TY CARTER

Gary Evans talks to the US visual development artist about the making of Spies in Disguise, and the time he received an April Fools’ phone call from Pixar…

- Gary Evans

On 1 April 2008, Ty Carter takes a phone call from “Pixar.” The American is in his first year studying animation at Brigham Young University (BYU) in the city of Provo, Utah. He quickly decides that the caller is a fellow student trying to prank him.

Ty is looking for a summer internship, but so far has received nothing but rejection letters. Now he’s supposed to believe Pixar is calling to talk about a paid internship with free accommodation in California? Yeah, okay. Ty pranks the caller right back.

Ty: “You’re going to ask who my favourite Pixar character is, right?”

The caller: “Excuse me?”

Ty: “It’s Shrek!” The conversation continues like this for a little while, back and forth, until, finally, excruciatingly, Ty figures out the caller is really a Pixar recruiter.

“Needless to say,” Ty says now, “I didn’t get it. I butchered that one.”

AN IDEAS PERSON

It’s 2016, and Ty is about to start work on a new animated film. He’s now a visual development artist at Blue Sky Studios. He starts work early in the development stage of a film, coming up with paintings that convey the movie’s big idea, usually a specific character in a key scene.