Buzz Lightyear on the drawing board. [Provided to China Daily]

Shanghai

The doors of the glass-and-steel Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art open to a magical world where toys experience friendship and jealousy, robots fall in love and save human beings, and mice become masters of gastronomy.

If these do not ring a bell, then the huge image of Buzz Lightyear guarding the entrance may help you remember the world according to Pixar.

The exhibition "Pixar: 25 Years of Animation" makes its debut in Shanghai through the end of October with a collection of more than 400 drawings, storyboards and sculptures created in the process of producing blockbusters like Toy Story and its sequel, Finding Nemo and Up.

This is the first time so many of the works are brought outside the studio of this award-studded and pioneering animation company based in California. The exhibition takes up three floors of the museum, and is divided into three thematic parts devoted to characters, narrative, and settings.

The highlight of the exhibition is a Toy-Story-themed zoetrope, a popular 19th-century proto-cinematic display, on which a sequence of stills roll rapidly, producing the effect of the continuous activity - the earliest form of animation.

The exhibits are not all about technology. In fact, only 10 percent of the exhibits are digital graphics.

"When people think about Pixar, they generally think of our films and how much they enjoy the stories we tell," says Elyse Klaidman, head of Pixar University and Archive.

"They think about cutting-edge technology and stunning computer graphics. However, people aren't necessarily aware of the essential role that traditional art and design plays in our process. It's been fantastic to have this exhibit greeted so enthusiastically in so many countries."

You can contact the writer at xujunqian@chinadaily.com.cn.