2010 RenderMan Walking Teapot

The 2010 edition of Pixar's RenderMan Walking Teapot was finally revealed at its Official Fan Club on Facebook this evening.

Dylan Sisson tells me that this year's design is based on Mr. Potato Head and that he modelled it —"his hat, eyes, and mouth"— using ZBrush digital art creation software.

Sisson created the first Walking Teapot in 2003 as an homage to the "Utah Teapot" created in 1975 by computer graphics researcher Martin Newell. Newell's teapot model is a standard reference object and famous in-joke in the CG community.

Keeping with tradition, 1000 of the collectable windup teapot toys will be given away each day at Pixar's RenderMan booth at SIGGRAPH 2010 next week, starting at 1 PM on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. A complete schedule of RenderMan-related events at SIGGRAPH can be found at Pixar's website.

Pixar Artists Masterclass at VanArts

The Vancouver Institute of Media Arts (VanArts) will be presenting a Pixar Artists Masterclass in Animation and Story Development, September 24-25 in Vancouver, B.C.

The class will be taught by animator Andrew Gordon and story artist Matthew Luhn, who have worked at Pixar for a combined 31 years.

Cost to register is only $499 CAD and includes needed materials for the 2-day class. Seating is limited. More info, including daily curriculum, can be found on the VanArts website.

Pixar "brain trust" consults on Muppets, Tron: Legacy

Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter in 2005 during production on Cars.

Photo by Deborah Coleman/Pixar.

Today's issue of The Hollywood Reporter (THR) describes how key people from the untitled Muppets movie in production at Disney were at Pixar's Emeryville headquarters yesterday for discussions with members of the studio's "brain trust"*.

The THR cover article doesn't say which "brain trust" members were present for the meeting, which included a read-through of the story, but notes that "[Pete] Docter is a particularly avid Muppets fan, so he almost certainly was one of the attendees. "

Just last week, Entertainment Weekly (EW) reported that Pixar assisted in the production Walt Disney Pictures' highly-anticipated Tron: Legacy, in theatres December 17.

(Watch the stunning new trailer released this afternoon at Yahoo! Movies.)

Late in March, "brain trust" members provided valuable feedback to the filmmakers after seeing a "very early working cut" of the live-action sci-fi epic. Disney even hired Brad Bird and Toy Story 3 screenwriter Michael Arndt to write some material for upcoming re-shoots.

Although no one from the studios would go on the record, something about both articles tells me that Disney wanted the stories out there. It's great press for the films and the entire Walt Disney Company (and CEO Bob Iger's management) that Pixar is working to make projects from other Disney-owned studios even better.

*As of 2010, the Pixar Senior Creative Team or "brain trust" consists of (in alphabetical order): Michael Arndt, Brad Bird, Brenda Chapman, Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Bob Peterson, Gary Rydstrom, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich.

Disney·Pixar 2011 Weekly Calendar

Earlier today, I received in the mail an early copy of the Disney·Pixar 2011 Weekly Calendar, printed by Andrews McMeel Publishing. It's put together quite well, starting with an attractive cover that lets you know what's inside. The calendar feature isn't even the important part.

Each page has high quality punch-out bookmarks, collector cards, postcards, door hangers, and mini standees featuring characters from Pixar's films. The Ratatouille postcard with Paris in the background is one of my favourites, as is the Up bookmark with Carl clutching some balloons.

While it'll appeal first of all to Pixar-loving kids, fans of all ages should find the calendar to be pretty cool. It can be pre-ordered now from Amazon.com and .ca for around $12 and will be in stores soon.

Disney registers Finding Nemo sequel domains

Jim Hill Media has discovered that Disney registered four .net and .org domain names for Finding Nemo 2 and Finding Nemo 3 yesterday. This is confirmed by WHOIS search results which list Disney Enterprises, Inc. as the registrant.

Although domain name purchases have recently pointed to unannounced Pixar (and Disney) projects that were later confirmed, there's no indication that this is the case with these.

What would be the main addresses for any possible sequels to Finding Nemo —findingnemo2.com and findingnemo3.com— have been owned by Disney since March 2000. Yesterday's registrations are probably only a prudent step, common in the industry, to prevent opportunists from taking over domains tied to a valuable brand.