VOTD: 'Toy Story 3 IRL' Remakes The Entire Pixar Movie With Stop-Motion Animation And Live-Action
You might remember that last summer we featured a trailer for a passion project called Toy Story 3 IRL. Two brothers, Morgan & Mason McGrew, have been working on a remake of the Pixar Animation movie for eight years, meticulously recreating scene-after-scene using both live-action and stop-motion animation with action figures, all shot on iPhones. The result is some truly astounding work to say the least, even if it's very basic stop-motion animation, and it only gets more impressive as it continues.
Watch Toy Story 3 IRL and learn more about it below.
Toy Story 3 IRL
Using the audio from the movie, Morgan & Mason McGrew only had to provide the visuals for Toy Story 3 IRL. That sounds simple enough if you have the massive collection of toys required, but when you're doing stop-motion animation with action figures and you don't have a whole crew at your disposal, it's going to take a lot of hard work. And when you see how some of the more complicated scenes were created, you'll be even more amazed at how they pulled it off.
Even though the mouths of most of the characters don't move, the characters still have expressive faces thanks to the use of clay. It's exactly how the Adult Swim series Robot Chicken makes their stop-motion action figures talk. And just like Robot Chicken, the brothers had to create their own toys to match the movie from time to time.
As for the live-action aspects of the movie, the recreation of the locations is also impressive. Sunnyside Day Care feels like it was actually shot at a real day care facility, Andy's Room is pretty spot-on, and you'll definitely want to see how they pull off the tearjerking incinerator scene at the end.
Spending eight years working on any project is an achievement in itself. But when you can show the results to an audience who can immediately appreciate the craftsmanship that went into it, that's even more special, especially when you're just two brothers with a passion for filmmaking. And thankfully, it's been officially approved by The Walt Disney Company for release, so it won't get taken down for copyright infringement or anything like that. Congrats to the McGrew brothers on their work.
If you'd like to find out more about how they did it, check out the Toy Story 3 IRL Facebook page.