On the evening of February 2, 2017, University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (USAO) held their annual Emerson-Wier Symposium. The honorable guest this year was Jay Shuster, an illustrator and production designer for Pixar. He has worked on Pixar’s Cars and WALL-E as well as the past two Star Wars movies with Lucas Film.

On the evening of the symposium, Shuster took the audience on a tour of Pixar’s studios, displayed early sketches for WALL-E and Cars, as well as talking about his creative start. Shuster spoke about being inspired by his father’s work with designing for GM, admiring Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, and exploring modeling with his Lego collection.

The next morning USAO held a breakfast with selected students and Shuster. He spoke of being gracious of supportive parents that supported him, how his father would bring home design books for him, and his short stint in the video game design world. He educated students on how to get their portfolios out there and the process of how they pick out artists for Pixar.

The same morning of the breakfast they held an open master class. Shuster illustrated a time line of production for their films and the immense amount of manpower it takes to crank out these memorable movies. He answered questions about unlocked scripts, animated bloopers, and what the production assistants do. To finish off the talk Shuster sped drew WALL-E, which delighted many.

Thank you to Jay Shuster for coming to speak, to USAO for bringing intriguing symposium speakers, and to the Emerson and Wier families for their on going support.