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Getting to know Fran Kalal

Learn more about what makes Fran tick.

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Video transcript

(mumbling) - Come on! So I always knew I wanted to do film, and be involved in film in some way. But there're a lot of different ways that you can do that. I got into doing computer graphics in film when I met with a few advisors at Ohio State University's Advanced Computing Center for Art and Design. I met with Dr. Wayne Carlson, and he said that I could go to a program that would teach me how to use the computer programs that already exist. Or, I could go to a program where I could learn how to write those computer programs, and then I would understand them a lot better. I could understand what's going on under the hood, and I could talk to the people who were developing them a lot better. And I'm so glad that I took his advice and went to a program that focused on that, because now when I talk to an engineer, even if I didn't write the code, I have a better idea of what's going on under the hood, and I can come up with a better, reproduceable way to show a problem. Another reason I went into computer graphics instead of live action film is... what was happening at the time. I was so inspired by the short Bunny. I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. I've always been so moved by bringing animals and characters to life. And that's something that you can do with puppetry quite well, but that's something that computer graphics does exceptionally well. It is just the right format for those things. And Ratatouille had just come out, and I found out that Pixar was gonna come visit our campus, and I could not wait to talk to the people who made the delicious-looking food. But we had a really good conversation and they liked my work, and so they asked if I would come to Pixar and do some shading. So I did. And my boss was the lady who made the beautiful food in Ratatouille, Athena Zedakas. It was amazing when I showed up and got that assignment on the first day. I just could not believe my luck. I was so excited. And on my resume, there was a line that said hobbies, and in the line that said hobbies, it said, knitting, playing piano, and sewing. And one of the supervising technical directors looked at that line and said, "Wait, "you can understand how to use computer programs, "and you can sew. "You know there's jobs for people that do that at Pixar?" And I said, "No." And he said, "Do you wanna come and try that?" I said, "Yeah!" So, they found a spot for me on Wall-E. We had just gone through getting some notes back from the audience preview, and the characters weren't a size that made the audience happy, so we resized some of the characters, and they needed their outfits refitted, which is perfect intern work. And then they gave me Ellie, and they asked me to dress and tailor Ellie, and I just could not believe my luck. She is the most amazing and wonderful character. She's outgoing and she's fun and she's smart. Ellie went well. They liked the way she looked, and I was happy with it too, so they asked me to work on Merida, which was really awesome. And that went well, so then they asked me to work on Disgust, and Riley, and all Riley's mom's clothes, which was a lot of fun. And now I'm working on something I totally can't talk about on camera. Kitty! I'm sorry, there's a cat! There's a cat! Oh, God, there's a cat! Oh my God, he's so cute! He's got tape on his back! Kitty!