieved. 

  

Some details, like smoke and rain, requires some complex visual effects work ever created for an animated feature film. The rain on Sid's window is actually a moving surface model that is later "mapped" into the glass.

Smoke, fire, and sparks are created by a program called Particle Systems. Particle Systems renders these effects as a pattern containing a large quantity of randomly moving shapes. So details like smoke is actually a large number of tiny objects moving together randomly within a fixed path. 

After all of the tools of computer animation have been completed, it's still needed to be transferred to 35mm film before its theatrical release. To transfer the film into final color, red, blue, and green filters were combined and scanned digitally into film.

Music, Editing, and Pre-Release

 

Disney was concerned about with Lasseter's position with the use of music. Unlike most animated films at the time, Lasseter did not want the film to be a musical. But Disney favored the musical format. So a compromise was reached, the characters will not break into song, but the film will use non-diegetic songs over the action to convey and amplify the emotions Woody and Buzz Lightyear were feeling. Hollywood musician Randy Newman was hired to compose the film and sound designer Gary Rydstrom was hired to create sound effects and mix the final audio.

Two scenes were animated, but were cut from the final film. The first scene shows Sid torturing Buzz Lightyear before he burned Woody's forehead with a magnifying glass. This was cut from the movie because they felt that the audience would love Woody and Buzz by that point.

The second scene shows an extended version of the scene when Woody is trapped into the milk crate while a rocket is strapped on Buzz's back. This scene was shortened because it slowed the movie down.

Reportedly, executive producer and Pixar/Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wasn't confident in the movie and was considering to sell Pixar to companies like Hallmark or Microsoft. As the film was near completion, Jobs became increasingly excited about the movie, feeling that he's on the verge of transforming the film industry. Disney finally announced that the movie would be released during the 1995 holiday season.

Release and Legacy

Toy Story finally hit theaters in November 22, 1995. It became a critical and commercial smash, grossing over $373.6 million at the box office. Critics such as Roger Ebert and Richard Corliss praised the technically innovative animation, characters, and wit. 

The film will later have an impact in the film industry and Hollywood has been producing feature length CG animated films ever since. Pixar will continue to make more feature length movies.

 

The film will later spawn 3 sequels, theme park attractions, and a wide variety of merchandise.

My Thoughts

What can I say that hasn't been said my many critics and audiences alike? The film is a masterpiece of animation, storytelling, and character development. It's the ultimate feel good movie and it will continue to have a lasting impact on people of all ages. I loved this movie as a kid, I still love it today.