Learn how animators at Pixar decide where to place Easter Eggs in the movies! An exclusive chat about how they are picked and who decides what goes into a Pixar movie.
What do you do when you visit Pixar Studios and have access to the most brilliant animators? You ask them about all the fantastic Easter Eggs that they put into the Pixar movies! It was the one question that I was determined to have answered when I went to San Francisco to talk about Incredibles 2. Lucky for me, I was able to have that question answered, and it did not disappoint.
See all of the Incredibles 2 Easter Eggs here!
Sets Supervisor Nathan Fariss shared with me the inside scoop about Pixar Easter Eggs while he was discussing creating the world of Incredibles 2.
Who decides what Easter Eggs go into a Pixar movie and where?
A113 – This easter egg is often the director and the graphics department. A113 is the classroom number at California Institute of Arts. This Easter Egg is said to be first started by Brad Bird (Director of Incredibles) himself! That’s probably why we saw it three times in Incredibles 2.
Pizza Planet Truck – In Incredibles 2, Fariss got to place my favorite Easter Egg in Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory. The Pizza Plant Truck has become a fun one for moviegoers to spot. It has also been said to be missing in The Incredibles, making it the only Pixar film that doesn’t have the Pizza Planet truck. I have yet to confirm that though. But if it is true, it makes sense that it would be the most significant Easter egg in Incredibles 2 (and it was).
“It is normally planned out in advance, and the truck is always ‘in period’ meaning that if the movie is set in the mid-century like Incredibles 2 is, then the truck will look like the other vehicles,” Fariss said. “You don’t want to break the illusion with an Easter Egg.”
That’s also why the truck (rocks) and Luxo ball (cloud) was so hard to find in The Good Dinosaur.
How about the Easter Eggs about upcoming movies?
Farris tells me that the team working on the upcoming film are the ones that pick out WHAT Easter Egg from the next movie will be. The current film’s team then finds the perfect place for it by a pross of elimination. “Where do we have left where this will be appropriate,” Farris said. For Incredibles 2, the upcoming movie in line is Toy Story 4.
“Sometimes it may be obvious, or it may be something you don’t notice until the next movie comes out,” Fariss said. “Think new characters, etc.”
Coco had a great Toy Story Easter Egg in it, and that is because Toy Story 4 was slated to come out before Incredibles 2 (also seen on a poster in an alley), but they switched the timeline due to changes in the production team. Of course, Toy Story IS the film that started it all so one could argue that they were placed in Coco regardless of the movie release timeline.
Farris also shares that there is a process of elimination, and sometimes they are planned out at the beginning of production.
Oh, to be a bug on the wall in that planning meeting!
Love finding Easter Eggs?
- Moana Easter Eggs
- Coco Easter Eggs
- Incredibles Easter Eggs
- Toy Story 4 Easter Eggs
- Frozen Easter Eggs
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