Partly Cloudy - - - The Short Preceding 'Up'

[Neal]

Thanks to an official supplement to the 2006 book 'Disney A to Z' we know what the short preceding "Up" will be:

Partly Cloudy (film) Directed by Peter Sohn. Animated short, from Pixar, released with Up.

[Simba3]

Sounds interesting enough. The more I see of "Up" the more eager I get about seeing it.

[magicalwands]

After watching everything about Peter Sohn in the dvd extras, I can't wait to see how he does with his short!

Hmm, a short about clouds before a movie that has a lot more clouds because they take the skies. It's interesting to have such a similarity with the short and the movie.

[Rudy Matt]

After watching everything about Peter Sohn in the dvd extras, I can't wait to see how he does with his short!

Hmm, a short about clouds before a movie that has a lot more clouds because they take the skies. It's interesting to have such a similarity with the short and the movie.

Well, MagicalWands, the thing is, almost all of Pixar's shorts after Tin Toy were experiments for problems dealing with an upcoming animated feature. For instance, ONE MAN BAND was a test for the surface texture, fabric, and lighting seen in Ratatouille, In LIFTED, the gelatinous green aliens were tests for the boneless blob humans that were to be seen in Wall*E (before the treatment of the humans was revised).

It's no surprise they'd be testing sky and cloud effects with a short. I just want to know how Presto figures into the mix, or if it was just a one off.

[Kyle]

I agree its weird having the two be so similar. they have only shared technical issues before, not usually entire themes.

as for what presto did, they experimented with a different kind of motion blur, one more akin to hand drawn blurring. I know brad bird has been interviewed saying how he wishes we had more control over it in 3d. often times the animation gets lost in the blurry mess, so being able to scale it back or make it more subtle without loosing natural motion would be nice.

they also toyed with more comical timing, a strong, funny cartoony poses, trying to make it more like hand drawn classics. so in general I'd say they just tried to see what kind of things could be carried over to 3d animation from hand drawn that hasn't been done, or done well enough before. I'll go out on a limb on this one and say I think the results of these experiments wont really show up until newt. we may see some of it in toy story 3 as well though, as they are about to go into full production.

[geniuswalt]

After watching everything about Peter Sohn in the dvd extras, I can't wait to see how he does with his short!

Hmm, a short about clouds before a movie that has a lot more clouds because they take the skies. It's interesting to have such a similarity with the short and the movie.

Well, MagicalWands, the thing is, almost all of Pixar's shorts after Tin Toy were experiments for problems dealing with an upcoming animated feature. For instance, ONE MAN BAND was a test for the surface texture, fabric, and lighting seen in Ratatouille, In LIFTED, the gelatinous green aliens were tests for the boneless blob humans that were to be seen in Wall*E (before the treatment of the humans was revised).

It's no surprise they'd be testing sky and cloud effects with a short. I just want to know how Presto figures into the mix, or if it was just a one off.

If I recall correctly, I may have read that the sets in Presto were contructed and/or inspired by the style in Ratatouille (think of the theater set, for example)

[Neal]

UPDATE:

Apparently the story will elaborate on the age-old story of babies being delivered to their mothers by storks. But in the short, which will play in front of Pete Docter’s Up, clouds are baby factories, and each cloud has a stork assigned to deliver the babies produced. Partly Cloudy tells the story of a cloud named Gus who is assigned to create the ‘tougher babies’ like alligators and porcupines. But Gus’s stork Peck would rather be delivering softer babies like kittens and humans. Apparently there is a photo of Gus and Peck in Twenty-Three, Disney’s new stylish quarterly magazine. If we find it anywhere, we’ll be sure to pass it along. The story sounds like another great premise from the Emmeryville-based animation studio.

Sources:

/Film

The Pixar Blog

[ajmrowland]

UPDATE:

Apparently the story will elaborate on the age-old story of babies being delivered to their mothers by storks. But in the short, which will play in front of Pete Docter’s Up, clouds are baby factories, and each cloud has a stork assigned to deliver the babies produced. Partly Cloudy tells the story of a cloud named Gus who is assigned to create the ‘tougher babies’ like alligators and porcupines. But Gus’s stork Peck would rather be delivering softer babies like kittens and humans. Apparently there is a photo of Gus and Peck in Twenty-Three, Disney’s new stylish quarterly magazine. If we find it anywhere, we’ll be sure to pass it along. The story sounds like another great premise from the Emmeryville-based animation studio.

Sources:

/Film

The Pixar Blog

Please, no more info. I like to be surprised by a Pixar short.

[blackcauldron85]

Here's the official plot description (it's similar to what's already been posted):

http://pixarplanet.com/blog/exclusive-o ... tly-cloudy

"Everyone knows that the stork delivers babies, but where do the storks get the babies from? The answer lies up in the stratosphere, where cloud people sculpt babies from clouds and bring them to life. Gus, a lonely and insecure grey cloud, is a master at creating ‘dangerous’ babies. Crocodiles, porcupines, rams and more—Gus’s beloved creations are works of art, but more than a handful for his loyal delivery stork partner, Peck. As Gus’s creations become more and more rambunctious, Peck’s job gets harder and harder. How will Peck manage to handle both his hazardous cargo and his friend’s fiery temperament?"

And there's an official picture:
http://pixarplanet.com/blog/images/543.jpg

[PeterPanfan]

Wow! That picture looks amazing!

Thanks, Amy!

[goofystitch]

I just read the article about this last night in Disney Twenty Three and now I'm very excited. There was also a really good article about Up.

By the way, did anybody here see John Lasseter on The View yesterday? It was live from the Walt Disney Studios and he came with a huge bouquet of balloons.

[blackcauldron85]

Here's an article about Peter Sohn, the director of Partly Cloudy:

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_cus ... ry_id=4996
(via TheDisneyBlog.com)

There are also a couple pencil sketches of a couple of the short's characters in the article, too!

It's a very interesting article/interview- I recommend reading it!

[blackcauldron85]

animated-news.com:

Peter Sohn talks Partly Cloudy

AWNtv has an exclusive interview with Peter Sohn, director of the latest Pixar short Partly Cloudy wherein he talks about the importance of Dumbo, his mother and animating clouds. The article includes illustrations and stills from the short along with an exclusive 30 second video preview. Be warned of the possible spoilers. Partly Cloudy will be presented in digital 3D in front of Pixar’s Up starting May 29.

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=page ... le_no=3969

[Trumpet Joe]

Will this be available on iTunes, like "Presto" was?

[ajmrowland]

I think all the shorts have been available on itunes, so this shouldn't be much of an exception.

Anyway, this was posted on another site. I'll post it here.

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Any guesses as to what new technical achievements will be the result of this film?


Of course, after the youtube embedding, there were copyright issues, and it was taken off the site.

[Barbossa]

I read over on Micechat, that some prints of Up! don't have the short. Is this maybe just for the 3D version?

If this is the case I might skip the 3D version, or, I'll go see it twice.

[Disneykid]

It may be just the 3-D version. I just came back from a 3-D screening of Up and it didn't have the short, much to my dismay.

[Elladorine]

It may be just the 3-D version. I just came back from a 3-D screening of Up and it didn't have the short, much to my dismay.

I just came back from the 3D version myself and the short was included.

[ColorsOfTheWind]

I viewed Up in 3D and the short wasn't included to my dismay. I love those short films, so I guess I'll just have to watch Up in 2D now!

[CampbellzSoup]

The morale of the short film: Stick with your friends