Inspired by a Song and a Sheared Lamb

Bud Luckey created the singing and dancing lamb of Boundin’ after childhood memories of growing up in Montana. © 2003 Pixar.

“Here’s a story on how strange is life with its changes.
And it happened not long ago.
On a high mountain plain, where the sagebrush arranges a playground
south of the snow.
Lived a lamb with a coat of remarkable sheen -
it would glint in the sunlight all sparkly and clean...
Such a source of great pride -
that it caused him to preen.
And he’d break out in high stepp’n dance.
He would dance for his neighbors across the way.
I must say that they found his dancin’ enhancin’, for they’d also join in the play….”

It turns out that Destino [1] isn’t the only animated short competing for the Oscar based on a song. Bud Luckey’s new Pixar film, Boundin’, the story of a once proud lamb that mopes around after losing its wooly coat, only to regain its infectious spirit with the help of a sagacious Jackalope, also took flight as a catchy tune.

For some, Boundin’ is a cross between the vibrancy of Mary Blair and the buoyancy of George Pal. For others, including Pixar’s Pete Docter, who recruited the 69-year-old traditional animator from Colossal Pictures in nearby San Francisco in ‘92, Boundin’ recalls the short films about counting Luckey directed during the first season of Sesame Street. But to the very humble and self-effacing Luckey, who attended Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) and was mentored by Art Babbitt at USC, the roots of Boundin’ go all the way back to his childhood in Billings, Montana.

“The first thing I needed was a sympathetic character,” Luckey explained. “The best thing I had seen as a kid in Montana was a naked lamb that had been sheared. And then Montana is Jackalope country… this mythical creature that’s a cross between a rabbit and a deer — a bunny with horns. And then the prairie dogs were everywhere. The owl used to hang out in the prairie dog holes, and there were rattlesnakes and fish came up stream.”

Once the song began to take shape, Luckey pitched the idea to Pixar’s shorts department, where it was embraced and nurtured by producer Osnat Shurer. Luckey did some sketches and eventually made a storyboard reel and recorded a scratch track playing the banjo. “I remember when he pitched it we were all charmed by it — it didn’t take much convincing,” Docter remarked. “Bud had these amazing drawings that were so charming. There was no cynicism at all, which is pretty rare these days. A number of us had been familiar with his Sesame Street work and it had a little taste of that.”

The character of the Jackalope became fleshed out during the animation process. © 2003 Pixar.

Although a traditional animator by trade who’s dabbled with computers over the years (he first used a Commodore 64 when working on educational games), Luckey, one of Pixar’s original gang of five (along with John Lasseter, Docter, Andrew Stanton and Jeff Pidgeon), is best known as the artist who came up with the original design of Woody in Toy Story. “Originally, Woody was a ventriloquist doll,” Luckey recalled. “Disney found them spooky, so I came up with the idea of a cowboy. In my head, it was more like Gabby Hayes than John Wayne. I did something like 150 Woody drawings.” Since then Luckey has done design work on all of the Pixar features, bouncing around from the art department to the story department to animation.

Because Boundin’ adhered closely to the song, the story became locked in early on — a rarity at Pixar [2], according to Docter, where stories are always changing and improving. However, the personality of the Jackalope was one of the aspects that blossomed once they started animating. “I first had Hoyt Axton in mind, but he died; and then John Hartford, and then he died. I did a rough and John [Lasseter] [3] told me that I should do it.”

Production on Boundin’ began in January 2003 and took 10 months to complete. In addition to writing and directing, Luckey also served as production designer and sang the song, which was recorded in Nashville at OmniSound Studios with Riders in the Sky, the country band heard previously on Toy Story 2 and For the Birds. Joey Miskulin of the Riders produced the music. “I didn’t want western swing,” Luckey insisted. “I wanted more Smothers Bros. or The Kingston Trio. I know three chords on the banjo, but these musicians really know what they’re doing.”

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Even though Luckey didn’t actually animate the film, the vibrant style of his original drawings is very evident. © 2003 Pixar. [4]

There were lots of research and preparation, including tap dancing lessons. They even sheared a lamb in front of Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. “I managed to miss that one,” Luckey chuckled.

As for directing, Luckey said there wasn’t anything to it. He may have acted out a few simple performances, but gave the animators all the credit. “They knocked me on my ass every morning. But then I didn’t think it was going to be edgy enough for them, but when I first presented the idea to them, they clapped. I’ve been impressed with their work ever since I came here.”

Luckey also credited supervising animator Doug Sweetland with really pushing the envelope (he’s the one who captured the G-force implicit in Luckey’s storyboards with Woody and Buzz on the rocket in Toy Story). “It’s all better than what I had in my head. One little scene where the naked lamb does a dumb little dance — I think that’s a wonderful piece of animation. It really grabbed the personality. Subtle things… closeups of the lamb… eye movements… head moves are perfect.”

The one short Luckey singled out for inspiration was Red’s Dream, the story of a red unicycle that conjures a clown owner and juggling act. The mood of the water and the rain and the lonely little bike really caught his eye.

“In animation, I’ve always tried to do three-dimensional stuff. I’d be up all night with a magic marker and be out on the street and throwing up. I used to come to work around 6:30 in the morning and we’d be working on Toy Story. I’d go down the hall and see the frames as they were coming in. I first saw that scene where Woody’s in the crate and Buzz is tied to the rocket, and that rain is just dripping down. That was incredible.”

On Boundin’, Luckey suggested that the lighting is different. “It’s a more complicated lighting system. It has to do with ambience. The water people on Finding Nemo [5] came in handy for the waterfall. The fish that are swimming around in the stream was used to good effect. And if you look at the lighting in the scene where the lamb is after the prairie dogs that have been giving him raspberries, and you turn around in the cubbyhole, the water is amazing with the ripples and pinpointing drips of water.”

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The Montana landscape is a visual highlight of the film. © 2003 Pixar. [6]

However, Docter maintained that the real achievement of Boundin’ is more artistic than technical. “The biggest success is that Bud and the animators were able to capture his drawings. It felt so fresh and simplified in a really appealing way. The animation is still complex — it’s organic and three-dimensional, but it’s nice and simple. Very refreshing.”

When asked why Luckey didn’t find the time to do any animating on Boundin’, he simply shrugged, “You know, I was going to do some animation. They put a whole system in my office, and I couldn’t even remember how to turn the damn thing on. The system had totally changed, and it would’ve taken me three months to learn how to do it. So I let more capable people animate it.”

And as far as the Pixar staffs of digital animators and the technicians, Luckey concluded, “I used to teach youngsters about numbers using animation; now I learn from youngsters about animating with numbers.”

Bill Desowitz is editor of VFXWorld.com.