THE CAR INQUISITION
We meet the man who ensured game-changing animation Cars was rooted in reality.
‘They’re characters that happen to be cars, not the other way around,’ says Pixar production designer Bob Pauley, sketching out Cars lead character Lightning McQueen on a piece of paper. Nearby sits long-time collaborator Jay Ward (pictured right), these days Pixar’s creative director, chipping in a few anecdotes as we go.
Both are car guys – Pauley owns a 1967 Volvo P1800, Ward’s collection includes an Austin-Healey and an air-cooled Porsche 911– so while both knew Cars had to appeal beyond the car niche, their knowledge ensured an almost unbelievable level of accuracy for the 2006 film. It’s not just them; Pixar hosts an annual ‘Motorama’ for employees.
Similar attention to detail was invested in researching the landscape, with a road trip that informed backdrops and key characters too.
‘We had three Cadillacs, 10 people and we headed out on Route 66 for nine days to understand that world and the world of cars,’ Pauley recalls. ‘I was taking soil samples in Arizona – some dirt is purple, some is red – then going through Galena, Kansas, we turn the corner and there’s this old pick-up truck with a tow hook – that became Mater. We met Dawn Welch who runs the Rock Cafe in Oklahoma – she inspired the character Sally.’
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Now 55, Pauley grew up in California, studied graphic design and illustration at San Jose State University and started out doing character merchandise at a theme park before moving into film animation. He worked on Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, joining Pixar aged 31, with Toy Story his first credit.
When Cars development began in the late 1990s, matching characters to cars and understanding how those cars would anthropomorphically express themselves was essential groundwork. The big breakthrough came as Bobby Podesta (now Pixar supervising animator) experimented with rudimentary animation models to find ways of making cars interact with one another like humans do.
Throughout, it was always important to stay true to the spirit of the cars. ‘Luigi is quick and sporty, he has narrower tyres. Sheriff is like two doughnuts away from a heart attack, so he’s a larger ’49 Mercury, he’s got soft springs, a nice kind of soft roll.’
Perhaps most intriguing is the balance Pixar’s animators had to strike between faithfully recreating the dynamic language of cars, while judging when to break free of reality.
‘We actually set the suspension up for the cars the way they would be,’ chips in Ward. ‘So when Mc
