Ratatouille story supervisor Mark Andrews discusses the research that went into making the animated film with Leo N. Holzer at TheReporter.com. A trip to Paris was a must. “With Google, we could look at shots of Paris until our eyes bleed, but you don’t get a sense of the true light there. You don’t get a sense of the people, the smells, details like what does the sewer grate look like and how much stuff there is on the sidewalk. You could only get those details by going to these places”. The animators and writers continued their research inside Pixar studios where they kept live rats around and took cooking lessons. “To really observe how rats move, you got to be with them 24/7. To know how to chop correctly or put stuff in a bowl correctly, or prep your food correctly, you have to learn how to do it”. Andrews also discusses the work that had to be done when Brad Bird took over the film. “(Pinkava) had got Ratatouille up to this point where we had all these assets. We had sets, we had characters, we had all this stuff, so that helped greatly. But we didn’t have a lot of time. We had to get the story to Brad and get it working solid”.