The Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1 features some of the original computer animated short films that gave the studio their big break. It also compiles all the shorts that were produced specifically to go before Pixar features, including Gary Rydstrom's Lifted.
Pixar Shorts Gets Lifted
"It was always known that it would probably go in front of Ratatouille," said Rydstrom. "The first thing I did when I got to Pixar was I just wanted to make a short. It’s amazing that Pixar still makes shorts because not too many people are making shorts anymore. Not too many people are taking the time or putting the effort to put them into actual theaters. It’s nice to be able to make a short and know that people are going to see it. When Ratatouille came out and was playing around the world I went, ‘My short is playing with it! That’s very cool!’ Not too many people who make shorts get to feel that way."
Rydstrom comes from the world of sound design. He left a lucrative career mixing big budget films to work with Pixar. "It was a little scary but I always wanted to make films and wanted to have opportunities to write and tell stories. So Pixar being old friends, they gave me this opportunity to come over there and do that. So it was a little scary because there were a lot of things I had to learn. But doing sound for so many years, what I found was that the big similarity is that sound is all about rhythm. It’s about using sound, rhythm helps delineate sound effects, sound tracks, and telling a story with these kind of rhythms is really key. Animation is really about rhythms and timing so I think working in sound gave me a great sense of timing. In fact, on Lifted I used, before animation had been started, used a temp soundtrack to express the timing that I wanted to the animators so they had some reference of what I was after. It was a way for me to even communicate to the animators."
In fact, his "in" with Pixar came from their very first shorts. "I did sound for Luxo Jr. and the early Pixar shorts and then I had a whole different career doing sound design. That’s how I got connected with Pixar. I’ve got kind of a unique background. I worked 20 years in sound, did that. Pixar was a big part of my career in sound and then Pixar offered me a chance to direct. The first thing I wanted to do was make a short so I could learn and have fun. Plus, I love shorts."
Today, Rydstrom still takes lessons from sound into his work in animation. "I kept pulling anything from my sound background that I could that would be useful. It’s amazing there was as much stuff as there was but really it’s just love of film and love of animation, and a particular love of telling stories without dialogue because it’s hard to do in features, if not impossible. But in shorts in the classic Pixar shorts that I did sound for, there’s no dialogue. I love the challenge of telling a story without dialogue so that was what I tried to do."
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