From Australia to Spokane: MAC hosts Dreamworks Animation exhibit | Arts & Entertainment

The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC) is hosting “DreamWorks Animation: The Exhibition – Journey from Sketch to Screen,” an exhibit that features over 350 items that narrate the journey of creating your favorite DreamWorks animated movies.

The exhibit made a long trip from Canberra, Australia, in March and has since been the largest exhibit at the museum, taking up all but two of the MAC’s main exhibition rooms.

Although the exhibit has been traveling the world since 2014, Spokane marks the exhibit’s first US appearance and celebrates DreamWorks Studio’s 25th anniversary.

Wesley Jessup, the executive director of the MAC, said in a news conference from February, just before the exhibit arrived in Spokane, that the logistics of getting the art all the way from Australia was one of the biggest roadblocks for this project.

But after a few delays, the massive exhibit made its way safely to Spokane, and has had a home for the past five months.

Rather than focusing on a finished product, this show focuses on the artistic and creative process.

“It’s about experimentation and creativity in a way that is unusual for a museum exhibition,” Jessup said to the Spokesman review. “Normally … you see the painting, the masterpiece on the wall, but for this exhibition, they really get behind the scenes … we’re able to understand how these wonderful movies are made and see how they develop.”

The exhibition is split into four main rooms or attractions — character, story, world and the drawing room, and is meant to take audiences through the detailed and expansive processes of creating a fully-fledged story, starting with how the beloved characters of many people’s childhoods came into existence.

The exhibit explains how all characters start as rough sketches — hundreds of concept art and vague ideas of how the character’s personality and mannerisms may be developed. As further research and directorial decisions are made, 3D models of characters will be sculpted and used as reference points.

The museum is littered with these maquettes and models — all in glass cases that sit low to the ground so that children and adults alike can appreciate the intricacies being laid out before them.

This room is also home to three screens that invite attendees to try their hand at changing the expression on a digital character model by manipulating different features of the face.

Additionally, many of the walls throughout the exhibit are home to small screens, accompanied by an audio dome hanging above, that play interviews with illustrators, art directors and animators who guide viewers through the inspirations and complications of each small task.

Once the characters have been created, the next step is to storyboard.

In the second room of the exhibit, a large table asserts itself as the centerpiece. The table is scattered with notes, scripts, sketches and the occasional chip bag. This table brings the job of writers and producers to life.

Projected on the wall behind the table is a video of a storyboard pitch being made. The video is complete with artwork of the scene and lines of dialogue that show the audience how directors slowly and laboriously build a story.

The third room of the exhibit is the largest and dives into the world building of the DreamWorks film library.

This portion of the exhibit shows audiences how each DreamWorks movie gets its very own atmosphere and distinct feel through inspirations and extensive real-world research. Producers explain that the world of “Kung Fu Panda” draws significant inspiration from Chinese architecture, music and even cultural representations and understandings of color theory.

The room is also home to a video interview with film score composer Hans Zimmer, as well as three interactive screens that invite visitors to experiment with editing the lighting in movie scenes to change the mood.

Just as one may think the exhibit is over, the drawing room surprises visitors with the opportunity to try their hand at digitally animating their own scene on the same technology and software that DreamWorks animators use to create the movies we know and love.

Caitlin Vielstich, an educator at the MAC, described how teaching people the basics of animation has been a fun experience.

“I love seeing all the things people make,” Vielstich said. “It’s a great way to get kids excited about this and give a lot of understanding to all the work that goes into these movies.”

The DreamWorks exhibition will be available at the MAC until Sept. 11. Visit the MAC’s website for more about its exhibits, hours and pricing information.