Since the establishment of the studio, Chris Wedge and his excellent team have always emphasized that "people's time is always more precious than machines", and the scientific and efficient way of working is far better than working overtime. They firmly believe that "technology serves the needs of design", and artistic expression and storytelling skills are the focus of the whole production. Under this premise, all technology research and development and application are meaningful.
Every film they make has made great technical progress. During the Ice Age, there was still a gap between Blue Sky Studio and Pixar from a purely technical point of view. Therefore, it emphasizes simple lines, smooth pictures and character settings, while details such as the realism of animal hair and the flexibility of character eyes are greatly simplified. By the time of Ice Age 2: Melting, Blue Sky had achieved many major technological breakthroughs, such as hair generation technology, water flow effect and an extremely efficient renderer-the rendering system developed by Blue Sky Studio is the fastest rendering system in the world at present.
Technological progress is necessary, but it is by no means the most important reason for the success of an animated film. Mike Regis, the technical director of Blue Sky, once said: "There are many kinds of animation techniques, such as freeze-frame animation, plane animation, computer animation ... The most important thing is to find the most suitable form for the film content. A good cartoon will not be limited by technology. This is a great story, and the attractive characters decide it. This should always be the goal of cartoons. "
In Ice Age, Manny, the kind mammoth, Sid, the greedy sloth, and Diego, the cunning saber-toothed tiger once went through difficulties and obstacles together to escort a child back to the home of mankind, and once flew when the iceberg melted. In the third work after two adventures, Tyrannosaurus rex jumped out of nowhere and took Sid away. In order to find companions, animals such as Manny and Diego entered the "Xanadu" of the Ice Age. Although the dinosaur world is very dangerous, several people have a good time. ...
The squirrel fighting for acorns in Ice Age is almost the best supporting role in animation history. Mike Ellinkis once said that the biggest impact of Ice Age 2 on animation is not the software developed by Blue Sky itself, but the big squirrel that seems to have nothing to do with the overall plot. Don't be surprised at the squirrel's appearance. The animated short films produced by Blue Sky Studio include No Time to Eat Nuts and Crazy.
"Slow work and fine work" is the outstanding advantage of Blue Sky Studio, and it is also their market strategy as a last resort. Because in terms of scale, the blue sky with only more than 200 people can only be regarded as a workshop-style operation compared with the huge production group of Pixar or DreamWorks. However, everyone under the blue sky is an elite, and their talents and efforts have been pushing them to explore. Although their film-making speed seems to be a little slow, it has not stopped Blue Sky Studio and their animation images from winning the crazy love of animation fans all over the world.