“Toy Story 5″ VFX supervisor Thomas Jordan has been keeping a secret for months. During a SXSW London panel on Friday, he revealed that he’s known about Taylor Swift’s song for the animated film since February.
Titled “I Knew It, I Knew You,” Swift’s “Toy Story” tune — which sees the pop star return to her country roots — was released on Friday before the movie hits theaters on June 19.
“Turns out, Taylor Swift is a huge ‘Toy Story’ fan like many of us,” Jordan said. “She actually saw an early version of the film, she requested to see it before it was finished and she wrote the song and then asked us if we wanted it. And we said ‘Uh, yes! Yes we do.’ That was in February, so we’ve had to keep it a secret ever since then.”
Jordan added that “there was a very small group” of the “Toy Story 5” team that knew of the song’s existence, so they had to “create a decoy version” of the film without the song in it to show to press and other Pixar/Disney staff who weren’t privy to the information.
“The crew that made ‘Toy Story 5’ did not know about this secret until last week,” he said.
The fifth installment in Pixar and Disney’s iconic animated franchise picks up with beloved toys Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Woody (Tom Hanks) and Jessie (Joan Cusack) a few years after the events of the fourth film (voiced by Greta Lee). This time, they’re facing the existential threat that technology has posed to playtime, represented by smart device Lilypad.
During the panel, Jordan took attendees behind the scenes of how the VFX came together for the movie, revealing never-before-seen footage to explain how the team animated 50 Buzz Lightyears, a horse named Daffodil and the tight curls of new human character Blaze. He asserted that all of the animation in the film was 100% human-made, and AI was not involved.
“We are an artist-driven studio, and we are also founded in technology … We are constantly trying to stay current, either with our own animations or learning what others are doing,” he said. “So we find AI fascinating, we’re learning about it and we have done experiments with it. But so far, nothing lives up to the standards and expectations that we have for the quality of our work.”
Source: variety.com
