Notes from The Making of The Incredibles

I love “making of” documentaries about great filmmakers. Every time I watch one of these, I’m blown away by how much work it is to make a movie–it’s all the business of making products, plus all the creativity of making art.

On a recommendation, I picked up the “bonus materials” disc for _The Incredibles_, written and directed by Brad Bird. It exemplifies all these traits and more.

### Notes

Pixar asked Brad Bird to come in because “they were worried about getting complacent” (3:00)

Lou Romano == Ray Romano’s brother???

Piano “mockups” for the soundtrack (8:30)

“Animation is capturing the essence of it and putting your own spin on it. We’re doing a movie that could absolutely be done in live action in terms of telling the story. But it couldn’t tell it *this way*…to a degree that it would look silly in live-action.” – Brad Bird (11:00)

Pixar has an acting room where animators film themselves on videotape to test movements; mirrors on the walls so you can see from all angles (14:45)

“If you are willing to lose this one thing that originally…everyone loved…then all these other things…click together, then that’s what you have to do.” – Brad Bird (25:45)

They animate sketches to test the story (bonus 5:00)

“The reason to do animation is caricature” – Brad Bird (bonus 6:45)

Incredibles cubicle sequence (from the final film) good for explaining office space redesign?

The setting of the film: “the future, as seen from the mid-60s” – Brad Bird bonus 32:30

“Squetching – a combination of sqeezing and stretching” – bonus 40:00

“So here i am in the morning, I’m writing about the Republican convention of 1880, and then in the afternoon, I get to say things like “The robot lost its claw!” That is just something you *never* get to say when you’re talking about the Garfield administration.” – Sarah Vowell, who was writing a book about presidential assassinations while performing the voice of Violet.

“In radio, we paint a picture out of sound. It uses a lot of imagination, instead of this film crap.” – Sarah Vowell

“All I know is the first pain reliever you reach for is the dream sequence, because basically you’re looking for a way to say certain things, and the easiest way is to say them in an abstract way that you don’t have to work into your reality…I’m learning that they are an early solution that you use…to get an idea in a film that you don’t have a better way of doing.” – Brad Bird 33:30 bonus