Even the strangest worlds somehow manage to have a Pittsburgh connection these days.
That includes, well, “Strange World,” Disney’s latest animated film that just arrived in theaters Wednesday. It follows the Clade family of explorers as they embark on a dangerous and unprecedented mission with the future of their homeland at stake. The Clades end up in uncharted territory containing a plethora of flora and fauna they’ve never encountered.
One of the folks at Walt Disney Animation Studios responsible for bringing this strange world to life was Pittsburgh native and look development artist Logan Erdner. If you enjoy the film’s pink jungles and spectacular caves, that’s his handiwork.
“It’s pretty mind-blowing,” he told the Union Progress. “The creativeness of the environments and the scale created a lot of technical and artistic challenges. … Seeing it all come together and just the expansiveness of the world, along with the amazing work that lighting did, I feel like every single shot is a treat to look at.”
Erdner lived on Mount Washington and in South Park during his formative years in the Steel City. He comes from “a big Pittsburgh family” and has fond memories of hanging out with his grandparents in Green Tree. Some of his relatives still live around here, and he tries to get home as often as he can to see them.
His love of animation was inspired by multiple members of his family. He began mimicking drawings of cartoons as a form of therapy just as his grandfather liked to do; his father passed down his general affection for movies; and his sister, a ceramicist who still lives in the Pittsburgh area, got him into fine art. Once Erdner started experimenting with animation, he “never turned back.
“I absolutely love Pittsburgh,” he said. “Because it’s such a passionate city, I think it’s easy to channel that into the arts.”
“Strange World” wasn’t his first foray into the House of Mouse. He started at Walt Disney Animation Studios in its trainee program, which is designed to provide young artists with some initial guidance while rolling them into actual production work. As a trainee, he gained some real-life animation experience on the 2021 Disney animated musical “Encanto” and the recently released Disney+ series “Zootopia+.”
Getting to work on “Strange World” as a look development artist was his first time “as an ‘artist artist’ at Disney.” Not bad for a kid from Pittsburgh.
“It feels a little surreal at times, coming from such a small city especially,” he said. “But it’s been great this whole time.”
As he put it, look development artist is “a very accurate name” for what that role does on an animated film. He was tasked with helping to craft and realize the looks that appear in the final cut of “Strange World.” Practically, that involved painting a lot of texture maps that he channeled into the color, feel and physical qualities of on-screen environments.
Since “Strange World” mostly takes place in an entirely made-up setting with its own unique aesthetic and physical properties, he got the rare chance to define roles for new materials rather than digitally rendering real-world substances like concrete.
“We were seeking out the answers and building up these worlds together,” he said. “It opened up doors and new experiences and creative processes.”
His contributions to “Strange World” were mostly environmental and botanical. That said, he had to also ensure that “shape languages” and colors lined up so that the Clades never looked too out of place wherever they happened to be. As with all animated projects, the “Strange World” team had to make a “cohesive world where the characters can fit in,” he said.
He may be a bit biased, but he thinks that the “Strange World” environments he helped create are “unlike things that people have seen in animation before.” His pitch: Come for the brilliant vistas, stay for the heartfelt family story at its center.
“I think this movie in particular is one that’s worth seeing on the big screen because the environments and world-building is so expansive,” he said. “The big screen offers something that a home screen won’t really capture because of the detail and creativity that went into the film.
“It’s a fun, energetic film and a story of familial relationships that anyone can relate to.”
Joshua covers pop culture, media and more at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Contact him at jaxelrod@unionprogress.com.