![]() From the beginning, Catmull and Smith had a specific goal: Make the first computer-animated feature. The lab was based on Long Island, not far from the environs of Jay Gatsby, the fictional millionaire from "The Great Gatsby." Catmull and Smith's research was bankrolled by their own eccentric multimillionaire, the institute's president, Alex Shure. ![]() In 1975, Catmull hired Alvy Ray Smith, a charismatic computer graphics pioneer from New Mexico, to join his new Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology. Things might have turned out very differently. "After those movies, the idea of making a movie without a computer was ridiculous." Still light-years away ![]() "Before those three movies, the idea of making a movie with a computer was ridiculous," says Tom Sito, chair of animation at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. They include "Titanic," the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "Avatar."īut film experts point to three movies from the mid-'90s that signaled the sea change for digital moviemaking: "Toy Story," "Jurassic Park" and "Terminator 2." RenderMan had a part in all of them. Pixar, which licenses RenderMan to other film studios, boasts that 19 of the last 21 Academy Award winners for visual effects used the software. 'Sadness can be your friend,' says Pixar star Amy Poehler.With Disney Infinity, it really is a small world after all.The idea: Generate, or "render," images that look so real you could put them in a movie alongside live-action footage - and no one could tell the difference. Called RenderMan, the program let animators create 3D scenes that were photorealistic. "Toy Story" wouldn't have been possible without groundbreaking software from Pixar. In the past two decades, Pixar has become a celebrated art house, with other groundbreaking films to its credit, including "Monsters, Inc.," "Up," "Wall-E" and, most recently, "Inside Out." (Pixar will release its newest film, "The Good Dinosaur," later this month.) But Pixar's achievement hasn't just been a game changer for animation it's been course-altering for all of film. "The rest of the review was about the movie itself," Catmull recalls. What stands out for Catmull is that nearly all of the critics devoted only a sentence or two to its breakthrough computer animation. Critics praised the animated film, with Roger Ebert calling it "a visionary roller-coaster ride of a movie." ![]() Twenty years ago this month, Pixar ushered in a new era in cinema with "Toy Story," the first full-length feature film created entirely with computers. "Toy Story," which turns 20 years old this month, revolutionized filmmaking. The room is a metaphorical manifestation of the cerebral hemispheres - fitting for the co-founder of a studio that melded computer algorithms with art in a way no one had ever done before. ![]() To his left, though, it's all business: a dual-monitor Mac, two elegant gray armchairs and a row of framed, understated drawings from Pixar movies, featuring friends like Woody and Buzz Lightyear. There are also toys galore, a collection of old watches, and trinkets that look like they were picked up at souvenir stands around the world. There's a plaster mold of his left hand: the star of the first computer-animated short he made in 1972 as a graduate student at the University of Utah. To his right, the walls are filled with items that inspire creativity. Ed Catmull's office could be a window into the brain of Pixar.Ĭatmull, president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, sits at a round wooden table at Pixar's whimsical headquarters in Emeryville, California. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |