Sajan Skaria is sipping hot chai when I meet him at his residence in the city. A character supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios, the company that has brought out computer graphic animation wonders such as Brave, Finding Nemo and Cars, Sajan was part of the team behind Inside Out, the movie that won the Best Animated Feature Film at the Oscars last year. Sajan laughs as he says: “I recall my parents, K. Skaria and Thankamma, telling me about the flood of congratulatory phone calls, the rush of journalists for interviews, photography sessions, et al during the Oscars. I am glad I was not in the city at the time.” A software engineer who quit his job to pursue a life in animation, Sajan joined Pixar in 2001. Although he did work in Finding Nemo, where he assisted the team that worked on fine-tuning Nemo’s tank, his first real project was the first Cars, where he helped bring life to the film’s characters such as Sally, Fillmore and Sarge. He then went on to assist in Pixar movies such as Toy Story 3, Ratatouille and Cars 2. “I missed out on Pixar works such as Brave and The Incredibles as I was working on other projects. And while I couldn’t devote my full attention to Cars 3 as I am working on Toy Story 4, I did help out in fleshing the character of Cruz Ramirez in Cars 3.” It’s the small details that gives life to the animated characters, he says. “For instance, Cristela Alonzo who voices Cruz in the movie, has a slight chip in her tooth. We added that for Cruz. Tiny details such as these help anthropomorphize the characters and help in endearing them to the audience.” According to Sajan, working on a movie franchise, is relatively easier than working on an animated film that has a whole new set of characters. “That’s because when working on a franchise, like say Cars and Toy Story, most of the ground work and characters are done and formed.” Inside Out was a challenge as the characters were completely new. The movie, which took four years in the making, took a look inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley, whose basic emotions are anthropomorphized into animated characters. Although Sajan’s role is to supervise the team as they help create the characters, he did help flesh Fear out. “Fear was fun to work on as I could take liberty with this character as he is not bound to the laws of physics, unlike Riley, the protagonist of the film, who is a real life character. A lot of work goes behind the making of an animation film like Inside Out. I had a team of modellers, riggers and shading artistes working with me. We take the artwork that the artistes and director come up with and breathe life into them on the computer. Other departments are involved in the process too. For instance, the simulation department that manipulates the movements of the characters’ clothing and hair, and the lighting department that integrates all of the elements into a final image. It takes proper team work to bring out a movie like this.” The character supervisor, who currently lives in San Francisco, is in the city with his wife, Minnu, and children, Esha and Zack on vacation. “I am here for a month and will be leaving back for San Francisco shortly. It has been a good break so far. Once I return, I resume work on Toy Story 4. I am looking forward to it.”

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