Some interesting Facts about Up movie

As you might have learned from Rob Hunter’s This Week in DVD column this morning, the masterwork known as Pixar’s Up has hit DVD and Blu-ray today. And while my own special report for This Week in Blu-ray is still upcoming (I’m still sifting through the ridiculous amount of special features), I will say this: you should own this title on the most advanced format you can find.

But enough of that. The folks at Pixar were kind enough to send us over a very cool list of 10 facts (as Up is Pixar’s tenth film) from the production of Up that you might find interesting. Check them out below:

1. During the production of Up, the Animation Department produced an average of 4 seconds of animation a week.

2. Paradise Falls is based on the world-famous Angel Falls in Venezuela. Up’s version is 1.8 miles tall or 9,700 ft., which is almost three times higher than Angel falls which stands at 3212 ft.

3. To walk from the location where Carl and Russell first arrive on the tepui to the top of Paradise Falls would require a 14.5 mile trek. It’s about 6.75 miles across to the nearest tepui when they look out across the landscape.

4. Pixar had a group of live ostriches come to the studio for reference for Kevin. The ostriches belonged to veterinarian Dr. James Stewart. The Art Department took a field trip to his farm where he also kept zebras.

5. There are 10,297 balloons lifting Carl’s house.

6. Pixar consulted with an architect to learn about home foundations to make the lift off of Carl’s house more believable.

7. All of the crowd dogs were actually a single dog based on Beta, tweaked around in shape and groom to look like a pack of 50.

8. The Spirit of Adventure is a dirigible, a rigid airship, and not a blimp, which has no rigid frame. It is much larger than any dirigible ever built.

9. The Spirit of Adventure is 3,061 ft. long, which is 3.8 times longer than the Hindenburg.

10. The knots connecting Russell’s rope between the garden hose and his backpack on the tether are real usable knots. There is a rolling hitch used to secure the rope to the garden hose, and three-half-hitches connecting the rope to the carabineer on his backpack. Both of these knots would have been something that Russell learned as a Wilderness Explorer.