Production

Development

Writer and director John Lasseter in 2009

The development of Cars began in 1998, when Pixar finished production of A Bug's Life. At that
time, Jorgen Klubien began writing a new script called The Yellow Car, which was about an
electric car living in a gas-guzzling world inspired by The Ugly Duckling, an idea triggered by the
poor reception his fellow countrymen gave the Mini-El car.[10] Some of the original drawings and
characters were developed in 1998 and the producers agreed that Cars could be the next Pixar
film after A Bug's Life and be released in early 1999, particularly around June 4.[10] However, the
idea was scrapped in favor of Toy Story 2.[10] Later, production resumed with major script
changes, like giving Mater, Doc and a few other characters bigger parts.[10]
John Lasseter said that inspiration for the film's story came after he took a cross-country road
trip with his wife and five sons in 2000.[11] When he returned to the studio after vacation, he
contacted Michael Wallis, a Route 66 historian. Wallis then led eleven Pixar animators in rented
white Cadillacs on two different road trips across the route to research the film.[12][13][14] In 2001,
the film's working title was Route 66 (after U.S. Route 66), but the title was changed to Cars in
order to avoid confusion with the 1960s television series of the same name.[15] In addition,
Lightning McQueen's racing number was originally going to be 57 (a reference to 1957,
Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (a reference to 1995, the year Pixar's first feature
film Toy Story was released).[15]
In 2006, Lasseter spoke about the inspiration for the film, saying: "I have always loved cars. In
one vein, I have Disney blood, and in the other, there's motor oil. The notion of combining these
two great passions in my life—cars and animation—was irresistible. When Joe (Ranft) and I first
started talking about this film in 1998, we knew we wanted to do something with cars as
characters. Around that same time, we watched a documentary called 'Divided Highways,'
which dealt with the interstate highway and how it affected the small towns along the way. We
were so moved by it and began thinking about what it must have been like in these small towns
that got bypassed. That's when we started really researching Route 66, but we still hadn't quite
figured out what the story for the film was going to be. I used to travel that highway with my
family as a child when we visited our family in St. Louis."[11]
Years later in 2013, Klubien said the film was both his best and most bitter experience because
he was fired before it premiered and because he feels Lasseter wrote him out of the story of
how the film got made.[16]
Animation

A rendered frame from the development of the film

For the cars themselves, Lasseter also visited the design studios of the Big Three Detroit
automakers, particularly J Mays of Ford Motor Company.[11] Lasseter learned how real cars were
designed.[11]
In 2006, Lasseter spoke about how they worked hard to make the animation believable, saying:
"It took many months of trial and error, and practicing test animation, to figure out how each
car moves and how their world works. Our supervising animators, Doug Sweetland and Scott
Clark, and the directing animators, Bobby Podesta and James Ford Murphy, did an amazing job
working with the animation team to determine the unique movements for each character based
on its age and the type of car it was. Some cars are like sports cars and they're much tighter in
their suspension. Others are older '50s cars that are a lot looser and have more bounce to them.
We wanted to get that authenticity in there but also to make sure each car had a unique
personality. We also wanted each animator to be able to put some of themself in the character
and give it their own spin. Every day in dailies, it was so much fun because we would see things
that we had never seen in our lives. The world of cars came alive in a believable and unexpected
way."[11]
Unlike most anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the
windshield (which resembles the Tonka Talking Trucks, the characters from Tex Avery's One
Cab's Family short and Disney's own Susie the Little Blue Coupe), rather than within the
headlights.[11] According to production designer Bob Pauley, "From the very beginning of this
project, John Lasseter had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one thing, it
separates our characters from the more common approach where you have little cartoon eyes
in the headlights. For another, he thought that having the eyes down near the mouth at the
front end of the car feels more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point of
view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be involved in the animation
of the character."[11] This decision was facetiously criticized by automotive blog Jalopnik.[17]
In 2006, the supervising animator of the film, Scott Clark, spoke about the challenges of
animating car characters, saying: "Getting a full range of performance and emotion from these
characters and making them still seem like cars was a tough assignment, but that's what
animation does best. You use your imagination, and you make the movements and gestures fit
with the design. Our car characters may not have arms and legs, but we can lean the tires in or
out to suggest hands opening up or closing in. We can use steering to point a certain direction.
We also designed a special eyelid and an eyebrow for the windshield that lets us communicate
an expressiveness that cars don't have."[11] Doug Sweetland, who also served as supervising
animator, also spoke about the challenges, saying: "It took a different kind of animator to really
be able to interpret the Cars models, than it did to interpret something like The
Incredibles models. With The Incredibles, the animator could get reference for the characters by
shooting himself and watching the footage. But with Cars, it departs completely from any
reference. Yes they're cars, but no car can do what our characters do. It's pure fantasy. It took a
lot of trial and error to get them to look right."[11]
Lasseter also explained that the film started with pencil and paper designs, saying: "Truth to
materials. Starting with pencil-and-paper designs from production designer Bob Pauley, and
continuing through the modeling, articulation, and shading of the characters, and finally into
animation, the production team worked hard to have the car characters remain true to their
origins."[11] Character department manager Jay Ward also explained how they wanted the cars
to look as realistic as possible, saying: "John didn't want the cars to seem clay-like or mushy. He
insisted on truth to materials. This was a huge thing for him. He told us that steel needs to feel
like steel. Glass should feel like glass. These cars need to feel heavy. They weigh three or four
thousand pounds. When they move around, they need to have that feel. They shouldn't appear
light or overly bouncy to the point where the audience might see them as rubber
toys."[11] According to directing animator James Ford Murphy, "Originally, the car models were
built so they could basically do anything. John kept reminding us that these characters are made
of metal and they weigh several thousand pounds. They can't stretch. He showed us examples
of very loose animation to illustrate what not to do."[11]
Character shading supervisor on the film Thomas Jordan explained that chrome and car paint
were the main challenges on the film, saying: "Chrome and car paint were our two main
challenges on this film. We started out by learning as much as we could. At the local body shop,
we watched them paint a car, and we saw the way they mixed the paint and applied the various
coats. We tried to dissect what goes into the real paint and recreated it in the computer. We
figured out that we needed a base paint, which is where the color comes from, and the
clearcoat, which provides the reflection. We were then able to add in things like metallic flake to
give it a glittery sparkle, a pearlescent quality that might change color depending on the angle,
and even a layer of pin-striping for characters like Ramone."[11] Supervising technical director on
the film Eben Ostby explained that the biggest challenge for the technical team was creating the
metallic and painted surfaces of the car characters, and the reflections that those surfaces
generate, saying: "Given that the stars of our film are made of metal, John had a real desire to
see realistic reflections, and more beautiful lighting than we've seen in any of our previous
films. In the past, we've mostly used environment maps and other matte-based technology to
cheat reflections, but for Cars we added a ray-tracing capability to our existing Renderman
program to raise the bar for Pixar."[11]
Rendering lead Jessica McMackin spoke about the use of ray tracing on the film, saying: "In
addition to creating accurate reflections, we used ray tracing to achieve other effects. We were
able to use this approach to create accurate shadows, like when there are multiple light sources
and you want to get a feathering of shadows at the edges. Or occlusion, which is the absence of
ambient light between two surfaces, like a crease in a shirt. A fourth use is irradiance. An
example of this would be if you had a piece of red paper and held it up to a white wall, the light
would be colored by the paper and cast a red glow on the wall."[11] Character supervisor Tim
Milliron explained that the film uses a ground–locking system that kept the cars firmly planted
on the road, saying: "The ground-locking system is one of the things I'm most proud of on this
film. In the past, characters have never known about their environment in any way. A simulation
pass was required if you wanted to make something like that happen. On Cars, this system is
built into the models themselves, and as you move the car around, the vehicle sticks to the
ground. It was one of those things that we do at Pixar where we knew going in that it had to be
done, but we had no idea how to do it."[11]
Technical director Lisa Forsell explained that to enhance the richness and beauty of the desert
landscapes surrounding Radiator Springs, the filmmakers created a department responsible for
matte paintings and sky flats, saying: "Digital matte paintings are a way to get a lot of visual
complexity without necessarily having to build complex geometry, and write complex shaders.
We spent a lot time working on the clouds and their different formations. They tend to be on
several layers and they move relative to each other. The clouds do in fact have some character
and personality. The notion was that just as people see themselves in the clouds, cars see
various car-shaped clouds. It's subtle, but there are definitely some that are shaped like a sedan.
And if you look closely, you'll see some that look like tire treads. The fact that so much attention
is put on the skies speaks to the visual level of the film. Is there a story point? Not really. There
is no pixel on the screen that does not have an extraordinary level of scrutiny and care applied
to it. There is nothing that is just throw-away."[11]
Computers used in the development of the film were four times faster than those used in The
Incredibles and 1,000 times faster than those used in Toy Story. To build the cars, the animators
used computer platforms similar to those used in the design of real-world automobiles.[18]
Soundtrack
Main article: Cars (soundtrack)
The Cars soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on June 6, 2006.[19] Nine tracks on the
soundtrack are by popular artists, while the remaining eleven are score cues by Randy Newman.
[19]
It has two versions of the classic Bobby Troup jazz standard "Route 66" (popularized by Nat
King Cole), one by Chuck Berry and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits
performed by John Mayer.[19] Brad Paisley contributed two of the nine tracks to the album, one
being "Find Yourself" used for the end credits.[19]
Release
Cars was originally going to be released on November 4, 2005, but on December 7, 2004, its
release date was moved to June 9, 2006.[20] Analysts looked at the release date change as a sign
from Pixar that they were preparing for the pending end of the Disney distribution contract by
either preparing non-Disney materials to present to other studios or they were buying time to
see what happened with Michael Eisner's situation at Disney.[21] When Pixar's chief
executive Steve Jobs made the release date announcement, he stated that the reasoning was
due to wanting to put all Pixar films on a summer release schedule with DVD sales occurring
during the holiday shopping season.[20]