Presto

Hi, my name is Doug Sweetland,

and I'm the director of Presto.

I'd like to take this opportunity

to just point out

all the brilliant contributions

of everyone who worked on this short,

but, unfortunately, that would take

the length of a feature,

so I salute you, Presto crew.

Presto crew forever.

And, instead, we'll discuss

some of the underlying ideas

that are at the heart of Presto,

things that we were thinking about

while we were making this short.

Starting out, it's clearly sort

of a classic cartoon throwback,

but with some key differences

that I think make it intrinsically Pixar.

First, the short takes place in real time,

which means that we can't really cross

dissolve from a gag to another,

or from one set piece to another,

as is often the case

in old classic cartoons.

Ours has to run in real time much more

like its own sort of sequence

in a feature or something.

Which makes it, then, a self-contained

story in five minutes,

and not a serial.

Lastly, it's entirely pantomimed,

meaning that even though

they have voices,

we can't use jazzy dialogue

to kind of push things along.

One idea we wanted to convey

early on is just that

Presto is... Well, he's clearly a cad.

And that even though he has

these powerful magical hats,

he doesn't really have

any magical powers himself.

And so, in a way, this whole act

is sort of his exploitation

of these hats and this rabbit,

rather than by his own merit.

In fact, a friend had pointed out

how limited his imagination is.

He has what might be

the most powerful device in the world,

this sort of teleportation device,

and he only uses it to stage

sort of a mediocre magic act.

Another important concept

from a character standpoint

was just making Alec

as sympathetic as possible.

So here we are in sort of the gag

onstage/offstage section of the short,

and just notice that Alec's brows

are incredibly sad.

He's doing some sadistic things

to Presto,

but we just felt for the humanity

of the short

that he's not, himself, a sadist,

he's actually incredibly apologetic

and wishes that it didn't have

to come to this,

but it just simply must come to this.

Really, that was, like, a tweak that

came sort of late in the process

and it came just right down

to changing his brows.

For the longest time,

they were sort of like angry brows.

And just lightening them up

and making him look sorry,

I think, adds to the sympathy and,

hopefully, to the humor of that stretch.

Another thing is just notice that

he doesn't really ever move

from that spot on the table

and that's another important thing.

You think classic cartoons,

everything's got to be completely zany.

But a lot of, hopefully, the humor

and certainly the strength of Alec

as a character

stems from the fact that he's able

to do all of these things

without actually even really

barely moving at all,

certainly not his...

If you're looking at his feet.

And so, I think an interesting

thing to point out,

Presto has to move

a tremendous amount.

He's running up and down the stage,

he's very physical.

He affects Alec not at all.

Alec, not moving, is able to then

affect Presto a tremendous amount.

Looking at the ladder gag,

this is just an interesting example

of the story process,

that gag was really controversial

just because its physics

aren't sort of obvious.

So we tried cutting it,

but, actually, it made its way back

in the reels

simply as a way of getting Presto back

to center stage

so he could smash the carrot.

That is interesting to me in that it didn't

make its way back in by its own merit,

but simply as this ulterior

sort of choreography.

Looking towards the end,

there's actually a pretty huge hole

in logic, and it's coming up.

It's when Presto brings the carrot back.

Now you remember when he smashes

the carrot on the table,

he has no intention or reason at all

to save the carrot for later.

But we get past this point where

Alec has saved Presto's life

and he's somehow able to play it off

as if he'd intended to bring back

the carrot the whole time.

But, yet again, for no reason at all,

and it's just interesting to me that

in having shown this short

around the world,

no one has ever brought that up to me.

The fact that

it's basically this flawed logic,

and I think it's because...

I think, hopefully, the audience

is invested so much in what's going on,

on a character level, that they want

Presto to bring the carrot back.

And the fact that he's a magician

and he performs a magician's trick

is excuse enough

to allow the carrot to sort of exist again.

Another thing is it sets up

Alec coming out of the hat

at the end, which was intended

sort of as an ironic resolution,

that only when Presto completely

gives up

on the idea of trying to get Alec

to come out of the hat,

does Alec come out of the hat.

Only when he makes

a true gesture of reconciliation

does he get what he wanted all along.

So this is the happy ending

that you don't normally see

in classic cartoons.

And I have to say,

it worried me for a while

that it might not play

because it's sort of unconventional,

but I am very satisfied now

that we did, indeed, find

the best ending for this short.

It's one of my favorite parts.

Lastly, I would just add

that what you've watched

is just a combination

of unbelievable talents.

Definitely plural.

I don't think there's any one person's

work over another,

and, so again, I just sing the praises

of absolutely everybody

who contributed to this short.

So that brings us to the end of Presto,

and thank you very much for watching.

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