the adventures of edi: a trip to where the magic happens

to pixar!

for a benefit for the cartoon art museum, pixar opened its doors to anyone willing to pay to get in. i sprung for the v.i.p. ticket, getting me a membership at the museum and into the event at 11am to take advantage of the store, selling merchandise at employee prices and 'light refreshments'.

i unfortunately arrived at 12.30pm, right before all kinds of stuff was happening. driving myself in my car didn't work out, so i rode the bart, then allowed the bus driver to drive me 3 minutes in the opposite direction, as he assured me he knew where i was going.

thank goodness for my sister who was able to talk me down from my growing rage and direct me on my mile-ish walk PAST the bus stop and bart station to pixar. oh man, i was so. MAD! but my anger had been accumulating for some days. and i was wasting the $135 i'd spent to get into pixar early. GAH!

*sigh* but whatever. i got there. and it turned out i didn't miss anything but the refreshments (which are rumored to have included brownies! my very favorite).

after walking down the busy and large 40th street, past cute little houses next to houses that were a total mess, next to houses that should be condemned, i arrived in 'emeryville', described to me as 'where the mall is'. 40th opened from residential into strip malls and fast food and where that happened, where you'd expect an ace hardware to be, is pixar.

i had to walk up to the security guy to give him my name. he told me they'd check my camera when i went into the theatre. ok. and i was in.

it's lovely and all, but from here, it looks kind of sterile. like a lame office building that houses a company that does things i don't understand. actually, aside from the 'lame' part, that does describe pixar to me at this point.

kind of perfect and totally nerdy of them to have done this on the road leading to the parking lot.

right after i got my name tag, right before the security guy took pity on me and took my picture with sully and mike with my cell phone.

the lobby was full of lines:a LONG line to get into the gift shop (which is tiny) and people already lining up at the theatre to get into the screening of toy story 2 in 3-d. i had a little while, so i went upstairs to see the production artwork for 'up' where i was strictly forbidden from taking pictures of anything.

so here's the bathroom.

the bathrooms are actually really beautiful and clean and cosy.

the production artwork was cool to see. some of the artists made mixed media depictions of young ellie and old ellie, a kind of collage which was cool. there was also a miniature of the interior of the house. it made me happy to see how much stuff is actually made and drawn and that exists outside of the computer.

the areas open to us were two hallways and a couple conference rooms. there was some interesting artwork, but it was limited to 'up' and photographs taken by the artists. i would've liked to see some monsters,inc. stuff and some wall-e stuff (my two favorites). at least there were the two statues of mike and sully, but i saw no wall-e thing anywhere, except a 'x-ing' sign on an office that had wall-e in silhouette. but i wasn't able to photograph it.

after wandering through the 'up' side, i made it out to where people were standing in line to get into the theatre, checking their cameras and phones. it was here that i found out that the gift shop was supposed to close 30 mins ago and i wouldn't be able to buy anything! grr!

i'm guessing that the theatre is where they have screenings of the work done so far, and talk about it, etc. so that was interesting (and super cool) to experience. before the movie, they showed the trailer for toy story 3 and a little short film about 'tow mater' from 'cars' and his adventures in tokyo in a kind of 'fast and the furious:tokyo drift' kind of way, not that i saw that movie. i haven't seen 'cars', either. for some reason i just can't bring myself to do it. but this short was amusing and clever (of course) but i think maybe that's all the 'cars' i need to see.

then toy story 2 in 3-d. 3-d: whatever. i guess it's alright, but it doesn't excite me really, especially when the visuals are so stunning anyway. AND i've seen toy story 2 a million times (not that that has ever stopped me from watching a movie, i'd just rather it were one of my two favorites-monsters, inc. or wall-e. or UP for that matter, but it's all about toy story these days).

after the screening under the starry sky (complete with shooting stars that we were instructed to 'ooh' and 'aah' at, like THEY do at pixar <3),>

then we got to see a short film they did about 'ken' and what it's like to be him and interview him at his dream house, etc. it was a late-sixties style documentary with the swinging 'barbie' accessory (which he hates being called, apparently).

after we left the theatre and swarmed the tables to claim our devices, i walked around the other side.