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A brief analysis of the natural landscapes of Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur. Specifically, I take a look at how and why they generated such realistic terrain.
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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
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[Music]
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with their impeccable storytelling and
00:07
emotionally complex characters Pixar’s
00:09
come to dominate the animated feature
00:11
industry and in spite of the child
00:13
oriented narratives the moviemaking
00:14
powerhouse in beers each of their movies
00:17
with a certain maturity but if you look
00:19
past the narratives and unique
00:21
characters and Lamont network
00:23
masterfully lit textured and modeled
00:26
landscapes helped to bring the world to
00:27
Pixar’s films to life and nowhere is
00:30
this more true than the natural
00:31
environments of the studio’s 2015 movie
00:34
The Good dinosaur movies landscapes
00:37
force your jaws to drop and at times
00:39
seem to be indistinguishable from their
00:41
real-life counterparts so today I want
00:43
to dive into how Pixar has managed to
00:45
create such beautiful computer-generated
00:47
natural imagery and also interrogate why
00:50
movies like The Good dinosaur strive for
00:53
realistic natural world when everything
00:55
else is so stylized in part the photo
01:01
realism of the good dinosaurs landscapes
01:04
can be attributed to extensive location
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scouting and geological research and the
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redirector and some of the crews spend
01:10
time exploring the wilderness areas in
01:12
and around Jackson Wyoming in hopes of
01:15
gaining inspiration for the movies
01:17
imagery and tone and Wyoming’s natural
01:20
vistas clearly made their mark in
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conjunction with this fieldwork set
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supervisor David Mooney and his team
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adapted over 64,000 square miles of
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terrain data from the US Geological
01:30
Survey in order to accurately reflect
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America’s natural environment needless
01:36
to say a lot of time and technical
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expertise went into making a
01:39
computer-generated world seem like a
01:42
real one but the natural landscapes of
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the protagonists are low traverses
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aren’t just there to look pretty they
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actually play a key role in shaping the
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emotional themes of the movie
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indeed the environment of the good
01:53
dinosaur demonstrate the visual power of
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nature to imbue scenes with emotion in
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speaking about the movies environments
02:00
director of photography Sharon Callahan
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notes we want to support the film
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emotionally it’s more than just the
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light it’s how the weather and the
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colors and everything makes you feel and
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you see this use of landscape
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sentiment in shots like this here are
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low finally realizes just how far from
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home he really is the helicopter asked
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shots position are low in such a way
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that he seems to be almost consumed by
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the surrounding trees and mountains give
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a sneeze simultaneously becomes a
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beautiful image and a seemingly
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insurmountable obstacle so just by
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seeing the endless expanse of trees we
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immediately empathize with our lows dire
02:38
situation the photo realism of the good
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dinosaurs landscape also lends a certain
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reality and urgency to our loads world
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because we can almost reach out and
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touch the swaying trees or flowing water
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the movie games of physicality despite
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the stylize aesthetics of its characters
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Callaghan reveals that Pixar one of the
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movie to be believable if Arlo fell in
03:00
his knee it would hurt that the water
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seems cold but you can breathe the air
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and feel the wind so Callaghan lends
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authenticity and tangibility to an
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otherwise supernatural world by placing
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the protagonist in photorealistic
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environments that echo ones many of us
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have experienced thus when we see the
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computer rendered image of clawtooth
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mountain we know what that might feel
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like because we’ve seen or experienced
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the Tetons in Wyoming or when we watch
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Arlo and his friends wrangle a herd of
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Longhorns we’re reminded of imagery of
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Buffalo roaming the Midwestern Plains
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and can immediately conjure up the smell
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of dust in the air or the sight of a
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wide-open sky ultimately the good
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dinosaur is groundbreaking natural
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elements reveal a common theme among
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movies that invest time in highlighting
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the grandeur of the protagonists
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surroundings it not only shows that
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nature imagery can at times capture the
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essence of emotions more effectively
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than any dialogue ever could but it also
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lends a realism to an otherwise unreal
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experience this video is made possible
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in part by the wonderful people who
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or in our changing climate sticker as
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always if you like what you just saw
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shared around
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and subscribe thanks so much for
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watching and I’ll see you next Friday
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video.