The Exhibit

I took two of my daughters to a wonderful exhibit.
We drove into Philadelphia and went to the Franklin Institute.
The Franklin Institute is a science museum that was founded in 1824.
It is one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States.

The Franklin Institute is named after Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin is a well-known scientist and statesman.
As soon as we walked in the door, we saw the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.
I was here when I was a girl, I told my daughters, and I walked through the heart.

They both looked at me as if I was mistaken.
Sure enough, to our right, was the room that housed the gigantic replica of a heart.
I remember walking through it and hearing it beat.
I remember walking up the narrow stairs and hearing the blood swish through.

I had already purchased tickets for the special exhibit.
I knew my oldest daughter would thoroughly enjoy it since she is a web designer.
I knew my youngest daughter would enjoy the artistry behind what we were about to see.
The exhibit was called, The Science Behind Pixar.

We have seen and own every Pixar movie.
Each time a new movie is released in the theaters, it is better than the one before.
Each movie is more realistic as new animation techniques are tried.
The stories are captivating.

We entered the exhibit and watched a short movie about how the company works.
Many departments have numerous people with incredible ingenuity and creativity.
I was simply astounded.
I knew that I would never watch a Pixar movie in the same way again.

We learned about the creative process, which goes from a simple story to a completed movie.
We saw what the characters looked like when they were just ideas drawn on paper.
We learned how sculpted models are made for each character to give it dimension.
We saw how the sculpted models are scanned so that they can be digitally animated.

I had to simplify the very complex process I was learning about in order to understand it.
Numerous green lines are placed on each character after scanning to aid in animation.
Rendering happens later, which takes the raw footage and enhances it.
Color, lighting, and sound are painstakingly done a frame at a time.

We learned that one frame takes 33 hours to render.
There are about 24 frames in each second of the movie.
My husband, the engineer, did the math when we gave him the numbers.
My mind could not comprehend the vast amount of work that goes into each frame.

There are 24 frames per second and 60 seconds in a minute.
There are 60 minutes in an hour.
A Pixar movie is usually 90 minutes long.
My husband said it would take approximately 4,276,800 hours to render one movie.

Each movie takes a few years to make from the original idea to the final film.
There are hundreds of people working on a film at any given time.
The Rendering Farm is a large room filled with massive computers that run 24 hours a day.
I was astounded by the exacting work that goes into making each Pixar movie.

The employees in the introductory film said that all we were about to see should be invisible.
Pixar wants the story and the characters to be the most important thing.
The audience must not even think about the amount of work that goes into a film.
Each employee experiences great intrinsic satisfaction in a job well done.

I remarked to each of my daughters about how important this exhibit was to young children.
Especially if a child has a love of math or science, this exhibit must be seen.
One Pixar employee won an Academy Award for doing math.
He came up with an equation that explains mathematically how light bounces off an object.

It is a hands-on exhibit.
My oldest daughter, the web designer, was enthralled.
She was amazed at the amount of coding that is necessary to simply move an arm or an eyebrow.
She was quite skilled at many of the stations and I enjoyed watching her work.

I watched young men create a virtual structure in minutes.
I watched children try their hand at stop animation.
I saw the way Pixar made Merida’s curly hair in the movie Brave seem believable.
I learned about the complexity of animating water like we see in the movie, Finding Nemo.

Each animator spends hours studying whatever he or she is animating.
If it is a horse, the animator needs to know how it moves and runs.
For a bug, like in the movie A Bug’s Life, an innovative camera was developed.
The Bug Cam camera helped the animator see the world from a bug’s perspective.

There is so much work that goes on behind the scenes.
There are people that work on the movement of the eyes of a character.
There are people that work on one aspect of a character, like Sulley’s fur in Monsters Inc.
These people work on seemingly insignificant things that are vitally important to the film.

I kept saying two words to myself all afternoon.
Astounding.
Exacting.
I have such an appreciation for the painstaking process Pixar goes through for our enjoyment.

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)

Astounding and exacting are words that can be rightly used to describe God.
Our Creator God created everything out of nothing.
All that God created is ordered.
After the Fall, when Adam and Eve sinned, disorder entered the world.

Our artistic abilities are God-given.
We create because God is Creator and we are made in His image.
We must use materials in order to create.
The creative process points to Him.

Math exists because of God’s created order.
Science exists because we want to understand this world that God created.
Math and science apart from God may devise equations and new ways of doing things.
However, without God, science and math can never answer, Why?

We can look to the Westminster Shorter Catechism to understand this a bit more.
What is the chief end of man?
Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
That is why we draw, write, sculpt, make music, dance, and sing.

All that we artistically create should have a beauty and excellence that reflects our Creator.
Even if an artist does not know God or profess belief in Him, God’s image is undeniable.
Even a period at the end of a sentence is a reflection of the order of God.
God is everywhere and makes Himself known in the most astounding ways.

Astounding.
Exacting.
Ordered.
That is our Creator God.

2 responses to “The Exhibit”

1. Amen and Amen! Hope you had a wonderful day!

   Reply

   • Sue, we had a wonderful day!
     I saw the image of God in the amazing creativity all around me.
     Gina

     Reply