Live Action Toy Story
The Story of Live Action Toy Story
It was summer of 2010 when we decided to make a scene from Toy Story in real life, the problem was, we like every scene too much and couldn’t decide which to do, so the decision to do all of it was an easy one. We collected toys and props for a month and built “Andy’s Room” in the guest room of Jonason’s home… oh, yeah, we were kids. Jonason was 17 and Jesse was 19.
Kids playing in the street. *Note Alicia's pants could have been used as a green screen, but we chose to go with an actual green screen.
Production
Nearly every weekend we spent literally on our hands and knees. Our other best friend, Amy, was there from the beginning and never complained as far as I can remember. Fast-forward two years later and we finally finished. By then our consistent team grew to 4. It then included Kim. Here’s where I will mention that many people spent many hours helping in different ways. Especially our human actors and animal talent.
A typical scene set-up: the animated movie on the ipad and the real thing in front of us. We finally understand why they make tripods that are a foot tall.
Post-Production
Jonason edited as they were going- covering up parts of the real movie with our new shots like a puzzle.
The world premiere. 4 inseparable friends.
The 1st trip to Pixar (uninvited)... we didn't actually go inside.
The movie had a world premiere at the charter school gym that our church formerly rented. It was a great night.
Jesse and Jonason eventually decided to fly to Pixar studios uninvited after repeatedly sending letters and copies of the movie with no reply. They stood outside and passed out DVDs. It wasn’t as fun as it sounds, but we were having an adventure. Again, there wasn’t really a response, so they decided to put it on YouTube and see what would happen. What happened was a million views a day for a week and countless media e-mails and interview requests. So that was pretty cool. Finally, one of the e-mails was from Pixar. Specifically, Ed Catmull’s secretary inviting us for a tour. So the second time we went to Pixar, we were invited- and we brought more of the team. (I’ll put a cliff note here- Jonason actually went inside Pixar earlier in the summer of 2010 before they started thinking about making a movie. He just paid a lot of money to see an advance screening of Toy Story 3.) The tour seemed short. But we definitely felt like celebrities for a hot second. Pixar was very welcoming. Because I know you're thinking it- no, they didn’t give our movie “their blessing” (whatever that is).
We are extremely blessed by God to have such great friends and family who worked together with us to make this movie a success. What an amazing experience the Live Action Toy Story chapter of our lives was. Thanks guys!