Pixar Studios Tour – The Good Dinosaur Version #gooddino #bucketlist

We are huge Pixar fans at my house.  Having kids has made me enjoy their movies (even if I have to watch them endlessly).  One of the cool things on my bucket list was touring this amazing animation studio.  Like Disney, Pixar is amazing and does not disappoint.  I will warn you — this post is photo heavy, so you can see what it is like beyond those gates.  

Now, these two items are just what reminds everybody of Pixar.  Of course, I did take a photo with them!

From the first photo, you can see how ginormous the lamp is!  I’m also short which doesn’t help.  LOL  The first thing we got at Pixar was our name badges.  I have to admit that alone was pretty exciting.

The Pixar Studios building is dubbed the building that “bugs” built.  A Bug’s Life did so well for Pixar they were able to build this incredible building!  The main building here is named after Steve Jobs and can withstand most major weather/earthquake disasters.  This building is made from hand painted steel.  The brickwork you will see in some of my photos was modeled after the Folders Headquarters.  The front of the building is all glass which allows for a ton of outside light in.  The brick on the floor is both outside and in — the outside basically bleeds into the inside.  Now, one of the reasons it would be amazing to work here is this:

That is a fridge stuffed with every sort of milk you can think of.  They also have a zillion different cereals you can have!  They also had a cafeteria.  Their employees are fed well.  As somebody with food allergies, I loved that everything we ate at Pixar was labelled, so you knew what you could and couldn’t have.  New employees usually do gain the “freshman 15” when they start working here!

 Need to take a break during the day?  They have soccer fields, basketball courts, a gym, a swimming pool, etc.  Seriously, you never need to leave this place!  As you can see, it is a pretty large campus.  

They also have fun stuff all over this place!  Can you name what movies these all came from?

If you have ever been to Disney World, you know to look for hidden Mickeys.  Well, Pixar has their very own version of this!  It is very important to watch your step, so that you don’t miss these!  

Behind the fireplace on the main floor, there is a secret room.  For those who don’t know, Pixar was built on a baseball field.  This room pays homage to that.  I also live with an electrical engineer so I had to take a picture of the chandelier in that room just for him (and it is very cool looking!).

Now, I can’t forget The Good Dinosaur part of this tour.  This is movie you must go see.  (It comes out on Thanksgiving!).  A few trailers for you if you haven’t seen it yet:

We weren’t allowed to take pictures of anything relating to that.  However, I did learn how to draw Arlo. This is my version.  I don’t think I did too bad.  

Can you see how big that banner of Arlo is?  That’s pretty true to Arlo’s size in real life.  The dinos in the banners behind Arlo would have been even bigger.  This really shows how big dinosaurs were.  It is hard to wrap your head around that!  

I do have to tell you that this is one of my favorite photos of me!

I can tell you that Pixar was amazing.  Even though this campus was just built in 2000, there is so much history.  When I grow up, I would love to work here.  They stand behind their employees and have set up an environment that helps with collaboration.  They take care of their employees in a way that few employers do.  They push their employees to their full potential.  I have a few more posts coming up with some of the amazing people I met who work at Pixar, so stay tuned for that.

What do think of my tour of Pixar?  What art would you have liked the most?