Pixar Animators Victor Navone & Carlos Baena
Feature Profile by Tito A. Belgrave, 16 July 2003

So what's it like working at Pixar? CGNetworks spent some time with Victor Navone and Carlos Baena, Animators at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. We interview them about what it's like at Pixar, and their work on "Finding Nemo".

Victor Navone, a Fine Arts graduate from the University of California (Irvine), is well known in the CG industry for his animation 'Alien Song', which went on to achieve massive exposure and popularity via the Internet. His work caught the attention of Pixar, who hired him full time in 2000. His credits include "Monsters, Inc.", "Finding Nemo" and "Titan AE".

Carlos Baena is a Fine Arts graduate from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. A recent employee of Pixar, he was previously an animator at Industrial Light & Magic on the films "Jurassic Park 3", "Star Wars Episode 2" and "Men in Black 2".

Tito A. Belgrave: What were your initial thoughts when Pixar assigned you to work on Finding Nemo?

Victor Navone: Frankly I was a little anxious. I had been working on various projects in Shorts for a year or two and Nemo had started without me. I had to join the animation crew after they had already been working on the show for months. This meant I got to make all the mistakes that they had already gotten out of the way! It's always a little scary working with a new director, too. I always worry "will this guy like my work" and "how easy or difficult will he be to work for". It's usually unfounded concern, but that's just me. Finally I was really intimidated by the idea of animating fish. It's a very technical process, and you can't use a lot of the tricks that you can with bipedal characters.

Carlos Baena: When I was first assigned to work on Nemo, the first thing I honestly thought was “Will I be able to do this?“. I've never animated anything close to a fish or underwater stuff. Already on training I saw all these shots that were amazingly animated, including pre-production animation tests that other animators did. I was really intimidated, since the quality of the animation was out of control. Luckily, I was around animators and supervisors that made me feel I was going to be OK. Thanks to Dylan Brown, Alan Barillaro and Bobby Beck.

Pixar Animators Victor Navone and Carlos Baena.