The exhibition is of interest to so many different people: Children dragging their parents to a museum and vice versa, as well as animators, filmmakers and artists who are interested in the business, while still being very accessible.

“It's beautiful, the drawings and paintings and sculptures; lots of color; and it's accessible because [everybody] knows about it,” Elyse Klaidman, Pixar's in-house curator and Dean of Art and Film for Pixar's University, told The China Post on August 6.

“But also just because of the work itself makes you want to see it; it's very joyful. And it has some really wonderful surprise, treats, and it's multimedia – it's not just paintings on the wall – there are so many different aspects of it,” she added.

Asked about the timing of the exhibition, Klaidman remarked that “you can't look back after two years; you don't have enough to look back at!”

Starting in 2006, however, Pixar had made seven films, and it had quite a lot of artwork from the films.

“It just seemed like the time to share with the world the art, and these amazing artists – and none of this had ever been seen outside of Pixar before – and it was enough, they were interested, and just the timing was right,” she said.

When people think about Pixar films, Klaidman noted that they think a lot about fantastic stories and movies they love, but they also think about technology. “They don't really know as much or think as much about the fine art process.”

Indeed, this exhibition is a unique opportunity to peek at the drawing, the painting, the old-fashioned way that Pixar's artists also work, which is just as important to what digital artists do.

“So really this exhibit's focus is the celebration of traditional art, although there's also mixed media, there's technology involved in it. But it's just the early part of the process that's focused on,” she explained.

For the occasion, the show is thus divided into three areas, story, character and world, which represent the three steps needed to develop one of Pixar's films.

“The story is obviously the most important part; and everything we do in Pixar is about the story,” she went on. “So the drawings and the paintings of characters or worlds or anything is about: 'making the story better.'”

But, why is Pixar so good at telling stories?

“The people at Pixar are really really passionate about telling stories,” replied Klaidman. “They love it. It's something that's just deeply inside them.”

Also, she noted that Pixar's artists work in a very collaborative environment, with one person – the director – as the leader of “the vision.”

“The director has the idea, works with the writers and writes it; but the director works very closely with the story, artists, and everybody wants to meet the director's vision,” she said.

With 75 people when Toy Story was made, she remarked that Pixar has roughly 200-300 people working on one movie, with more than three already in the pipeline – “Toy Story 3” is due to be released in June 2010, “Cars 2” in June 2011 and “The Bear and the Bow” in December 2011.

Yet, the working atmosphere at Pixar is not like: “I'm the leader and you'll do what I say,” it's rather an atmosphere of “that's a great idea” and “hmm, does that help tell the story?” she pointed out.

“When people feel so much respect and so much passion for the same vision, it just works. I mean it's hard, it's really hard work; it takes 4-5 years to make one of these, [there are] struggles along the way,” she said.

Having a story you want to tell, having the passion to really work hard and to tell it, and having the right combination of people are among the guiding principles she would recommend for a Taiwanese company to succeed in the animation industry.

“You need the creative skill, the technical skill, and you need the management, business organization skill, and you need to create a working environment where people are truly respectful of each other's ideas, and collaborative, and passionate. So if you have all those ingredients, of course you can,” she concluded.

Pixar: 20 Years of Animation (皮克斯動畫20年) / Now through November 1 (Sun.) / Taipei Fine Arts Museum (臺北市立美術館) / No. 181 ZhongShan N. Rd. Sec. 3, Taipei City (臺北市中山北路三段181號) / Adult NT$200, Concession NT$150 / (02) 3393-9888 /

http://www.artsticket.com.tw/