The Real Life Buildings That Helped Inspire The Monsters University Campus

Monsters University has dominated the box office since its release two weeks ago and part of its success may be due to the extraordinary effort the Pixar animation team put in to make the movie as realistic as possible, even down the titular college campus setting.

In preparation for the film, the California-based Pixar team took trips to local schools UC Berkeley and Stanford, and went across the country to check out Harvard, Princeton, and MIT. 

These campus visits helped the animators create a collegiate environment that while not based on any one school, had a mix of California and East Coast university traditions, Robert Kondo, Monster University's Art Director for Set Design & Shading, told us.