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Pixar Animation Studios

At the beginning of this chapter, we considered how animators at Pixar use elements of nonverbal communication to tell elaborate stories in films like Up and WALL-E. Let’s reconsider some of the ways nonverbal codes operate in these and other films.

  • The directors of Up used simple visual cues to highlight the characters so their appearance provides insights into their personalities. Carl is very squarish in appearance, so he’s perceived as boxed in, in both his house and his life. Eight-year-old Explorer Scout Russell is round and bouncy—like Carl’s balloons, reflecting his optimistic, energetic personality. These nonverbal elements carry subtle yet influential messages.
  • Animators study human kinesics to make decisions about how their animated characters should move. To animate the aged Carl, they studied their own parents and grandparents and watched footage of the Senior Olympics. If Carl moved like eight-year-old Russell, the credibility of the film would be compromised.
  • It takes talented voice actors to bring a script to life. The veteran actor Ed Asner breathed life into Carl, delivering not only his lines but also believable vocal cues—grunts, sighs, speaking through clenched teeth—that made those lines more human and real. But for the roles of young Ellie and Russell, the directors chose nonactors who would give genuine, unpolished performances full of childish energy—the goal was for them to sound more like real children than like actors reading from a script.