Yep. That’s me. A pic from inside the main gate at Pixar Animation Studios in sunny Emeryville, California.

From July 16-22 I was in San Francisco, mostly for vacation. It was the last of many business trips I’ve been taking to Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, Banff, and Toronto all within the last 8 weeks. Since we were in the San Francisco area, I thought I’d hook up with my friend and colleague Ronnie del Carmen, a rockstar story supervisor over at Pixar. I last saw Ronnie in Banff last March when he presented at a storyboarding workshop we organized. It was great seeing and chatting with him again. And, it’s no secret that I’m a Pixar fanatic…

Pixar is a working studio, open only to friends and family for visits and tours. Lucky us! Ronnie’s so-called “10 cent tour” turned out to be a tour of the whole place. It was awesome. Sadly, I couldn’t snap pics everywhere (for obvious reasons), so you’ll just have to imagine.

The top 10 highlights of our visit:

1. Walking into the atrium. The huge Pixar atrium made famous on all those behind-the-scenes featurettes. It’s where all the action happens and it was buzzing over the lunch hour. People zipping through on scooters. People rushing to go to the bathroom (see #9). People eating and mingling at Cafe Luxo. There was definitely energy walking into the atrium.

Photo: A view from the bridge. That’s Amy and I down below…

2. Hanging with Pixar peeps. The best part is always the people. It was great hanging with our main Pixar peep and host Ronnie del Carmen, story supervisor extraordinaire. Finding Nemo was one of his babies and he had a bunch of his art featured all over the studio. Along the way we met a bunch of people including fellow story artist Jim Capobianco and even a quick chat in the atrium with Monsters Inc. director Pete Docter.

3. The Renderfarms. Who would have thought seeing a room full of monstrous computer servers would be so exciting? And yet it was. Seeing all those black boxes with blue LEDs behind glass and thinking about all the creative content they’re pumping out every hour.

4. The great outdoors. We started off by checking out the outdoor areas of the campus. Walking trails, soccer fields, and even an outdoor pool. But the highlight was definitely the outdoor theatre built into the side of a hill. Stand in the “sweet spot” and you can project your voice to the entire area without the use of any technology. Very cool design.

5. Giant animatronic singing mice. Among all the toys, statues, games, posters, and decorations, one of the standouts was seeing four huge animatronic mice… I think they were from Chuck E Cheese or something. Too bad they didn’t work. I guess the last time they plugged it in, a fire broke out.

6. Cereal. Mail. Lots of it. Cafe Luxo provides a full line up of eats and drinks for hungry and thirsty Pixar staff, complete with a wood burning oven! But the highlight had to be the breakfast bar. A fridge full of hundreds of jugs of milk and juice and a counter with clear cases of every dry cereal you can imagine. Although I don’t think I saw any Count Choculas there. Next door was the Pixar mail room. A slot for everyone.

7. Art on display. I thought seeing the exhibition at MoMA was cool. This was even cooler. Stuff you won’t see from the traveling exhibitions. Since Cars was the current featured film, most of the art exhibited throughout the studio was from the production of Cars. We could have spent hours checking out all the concept art, sculptures, inspirations, and storyboards on display.

8. Sitting in the theatres. The main screening theatre had nice plush seats and a huge screen. Turns out the staff watches more than just Pixar films there. There was a Superman Returns screening happening later in the week. We also got to check out the smaller screening rooms, where teams watch, comment, and revise work throughout the production process.

9. The bathrooms. Turns out there’s only a few bathrooms within the entire building. The main bathrooms are located in the atrium, making everyone come to the atrium. Makes a lot of sense to build team and community. But I feel sorry for those people on the far east and west sides of the building!

10. The animation department huts. Who needs cubicles when you can work in big, decked out wooden huts? Walking through the animation department was like walking through a lounge, museum, and studio all in one. There was even a working bar (for after hours of course!) and a stage for live music for special concerts and jam sessions.

And lastly, loot! I love loot, especially Pixar-branded loot. Of course, I had to get some Pixar swag to bring to the crew back home.

Amy and I had such a great time visiting with Ronnie and checking out the studio. He was a great host! Over lunch, we talked about organizing another event that would bring Ronnie and some of his fellow Pixar artists and producers out to Canada again to share their wisdom and experience. I’ll keep everyone posted as that develops. Until our next visit to the land of Pixar!

P.S. For more pics, check out my Flickr album.