Live Action Toy Story

Last updated

Live Action Toy Story
LiveActionToyStory.jpeg
The film's YouTube thumbnail, featuring Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear
Directed by
  • Jonason Pauley
  • Jesse Perrotta (assistant director)
Based on Toy Story
by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft
CinematographyJonason Pauley
Edited byJonason Pauley
Music by Randy Newman
Production
companies
  • Jonason's Movies
  • NobleWolf Productions
  • JP and Beyond Productions
Distributed byJP and Beyond (YouTube)
Release dates
  • June 2012 (2012-06)(premiere)
  • January 12, 2013 (2013-01-12)(official YouTube upload)
Running time
80 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1,000

Live Action Toy Story is a comedy film produced by the Arizona-based Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta. It is a recreation of the 1995 animated film Toy Story , with the toy characters animated through stop-motion or filmed moving with wires and strings. [1] As of August 30, 2023, it has nearly 49.9 million views on YouTube.

Contents

Plot

Production

Mesa, Arizona-based Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta, both video makers with Perrotta having already created a series of puppet videos uploaded to YouTube named Billy and Chucky before Live Action Toy Story, became friends through a common interest in the Toy Story films during high school. [2] The project began after the two viewed Toy Story 3 (2010), starting with a lunch room talk at school; they originally planned for one clip of Toy Story (1995) to be recreated, but later decided the entire film should be done. [2]

Most of Live Action Toy Story's approximately $1,000 budget depended on loans from around 150 family members and friends from their church, some of whom also served as actors in the film. [2]

Pauley's home served as the location for both Andy and Sid's rooms. [2] Three places, two arcades in Mesa and Oregon and a Tempe Peter Piper Pizza restaurant, were the locations for Pizza Planet. [2]

Live Action Toy Story was shot over the course of two years, with editing done during filming. [3] The first six months of shooting was done on Saturdays and spent on the scenes that took place in Andy's room. [1] By the summer of 2011 with school not in session and more friends available for collaboration, more scenes were filmed around the home and on the streets, with backgrounds of homes shot in neighborhoods close to them. [1]

Live Action Toy Story's accuracy to the original film was extensive to the point where the license plate text was the same. [1] Although toys of the main characters were already in possession by the two, other toys had to be purchased or even made. [3] Sid's toys were produced out of parts of products they bought at a Goodwill store. [2] The bull-terrier dog was hired from Craigslist. [1] A major challenge when scouting locations in Arizona was making the settings look as similar to the typical California suburb look as possible, [1] especially when it came to outdoor scenes. [2]

According to Pauley, "I usually will say that the most difficult part was coordinating everyone’s schedule. But that’s not really a fun answer. It was frustrating when we lost part of the movie and had to reshoot a scene. As for the most fun, I was thrilled to move to different locations after being in Andy’s room for so long. The Pizza Planet and gas station scenes were fun to shoot." [3] Also said Pauley, "Most of the time it was myself, Jesse, and whoever else we needed for the scene we were planning on filming. Our friends Amy and Kim, our actors TJ, Victor, Delani, the dog trainer, the guy who lent us a moving van, the list goes on. The whole thing took two years to film, and I edited as we went along." [3]

Reception

Lee Unkrich, an editor of the original Toy Story movie as well as the director of the third film, tweeted that Live Action Toy Story was done by a "VERY dedicated" group of people Lee Unkrich at WonderCon 2010 3.JPG
Lee Unkrich, an editor of the original Toy Story movie as well as the director of the third film, tweeted that Live Action Toy Story was done by a "VERY dedicated" group of people

To hype the project and get acquaintances on board to help, the production process was constantly documented on the film's Facebook page, and behind-the-scenes videos and a live-action recreation of the ending of Toy Story 3 were uploaded to YouTube. [3]

In September 2011, Gizmodo published an article covering a sneak peek of the project uploaded to JP and Beyond. [4]

The Toy Story 3 ending remake was covered by New York magazine's Vulture blog [5] and the Pixar Times upon its May 2012 upload. [6] Upon the trailer's August 2012 release, the two filmmakers were interviewed about the project on the nationally syndicated television program Right This Minute . [7]

Upon its 2013 upload, Live Action Toy Story was covered by Boys' Life , [8] The Verge , [9] Collider , [10] NBC News , [11] Slate , [12] Laughing Squid , [13] MTV News , [14] The Huffington Post , [15] Gothamist , [16] Wired , [17] CNET , [18] Vulture, [19] NME , [20] and The Hollywood Reporter which claimed it to be "a crown jewel in the fan-made tribute video community." [21] It garnered more than 250,000 views in 24 hours [18] and reached 1.7 million views within two days [1] before surpassing the three million mark on its third day. [22] Two weeks after its upload, the video had more than eight million views. [23] It was tweeted about by Lee Unkrich on the day it was uploaded, describing it as done by a "VERY dedicated" team. [24] As Fast Company journalist Joe Berkowitz described the film's appeal, "Although the strings controlling Woody and Buzz Lightyear may be visible in nearly every frame, you can also see the creators’ giddy affection for the source material, and for the craft of filmmaking in general." [3]

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Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the sequel to Toy Story (1995) and the second installment in the Toy Story franchise. The film was directed by John Lasseter, co-directed by Ash Brannon and Lee Unkrich, and produced by Helene Plotkin and Karen Robert Jackson, from a screenplay written by Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlin, and Chris Webb, and a story conceived by Lasseter, Stanton, Brannon, and Pete Docter. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, R. Lee Ermey, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf and Jeff Pidgeon reprise their roles from the first film. In the film, Woody is toynapped by a greedy toy collector, prompting Buzz Lightyear and his friends to save him, but Woody is then tempted by the idea of immortality in a museum.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 McLaughlin, Erin (January 14, 2013). "'Toy Story' Gets Live-Action Treatment". ABC News . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Peirano, Michelle (October 31, 2012). "A real 'Toy Story': EV friends recreate flick shot-for-shot, in live action". East Valley Tribune . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Berkowitz, Joe (January 17, 2013). "Meet the Creator: The 19-Year-Old Behind That Shot-for-Shot Live-Action "Toy Story"". Fast Company . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  4. ↑ Chan, Casey (September 28, 2011). "What Toy Story Would Look Like If They Filmed with Real Toys". Gizmodo . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  5. ↑ Glazer, Eliot (May 8, 2012). "Watch Live-Action Reenactments of Scenes From Aladdin and Toy Story 3". Vulture. Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  6. ↑ Rizvi, Samad (May 3, 2012). "Video of the Day: 'Toy Story 3' Finale In Live-Action". Pixar Times. Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  7. ↑ "Live Action Re-Creation of Toy Story". Right This Minute . August 10, 2012. Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  8. ↑ "Watch This: Live-Action Toy Story". Boys' Life . January 14, 2013. Archived from the original on September 26, 2015. Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  9. ↑ Pierce, David (January 13, 2013). "Watch this: an incredible shot-for-shot, live-action 'Toy Story' remake". The Verge . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  10. ↑ Goldberg, Matt (January 14, 2013). "Watch a Fan-Made, Full-Length, Live-Action Remake of TOY STORY". Collider . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  11. ↑ Dawn, Randee (January 14, 2013). "'Toy Story' live-action remake goes viral". NBC News . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  12. ↑ Haglund, David (January 14, 2013). "Watch a Full-Length, Live-Action Toy Story". Slate . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  13. ↑ Blazenhoff, Rusty (January 13, 2013). "Live Action Toy Story, A Shot-for-Shot Remake Using Actors & Toys". Laughing Squid . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  14. ↑ Hatfield, Don (January 14, 2013). "Fans Create Full-Length, Live-Action 'Toy Story' Remake Using Actual Toys!". MTV News . Retrieved October 6, 2020.[ dead link ]
  15. ↑ Lee Yandoli, Krystie (January 14, 2013). "'Toy Story' Remake: Teens Film Feature-Length Live Version Of Pixar Classic (VIDEO)". The Huffington Post . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  16. ↑ Yakas, Ben (January 13, 2013). "Video: Watch A Live Action Shot-For-Shot Recreation Of Toy Story". Gothamist . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  17. ↑ Gigoux, Chris (January 13, 2013). "Shot-for-Shot Live Action Toy Story Is Awesomely Cute". Wired . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  18. 1 2 Musil, Steven (January 13, 2013). "Amateur filmmakers remake 'Toy Story' as live-action movie". CNET . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  19. ↑ David Fox, Jesse (January 14, 2013). "Watch a Live-Action, Shot-for-Shot Toy Story Remake". Vulture . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  20. ↑ Levine, Nick (January 15, 2013). "'Toy Story' gets a live-action remake using real toys – watch". NME . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  21. ↑ Zakarin, Jordan (January 14, 2013). "Live-Action 'Toy Story' Remake Uses Strings and Stop Motion to Make Movie Magic (Video)". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  22. ↑ Ciarula Taylor, Lesley (January 15, 2013). "Live action Toy Story by Arizona teen a viral hit". Toronto Star . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  23. ↑ "Friends create buzz with live action 'Toy Story'". NAU News . February 13, 2013. Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  24. ↑ @leeunkrich (January 13, 2013). "Live action Toy Story (re)made by some VERY dedicated guys: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5G0j_Huv2Fg&sns=tw @RealiveToyStory" (Tweet). Retrieved October 6, 2020– via Twitter.
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