Chage-O: Pixar's Presto crew pulled a production rabbit out of the hat to create a loony 'toon on deadline.

When Pixar wanted a new short film to show with its then upcoming CG feature Wall-e, animator Doug Sweetland jumped at the opportunity. The result is a five-minute 'toon called "Presto," a short film about a rabbit that pulls a magician out of its hat. It's different from anything Pixar has produced in the past, and it's the first short Pixar has produced on a rigid deadline.

"Normally, shorts are not primary projects," Sweetland says. "When a feature needs resources, the short goes on hold. But, one of the tests with 'Presto' was to see if we could do the film without interruptions."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

They did, but it took some clever tricks on the part of the production crew to make it happen. "Our original schedule had us finishing before the peak usage of labor on Wall-e occurred," says Richard Hollander, producer. "We lost that battle and became lock-step to Wall-e. It made for a slightly terrifying ending. But, the company was going to make this short happen."

Pixar green-lit the idea in March and, by September, had nailed the story. "Animators work on parts, never on the whole," Sweetland points out. "Our discipline is to take a piece and make it as rich as possible. But I had been applying that discipline to the story, which is a really bad idea. I thought I wanted two sympathetic leads. I kept creating colorful, clever bits that didn't work as a cohesive whole. Changing Presto to a classic antagonist was a huge tidal shift for me, but it was the key."

It also fit with Sweetland's inclination to make a film that would be more cartoony than other Pixar shorts. For inspiration and reference, he assembled a reel of Tex Avery, Tom and Jerry; and Bugs Bunny cartoons. "They all speak with basically the same vocabulary," says Sweetland. "There's an economy to the shots that's incredible. There's even a quote from [William] Hannah or [Joseph] Barbeta that's something like, 'You see a cat, you see a mouse, it's an instant setup.'"

The Setup