The Blue Umbrella

The Blue Umbrella is a Pixar short film that was released with the theatrical release of Monsters University. It is directed by Saschka Unseld and produced by Marc Greenberg. The score of the short is provided by Jon Brion, and includes vocals by Sarah Jaffe.

Synopsis
''It is just another evening commute until the rain starts to fall, and the city comes alive to the sound of dripping rain pipes, whistling awnings and gurgling gutters. And in the midst, two umbrellas — one blue one, one not — fall eternally in love.''

Production
Unseld said he conceptualized the story after finding an abandoned umbrella one rainy day in San Francisco, which led him to imagine its backstory. As inspiration for characters, Unseld and his colleagues took photographs of inanimate objects found in city streets throughout San Francisco and New York City, as well as Chicago and Paris.

Unseld says the decision of going for a photorealist design was not part of the original idea; rather, it came out during the production, as Unseld thought it was crucial in order to make the objects of the city come to life. Unseld said: "It made sense to have the story take place in a real city because the magic of it coming to life would be so much stronger." This photorealism the short opts for is unusual for Pixar. At one point, Unseld even considered using live-action to shoot some of the sequences, but ultimately decided to stick with animation, as it enabled a greater control and flexibility of the scenes.

To achieve this appearance, Pixar used new technologies, like "global illumination", a simulation of how light is emitted and reflected off surfaces (also featured in Monsters University ), and "deep compositing", the layering of images that hold three-dimensional data. To give some scenes more realism, the team used a system of camera motion capture, which enabled them to re-shot scenes by recording the movements of a dummy camera to give a hand-held camera feel.

Unseld mentioned a notable difficulty of the short was figuring the appearances of the umbrellas' faces and animating them. He found that using a realist approach, like forming the faces with raindrops or imprinting them in the cloth was odd, and preferred a stylized appearance inspired by the look of early Disney animations.

A tumblr blog called Rainy City Tales 332 and run by Unseld, quietly followed the development of the short since February 2012, long before the official announcement, but always in an indirect fashion, never giving away the plot of the short or name of the producing studio.

Release
The Blue Umbrella premiered on February 12, 2013, at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival. It was released with Monsters University theatrically on June 21, 2013. It was included on the Monsters University DVD and Blu-ray.

Jon Brion's score, featuring Sarah Jaffe's vocals, was released digitally by Walt Disney Records on July 9, 2013.

Trivia

 * A billboard features a yellow six-wheeled sports car, which was also depicted in Monsters University on a poster in the basement of the Oozma Kappa fraternity house.
 * Next to the gutter character is a newspaper vending machine, which bears on its front a worn-off advertisement for Luigi's Casa Della Tires.
 * The streets at the intersection of which the action is set are named Park Ave. and Hollis, the names of the streets where Pixar Animation Studios is located.
 * Several of the neons created for the short ("Flo's Cafe", "Luigi's", "Casa della Tires") are reference to neons in Radiator Springs.
 * A bus stop features a John Carter poster in its side window.
 * A bus displays "Hemberger Hill" as its destination, an allusion to both Allen Hemberger, effects lead of the short, and the feature film Hamburger Hill.
 * Many of the grafittis are either reused from Monsters University or named after Pixarians involved in the short.
 * The last shot of the short is a nod to Linklater's Before trilogy, according to Unseld.
 * All the characters in the short were given a unique name. Saschka Unseld has said this could result in some confusion for newly involved animators, and so a poster listing all characters was made to help keep track of the names. For instance, the construction sign is called "Yvonne", and the manhole cover which helps the broken Blue is called "Gutsy".
 * According to Unseld, the first character appearing in the short is based on a structure found at an intersection on Bush St. in San Fransisco, not far from where he lives.
 * The short's plot may be a homage to the Make Mine Music segment Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet, with its primary focus on inanimate objects that are anthropomorphic for the film.