When Pixar, the top animation studio, wants to know how to look happy or sad it turns to Paul Ekman, a professor at the University of California medical school in San Francisco. Ekman is an expert on the 43 muscles the human face uses to register joy, sadness, surprise, anger or fear. Under his guidance Pixar transfers those feelings to the faces of the fish, monsters, toys and humans that populate the animator’s world. The cowboy doll Woody’s worried look, a horny Mr Potato Head, clown fish Nemo’s childlike wonder — all started life on a human face.
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