This evening I meet Pixar's Jerome Ranft during a run to the recycling bin outside my Drawing for Animation class, given by John Hays. I'm starting to get accustom of randomly seen many of the Pixarians floating in and out of the campus, so seeing Jerome was no different until I said hello. I guess from the tone of my voice, I may have come across as if we had been introduced before. When he returned with "Have, we meet before?", I quickly remembered how rare it must be for most of the Pixarians who work behind the scenes, to be noticed in public.
I introduced myself and explained that no we had not personal meet, I did feel as if I knew him based on his contributions as a sculptor to the field of animation. I continued to explain that, thanks to varies behind the scene Blu-ray features and the Art of Pixar books published by Chronicle Books; I had grown to know who he was. He laughed and like anyone in such a situation of fandom, I asked for an autograph and a photo for my blog. He was kind enough to give me three minutes of his time before saying hello to John
Here's a quick bio on Jerome Ranft from the team over at Pixar Wiki. as well as an amazing inside look into Pixar with Jerome, thanks to Make Magazine. Jerome's process is covered at the 37:14 mark of the video. Discovered this video while doing research for my animation workshop class "Unchained Reactions" with Gibby and Barney.
Enjoy-