The newest short by Pixar Animation Studios;
Bao tells the story of an depressed Chinese woman, suffering from empty nest syndrome, who is given a second chance at motherhood when one of her steamed dumplings magically springs to life.
Comicbook.com recently paid a visit to Pixar's studio in Emeryville, California. Whilst there, they chatted with
Bao's director, Domee Shi, who explained the the process of putting her new film together. On the topic of the animation itself, Shi explained that she looked to
One Piece when attempting to perfect the style they utilised in the short.
Animation is especially critical in Bao because it's really where these characters come to life. And before starting animation, I would start gathering examples of styles I wanted to go for, and I'd show them to my animation supervisor, Juan Carlos Navarro.
I was heavily influenced by Japanese animation, like the visual styles of My Neighbors the Yamadas and One Piece, this really popular cartoon in Japan. And I love how squishy their characters looked and how pushed their expressions are. We drew our inspiration mostly from 2D animation, which was going to be a challenge in 3D because of how big the character's heads are and how exaggerated their limbs are. So we knew early on that we had to do a lot of planning and preparation and exploration to really nail down the animation style that would suit the short.
Shi elaborated, explaining that it was the main character, simply known as Mom, whose facial expressions needed to be exagerrated, One Piece-style.
And Mom was super-challenging to animate because of her big, squishy head and tiny, chubby body. I wanted to preserve the fun, pushed graphic quality of my 2D drawings of her, like I wanted to preserve those bug eyes and those big, floaty tears in 3D. But as we were going into animation, we soon realized that some expressions that worked well in 2D are not so successful in 3D at all.
Do you think One Piece's animation style is represented in the short? Are you excited to check out the short once it releases alongside The Incredibles 2 in June?