born 2 November 1970

Albert Allie, Brooklyn, New York, writer/director

Bobby Ranghelov, Vidin, Bulgaria, producer

Corbin Lacina, Mankato, Minnesota, NFL football player

Dana Berger, Haifa, Israel, actress

Drazen Zarkovic, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, Croatian TV director

Hans Weingartner, Feldkirch, Austria, writer/director

Jack Campbell, birthplace unspecified, Australian actor

Janet Wasserman, birthplace unspecified, Filipina thanked person

Krista Lynn Landolfi, Lincroft, New Jersey, extra

Liivo Niglas, Jõgeva, Soviet Union, Estonian documentarian

Mark Evrett, birthplace unspecified, American porn star

Meike Gottschalk, Hamburg, West Germany, actress

Shaena Steele, state of Minnesota, porn star

Sharmell Sullivan, Gary, Indiana, lady wrestler

Victor Navone, San Diego, California, animator

Today’s Winner has me wondering what a day at the office must be like for one of these Pixar animators. So much craft goes into those movies, but in the viewer’s mind the ingenuity of the story mostly gets attributed to the writering squad. (“Writering” was a typo but it feels accurate in context here so I’m leaving it.)

The question is, how much of the texture of the actual animation is attributable to animators? I imagine a lot of heavy coding, seated at some kind of crazy multi-screen avid setup with a color wheel, kind of like a video game avatar-builder on horse steroids. But, do the ideas of the animators themselves actually make it into the finished film? That’s what I’d like to know.