Games in Industry and Life

"Geri's Game" is one of the most creative of Pixar's 17 theatrically released shorts.  From the time I was a child that one stood out to me the most as far as the story of it went.  It had no words, of course up until that point none of the shorts did, but this one stood out to me as one of the most creative.  Which reflecting on the Article, "The Secret of Pixar Storytelling," the team at Pixar did just that.  The article states that, "The process of storytelling is messy," and I 100% agree with that.  Storytelling is extremely difficult, and when one story is presented to three different directors, you will wind up with three different movies.

Toy Story took a total of 36 months to write, while Toy Story 2 from a character aspect, only took 3 months.  The article here doesn't quite take into account the fact that John Lasseter had to single handedly take over the project right off of coming out of the "A Bug's Life" tour, but aside from that, the second story plot is always easier when you have characters to work with.  I myself am a comic book writer and artist, and when I first wrote my very first issue, it took me 20 months to write.  The second issue only took me 4.

To summarize, "Geri's Game" is the best example of the Pixar artists attempting to keep away from the Uncanny Valley while actually attempting, and improving, models for humans.  Compared to their fourth short "Tin Toy," and even their third short, "Red's Dream," they were testing their abilities of getting human characters correct, and were getting better each time.