‘Toy Story 5’ VFX Supervisor Has Been Keeping Taylor Swift Song a Secret Since February, Says the Team Had to ‘Create a Decoy Version’ of the Film Without It

During a SXSW London panel last Friday, Thomas Jordan, the visual effects supervisor for "Toy Story 5," ended months of speculation by revealing a major secret. Since February, Jordan had known that global music superstar Taylor Swift had written an original song for the upcoming animated film. The track, titled "I Knew It, I Knew You," marks a deliberate return to Swift's country music origins, a style she famously moved away from with her 2014 album "1989." The song dropped on the same day as the panel, well ahead of the movie's planned theatrical release on June 19.

Jordan explained that Swift—whose record-breaking "Eras Tour" in 2023 grossed over $1 billion, making it the highest-grossing concert tour ever—is a self-proclaimed superfan of the "Toy Story" franchise. "She actually saw an early version of the film, she requested to see it before it was finished, and she wrote the song and then asked us if we wanted it. And we said, 'Uh, yes! Yes we do,'" Jordan recalled during the panel. To keep the surprise intact, only a tiny fraction of the production team was aware of Swift's involvement. "There was a very small group on the 'Toy Story 5' team that knew of the song's existence," Jordan noted. The studio even created a fake version of the film without the track, which was shown to press and other Pixar and Disney employees who weren't in on the secret. "The crew that made 'Toy Story 5' did not know about this secret until last week," he added, underlining the extraordinary steps taken to avoid leaks. This level of secrecy echoes Disney's approach to major cameos in its Marvel Cinematic Universe films, where actors often remain unaware of their co-stars' roles. Industry analyst Sarah Chen commented, "Disney has perfected the art of the surprise reveal, and this tactic generates massive buzz while protecting intellectual property in an era of rampant online spoilers."

The fifth installment of Pixar and Disney's beloved franchise continues the adventures of iconic toys Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen), Woody (Tom Hanks), and Jessie (Joan Cusack), set several years after the events of the fourth film. This time, they face an existential threat to traditional playtime posed by technology, represented by a smart device named Lilypad. During the panel, Jordan provided a behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects, showing never-before-seen footage that detailed how the team animated 50 Buzz Lightyear figures, a horse called Daffodil, and the tight curls of a new human character named Blaze. He stressed that all animation in the film was entirely handcrafted by humans, with no artificial intelligence involved. "We are an artist-driven studio, and we are also founded in technology… we are constantly trying to stay current, either with our own animations or learning what others are doing," Jordan said. "So we find AI fascinating, we're learning about it and we have done experiments with it. But so far, nothing lives up to the standards and expectations that we have for the quality of our work." This dedication to handcrafted artistry continues Pixar's longstanding tradition, dating back to its founding in 1986 by Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs, of combining cutting-edge technology with human creativity to create groundbreaking animated films. As the animation industry increasingly debates the role of generative AI, Pixar's position serves as a clear statement that human touch remains essential in storytelling. Notably, the studio's previous films like "Soul" and "Inside Out" have also relied heavily on manual animation techniques, setting a benchmark for quality that AI has yet to match.