In 2004, The Incredibles held a record of having nearly three times as many sets as its Pixar peers. Clocking in at more than 100, the sets were one of the many reasons that got the film the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. Now more than a decade later, Pixar releases the film’s sequel today, picking up exactly where the superheroes left us. The Hindu spoke to shading art director Bryn Imagire, a Pixar veteran who has worked on both films. With her position, Imagire is responsible for all the colours and textures of a film. This includes everything from selecting the perfect shade of orange for the protagonists’ supersuits, to designing character environments and even minute details like a single strand of hair flying in the wind.
The 14 years that have past between the two films puts part two in a slightly precarious position. “The challenging part was figuring out how to sync up [the sequel] with the first one,” says Imagire. “I think we made a conscious decision to keep the look as close to the first one when the film starts. After that we took liberty to make it look fabulous but we kept having to look back at the first one.” The challenge to maintain continuity notwithstanding, new technological advancements certainly helped Imagire. Pixar, she reveals, had trouble capturing facial movement in the first film. “On the first film we didn’t have constructed garments,” she says. “The supersuits were just shaded onto the characters skins, but in this film they are built as separate garments, so they slide across and stretch in a much more realistic way.”
Plus, a system called Global Illumination (GI) certainly helped lighting to be more cohesive. She continues that even hair simulators and articulation of musculature on characters in the sequel is much more sophisticated.
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With a career spanning more than 20 years at Pixar, Imagire didn’t foresee a future as a shading director. She’s initially trained in traditional drawing and painting without computer training. “I didn’t know about computer graphics. It was at a time when 2D animation was going into 3D and everybody didn’t love it,” she says. “I didn’t have that bias and so I just sort of embraced it.”
The professional leap of faith turned into one of the biggest commitments of her life, spanning more than two decades. It also helps that Pixar has historically made some of the best animated films to date: from Toy Story and Inside Out to Coco . “Pixar has always allowed time for a story to get better and better in production,” says Imagire adding that a strong focus on storytelling is now ingrained in her design decisions. “I think that’s what makes our films stand apart from other studios.”
For someone who knew at a very young age that a life in visual aesthetics is the way to go, Imagire is currently very excited about the future of CG (computer graphics), the focus on diverse perspectives in Pixar’s original features and a trend towards having more women directors. “When I go and recruit at art schools, gender is pretty equal in colleges but I do see [the disparity] in creative positions,” she says, adding that there’s a need to be gender blind and give women more opportunities.
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“As long as I am helping to pave that way and hire and mentor women, then other women will do it as well. It’s all about being visible and heard because it shows girls that they can do jobs like this and they should.”