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itsworn · 7 years
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The Creative Geniuses Behind Cars.
We love cartoons, especially if they’re about cars and racing—you know, the cool stuff we dug as children and eventually as fully matured gearheads. At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the folks from Disney’s Pixar announced a Cars 3 movie will debut in June 2017. We were interested to learn more about the folks behind the wildly successful movie franchise that’s indoctrinating young enthusiasts into our beloved hobby.
The original Cars movie was released more than 10 years ago and was a smash hit with kids and grown-ups. The authenticity and attention to detail that went into creating the automotive characters are phenomenal. Even hardcore enthusiasts who may have reluctantly been pulled into the movie theater by their five-year-olds quickly realized the animators got it right.
While there are a lot of folks behind the scenes who make the Cars franchise what it is, it’s the driving passion of Creative Director Jay Ward and Production Designer Jay Shuster who are largely responsible for the series’ continuing success.
HRM] What influenced you growing up that lead to you becoming a fervent car enthusiast?
Jay Ward] My father was an auto wholesaler. He’d buy them, fix them up, and sell them. He had a shop in Riverside, Missouri, a little suburb of Kansas City. I lived in California, so when I’d come visit him, I’d go to his shop and sit in the front office. He had a blotter pad and I would draw cars. I did this while he was doing things like detailing and laying out striping tape. I’d be drawing cars, drinking Coke, listening to the radio, and looking at the Farrah Fawcett poster he had the wall. I’d also go to auctions with my dad all the time. He always had great balance of loving old cars, new cars, and European sports cars. He even bought a Ferrari Daytona Coupe in Newport Beach, California, and drove it back to Kansas City.
Jay Shuster] I grew up in the Motor City [Detroit] and my father was a designer at GM for 43 years. He designed the 1967 Pontiac Firebird emblem that went on the front fender. The house I grew up in was set up like a museum with everything he appreciated about design. It was a drag living in the house because he didn’t like kids playing with his stuff. However, I did get an appreciation of the line, material, the overall look of things. Toy trains, boats—anything mechanical—I looked at them differently. I went to the Center of Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit for industrial design, but I took a product design path rather than automotive because I wanted something a little different than what I grew up with. By the time I went to college, I felt I had already been through an automotive design curriculum with my dad—one on one.
Pixar’s creative geniuses, Jay Ward (left) and Jay Shuster (right) are true gearheads with impressive backgrounds. They make sure each vehicle’s details are correct in all the characters you see in Disney’s Cars movies.
HRM] How did you get started in the movie business?
JW] I started on Monsters, Inc. in 1999 as an entry-level assistant position in the art department. I then worked my way up as a coordinator. When Cars came along, they asked me to manage the character team process because I understood real cars. The production on the original Cars movie began in late 2000 and early 2001. During this era, it was code named JLP, for the John Lasseter Project. I was the first production person because they knew I was a car guy.
JS] I got my start designing characters and environment. Around 2003 I came to Pixar and began working on Cars. It was the first time I attributed drawing personality into inanimate objects. I met Bob Pauley, the designer of Lighting McQueen and Buzz Lightyear; he’s a super talented guy at Pixar and was basically my mentor in learning how to design character into cars.
HRM] When the first Cars movie came out in 2006, did you know it was going to be a hit?
JW] It was a labor of love for us. Pixar films are held to a very high standard of being emotional, deep-driving stories and so the film was well loved. However, it didn’t win the Academy Award that year (Happy Feet won for Best Animated Feature). What happened was Cars became more popular as time went on. It started out medium-loud and then kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger; toys started taking off, and within two years, we were planning Cars Land (an attraction at the Disney California Adventure Park).
HRM] The details on character vehicles in the movie is impressive. How do you do that?
JW] We first came to the Detroit Auto Show in 2001,and numerous times after that. We met with manufacturers to do research and even went to the Dodge Viper plant. We love Detroit and its car culture. We also believe the smallest details make these car characters authentic. For example, we’d be in a review meeting and John Lasseter would ask me what would a Hudson Hornet have?  I’d reply “Twin H carbs,” and then he’d say “we’ve got to do that.” That’s the thing: John wants to get the details right. His whole thing is authenticity. Everything little thing in that film we studied and vetted, even the paint jobs having a single-stage lacquer paint or a heavy, metallic, chunky clearcoat—we think about all that stuff: what’s chrome, what’s silver, bias-ply or radial tires? We’re nuts and think about that stuff in all the Cars movies.
JS] It’s pen and paper on these things for a year. On Cars 3, we designed the main character, Jackson Storm, with a clean sheet of paper. The premise being, what are the shapes contrary to Lighting McQueen? Lighting being very muscular with flowing lines and Jackson Storm being angular and sharp. Storm had to be a weapon on wheels, everything sharp and pointing to the front, then receding away creating creases and edges. Jay Ward and I worked closely together and we presented these drawings to the directors on a weekly basis while getting feedback through the process. The tedium that goes into dialing in the shading and painting of these characters always changes. We gave Storm’s gloss, yet dark, finish with an iconic “S,” which is the international sign for a hurricane.
The new Cars 3 movie introduces a new character, Jackson Storm. He is the nemesis for Lighting McQueen. Jay Shuster (left) gave Storm’s character a sharp, angular shape and a menacing look, which is a shift from McQueen’s softer-flowing lines.
HRM] Whose idea was it to have Richard Petty’s 1970 Superbird for “The King” character?
JW] The Superbird is the iconic car for him, and it had to be Petty Blue. It had to have his font for the “43” Richard Petty car, and the details Bob Pauley—the designer for Pixar—used are awesome. We actually went to the Walter P. Chrysler Museum and studied that car and realized it was nothing like the street version. We had to get the details right, like the taillight rivets, wheelwell openings, and other design cues that are only found on the actual race car.
HRM] Tell us how you got Richard’s wife, Lynda, into the recording studio to do the voice of “Mrs. King” for Cars?
JW] So Richard comes in to record and Lynda is with him. The way those two talked to each other was so cute and our producer, John Lasseter, noticed it. He asked her if she’d like to record the voice for Mrs. King. We weren’t sure, as she had never done anything like this before. After the recording, John asks her what kind of car she’d like to be, as she could be any car she wanted. Lynda goes, “Station wagon—it’s what I took my kids in to see the races.” John asks what color it should be, and of course, Lynda says, “Petty Blue.” It was her decision to be the station wagon. She was an awesome lady and great to work with on the original movie
Pixar’s imaginative dream team includes Cars director/producer John Lasseter (center). John’s automotive roots and passion started when he was a kid. The fact his dad was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership probably had something to do with that.
HRM] Will we ever see a Cars movie that involves drag racing?
JW] We’ve looked at all genres, including drag racing. The funny thing about drag racing is it’s over so fast, and there’s not a lot of drama to it—you blink and it’s over. We actually had an early sequence in [Cars 3] where McQueen drove out to the El Mirage dry lakebed to get his mojo back. It was cool, but the scene didn’t flow well with the story, so it got cut.
JS] Plus, if you have a car that’s long like a dragster, the animated look and proportion of these cars with the windshield to the mouth doesn’t work. You have to shoot it super-compressed and it looks weird.
HRM] Do both of you own any cool cars that aren’t cartoons?
JW] I’ve always been a car guy, even before I began working at Pixar. I had a ’49 Lincoln Cosmopolitan Coupe and another ’49 Lincoln Coupe that I chopped and hardtopped. I took the big 337 flathead out that weighed about 900 pounds and installed a 351 Cleveland. I also added a ’54 DeSoto grille, and it looked awesome—almost like a gangster car. I also built a 1929 Model A with a Caddy 331. I wanted a prewar custom, a western car, and tail dragger, so I sold one of the Lincolns and bought a ’39 Mercury convertible. I also have a ’57 Pontiac Safari station wagon. That’s what we take the kids to school in, and it’s a family car because there are no back doors for the kids to fall out of!
JS]  I don’t have the cool stuff like Jay, but I have a brand-new Ford F-150 that pulls my 28-foot Airstream trailer, so that’s kind of my speed. But my dad has two Chevy Corvairs: a 1964 and 1969.
HRM] We’re almost at the finish line, anything you want to add?
JW] Both Jay and I are super passionate car guys and love hot rodding. I have every issue of HOT ROD magazine going back to the beginning and still refer to them. I even did a stint as the editor of Hop Up magazine from 2007 to 2009. I live in the Bay Area, so on Sundays I head to the Blackhawk Museum in Danville for Cars and Coffee.
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