Behind the Scenes of 'Cars 3' with Northeast Ohio Native Michael Comet

Northeast Ohio native Michael Comet liked to doodle during school and now his doodling takes place at Pixar Animation Studios where he's worked on hit animated films like Up, Brave and The Good Dinosaur.  Pixar's latest production,  Cars 3, is on screens now across the country.  As a characters supervisor, Comet's department takes what comes out of Pixar's art department and recreates the art in the computer digitally.

"Basically with digital modeling or digital sculpting we're actually making the characters in 3D," Comet said.

It's almost like creating a digital puppet for the character.

"Basically everything you see on the screen you have to create in the computer digitally," he said.

An added bonus on this new Pixar film is that Comet's a gear head having come from a family of car enthusiasts.

"Growing up my father was a big car aficionado.  We had a lot of different sports cars starting with the Jaguar XKE and then two Italian [sportscars].  I've currently gone out autocrossing for the last several years in one of the cars I have.  One of these days I'm going to get to the track is what I keep telling myself," he said.

Growing up in Beachwood, Comet was a big fan of animation.

"I was always dabbling in drawing, and I just loved everything from the classic Disney films up through Warner Brothers' Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck," he said.

By the time he got to high school, Comet's doodling was working its way into his class time, but, he adds, not at the expense of his studies.

"I remember sitting in high school biology class and drawing flipbooks when I probably should've been paying attention.  But I did do OK in that class," he said.

Cars 3 is now playing in theaters.