“What makes Paperman unique is the technology that went into it; for the first time, Disney has merged classic hand-drawn 2D animation with 3D Computer-generated art within the same character (previously they have used CG for vehicles, architecture and inanimate objects in traditional animation); in Paperman, the characters are modeled in CG and rendered in high contrast to create the modeling and shading, then merged with hand-drawn linework using a proprietary software program called Meander to create the final result. It looks like traditional “classic” animation but with a sense of solidity and volume that’s more common to CG films.

In an interview, Producer Kristina Reed explained how Director John Kahrs came up with the story of Paperman, saying “This idea came about early on in his career. He was reverse commuting; he lived in New York City and he was working at Blue Sky, which is out in the suburbs of New York, and every day he’d be traveling through Grand Central Station as a single guy in his 20s, and there’d be throngs of people moving through the train stations. And he would be thinking to himself, ‘why am I not having a more happy life? Like, I’m a single guy in New York City. I should be on top of the world. And yet I feel really rather lonely.’ And every once in a while, he’d make a connection with somebody, eye contact in the station and think ‘is that the girl of my dreams?’ And then she’d be gone. This short came about from those times.” ” - Excerpt from “Disney’s Paperman is a Perfect Short Film” by Jim MacQuarrie