Hey, folks!
Greetings from San Rafael, CA. Nancy and I have been up in this neck of the woods for the past three days attending “VES 2004: A Festival of Visual Effects.” And I’ll sharing some stories about what I learned at that event in the not-so-distant future. But – as of right now – we’re on our way to Ron & Diane Disney Miller’s Silverado Vineyard, followed by a tribute to the Charles Schulz museum in Santa Rosa, CA.
Speaking of Schulz … Jackson “Pop Culture” King has contributed a brand new column to the site about Schulz’s first attempt at a comic strip, “Li’l Folks.” Which I hope you’ll enjoy reading.
And – speaking of reading – though (what with all the traveling I’ll be doing over the next day or so) I won’t really have time to do much writing over the next couple of days, I have dug a few pieces out of the JHM files that I think you’ll enjoy. One is a 1993-era interview, where then-WDI senior VP Bob Weis talks in detail about what his plans for “Disney’s America.”
And what you’ll find below is a cutting from a bigger article that I never quite got around to completing. A piece about John Lasseter’s appearance at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art back in January 2002. When John talked about his ties to the Walt Disney Company, the early days at Pixar as well as what Lasseter felt was the real secret to Pixar’s success. Which WASN’T technology, but …
… storytelling. Pixar has found a new way to tell a story without getting in the way of the story. To tell the story so well that the storyteller disappears.
At the very start of his talk, John talked about how often he’d come to LCMA a lot while he was a student at Cal Arts. The very hall where he was speaking at this “15 Years of Pixar” event was where Lasseter went to see film festivals and first discovered filmmakers like Preston Sturges.
John grew up in Whittier, CA. Worked at Disneyland as a teen. Went to Cal Arts, then got hired by Walt Disney Studios as an animator. During the time that he was attending Cal Arts, there was the prevailing feeling that animation was just for kids. But Walt Disney never made a movie just for kids. Chuck Jones too. Yet – in the late 1960s / early 1970s – animation was stuck in the kiddie ghetto.
For Lasseter, a pivotal moment for him came in May 1977 – when he stood in line at Grauman Chinese Theater for six hours to attend “Star Wars.” The anticipation of all those in lines was incredible. And then to get into the theater and finally see the movie. How it so aggressively entertained the audience.
John left the screening shaking. Surrounded by people who had been thoroughily entertained. And then he had an ephiphony: Animation could do this.
While working at Disney on “Mickey’s Christmas Carol,” John got to see early tests for “Tron” and thought: This is like discovered gold. This is amazing. You can move a camera (via computer) like a steadicam in & around objects. A steadicam shot in animation just seemed extraordinary at the time.
To illustrate their enthusiasm for the potential of this break-through in animation, Lasseter and his “good friend” Glen Keane did a 30 second test film build around “Where the Wild Things Are.” Disney management – while impressed with the test – didn’t know what to make of it. (You have to keep in mind that the Disney management of this era was only interested in doing things if it made operation quicker / cheaper … Which – when you think about it – means that things haven’t really changed all that much in the last 20 years … Anyway …)
What was frustrating to John was that the business of making a movie hasn’t changed all that much since the days of D.W. Griffith. Sure, we’ve got sound & color now. But the industry seemed reluctant to move the next level.
Lasseter felt that it was time for Hollywood to embrace new forms, new technology. To develop a digital editing machine, to do sound effects with computers.
EX: Compositing. It was a true breakthrough when effects people began compositing effects shots digitally, not optically. Today, not one film is made without computers. There hasn’t been an optical printer used in Hollywood for almost 10 years.
Ed Catmull borrowed John from Disney for what initially was supposed to be just a six month long loan out. Kept extending. Steve Jobs bought the company in 1986 from George Lucas at fire sale prices (Lucas was looking for cash to settle with his wife, Marsha). At the time, Pixar didn’t have a name … And – once it was named – Jobs immediately began looking for someone to unload the company on.
To keep Pixar alive, Catmull suggested “let’s do a film for Siggraph.” Since John had done traditional animation, this assignment got dropped in his lamp. But which character should they animate? And doing what?
This is when he and Ed began fixating on the Luxo lamp on John’s desk. Its simple grouping of shapes suggested that this might be something they could animate. So Lasetter broke out his ruler and started modeling the thing, with his Pixar partners teaching him home to do it.
IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER: Lasseter’s student film for Cal Arts (Which won the school’s equivalent of an Academy Award and helped John land an animator’s job at Disney) also starred a lamp.
About this same time, Pixar employee Tom Porter had a new baby son which he’d bring into work. And everyone loves babies. So John suddenly came up with idea of a baby lamp interacting with its parent. But the big question then was: what would a baby lamp look like? What should the scale be? So Lasseter broke out his ruler again and began crunching the numbers. Should the head be bigger? The light blub the same size.
The short debuted at the 1986 Siggraph show in Dallas to a tremendous response. Why? Well, up until this point, all computer animation had been done by the guys who wrote the software. Who are all brilliant guys, but they’re not animators. They don’t know how to bring inanimate objects to life, to give them personality.
Lasseter made the comparison that if only the guys who wrote the software were allowed to make computer animated films, that would be the equivalent of all paintings could only be painted by the guys who mixed the chemicals that made the paints.
This is why all the software guys kept making movies that screamed “We’re computer animated.” Which might the stereotypical chrome ball hovering over a black & white checkerboard.
Only George Lucas (and Lasseter) seemed to see computer animation for what it was: a new tool to use when making movies.
So Lasseter looking around and sized up his competition. He was surrounded by PhDs, but these guys couldn’t make something come alive with pure movement like he could. After all, they hadn’t gone to Cal Arts and trained with great professors. Or worked at Walt Disney Studios and sat next to Frank & Ollie, getting ideas from watching them work.
“Hey, if you can do that, can you do this? Art challenges technology and technology inspires the art.”
“That film was so funny. What software did you use?” People kept thinking that Pixar’s special brand of software had made “Luxo Jr.” so funny. Which – I guess – is understandable. After, computer animation is an art form that rose out of science. But all the principles, theories used in the creation of this short were actually developed on old Walt Disney Studios techniques.
If you apply traditional animation principles to computer animation, you can make characters come to life.
Thing to remember: The computer’s a tool. The film – though it may be CGI – still has to be produced by a person. The animator makes the drawing, not the pencil.
All previous computer animated films seemed obsessed with the flying camera thing. No real story. Whereas Pixar’s “Luxo Jr.” – due to the project’s limitations – did the best they could with what they had. Not enough computer power available (or enough money ) to have the background move or even really be detailed. So it remained black. And since the characters being animated were lamps, they couldn’t really move. At least in the traditional sense.
So – as result – Lasseter rose to the challenge, focusing on the characters and the story. Which is why “Luxo Jr.” caused such a sensation.
Proudest moment: Lynn (big computer muckety muck) came up to John at Siggraphic and asks: “Was the parent lamp the mother or the father?” (Lasseter had been expecting this guy to ask some sort of technical question)
This is where the Pixar’s golden rule emerged: Story is king. “Luxo Jr.”‘s reception inspired John, told him he was on the right track.
This was the moment that John Lasseter became aware that he was the luckiest person in the world, that he had the best job in the world. Because — at this time — he was Pixar’s only animator.
And the rest of the story … I think you know.