Before you find out if Pixar’s Inside Out will take home an Oscar or two, take a minute to look through the credits.
There you will find the name Deirdre Warin.
You may not have heard of her, but she is one of the Pixar originals, having worked with the company long before it rose to fame.
In 1985, when she got a job at Lucas Film, Pixar was just a struggling subsidiary.
Future Pixar director and Walt Disney and Pixar studios chief creative officer John Lasseter was the only animator in a group of about 40 people, including Ms Warin, who were “having tremendous fun but not making any money”.
“[Pixar investor and Apple founder] Steve Jobs wrote personal cheques every week for our salaries,” she told SBS News.
A still from Pixar's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, released in 1995. Source: Walt Disney Pictures
From there she moved to Bungendore, outside of Canberra, working as a potter, before jumping between several Australian cities, including Canberra, Melbourne and Tasmania.
Until one day her husband received a job offer he couldn’t refuse.
“My husband was a geologist for a mining company in Queensland and he was asked to head up a worldwide exploration, so of course he said yes and we moved to San Francisco quite unexpectedly,” she told SBS News.
“[Working as a potter] was a little bit boring there so I thought I needed to do more.
“I got a temporary job as a receptionist at Lucas Film in the computer graphics department – not having a clue what I was doing. It was the right place at the right time.”
It was tough going for Pixar in those early days, with the company picking up work animating advertisements to try and pay the bills.
It wasn’t until 1995 when the groundbreaking computer animated film, Toy Story was released that Pixar really made it.
By then Ms Warin had graduated to working as a production assistant and was helping to co-ordinate technical departments.
“I always said yes to everything I was asked to do,” she said.
“I was a production assistant then I was the assistant to the producer on Toy Story.
“We were a very small team so we all did multiple things.”
In following films, including Up, Brave and Pixar’s second film A Bug’s Life, she would take on the manager role for various aspects of the animation production, including sets, characters and modeling.
Deirdre Warin was the sets manager for the Oscar-nominated animated film Inside Out. Source: AP
With this film, Pixar once again broke new ground, both technologically and emotionally, exploring a difficult time in the life of Riley, a 11-year-old girl.
Ms Warin said a movie like Inside Out, which explored the depths of both childhood and adult emotions, made people think back to their childhoods and re-examine their fears.
“The point is its ok to be sad – that is the big point [Inside Out director and writer] Pete Docter brought out.
“Being sad is a part of life, emotions are fine to have and to talk through - it’s been quite a big step [for a movie to take].”
The sheer quantity of sets required, both real and imaginary, was one of the biggest challenges facing the Inside Out crew, and it was Ms Warin’s job as sets manager to ensure they met Pixar’s exacting standards.
“What was interesting in this film was the real world was San Francisco which was really fun for the set artists building the set because they know the city and they did a field trip to where they thought Riley’s house would be,” she said.
“For the imaginary world Pete [Docter] said ‘It’s got to look like nothing you’ve ever seen before’.
“It was quite challenging to do all those sets, but it was enormous fun and so creative.”
Even the smallest details require huge amounts of work, and Pixar films are packed with details that may or may not catch the audience’s eye.
“The Train of Thought [in Inside Out] - you’ve no idea how much thought went into that,” Ms Warin said.
“We treated it like it was the main character, but it’s hardly in the scene.”
Deirdre Warin worked on the production of Brave. Source: AP
“We work in a bubble,” she said.
“We work on the story and the technical innovations that are needed to make that happen.
“The story is king here.
“A lot of our stories are very funny but that have emotional moments.
“They dig into real life and people can relate to aspects of the story.
“I don’t think about how innovative it is until the film comes out. That’s when you find out how much they love the film and it can be fairly overwhelming how loved Pixar films are. It is quite extraordinary.”
Ms Warin’s role at Pixar has continued to evolve and she is now involved in training new production staff members, many of whom point to movies like Toy Story as their inspiration to work in animation.
To those interested in working in computer animation, she said an interest in maths was the key.
Looking back at her long career with Pixar, Ms Warin is philosophical about how she came to be where she is – one of the Pixar originals.
“As I think back, if I walked up to the front door now, would they give me a job? Probably not. I was really in the right place at the right time.”
