JOHN LASSETER {telling a great story}
HISTORY OF ANIMATION
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN LASSETER & PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIO
“People pay money to see a movie that’s entertaining” – JOHN LASSETER
On Saturdays, as a child, Lasseter was up watching cartoons up until high school age. John Lasseter’s mother was an art teacher and he was surrounded by the arts. It had never occurred to him, before high school that people actually get paid for making cartoons. He started writing letters to Disney Studios saying he wanted to become an animator. Disney Studios replied, “Get a great art education.”
After high school he enrolled in in the Character Animation Program at the California Institute of Arts film school where he was taught by retired former artists who had worked during the inception of Disney Studios. Not only did these artists teach the skills necessary to become a successful animator, they also passed along their wisdom and experience from working in the Disney Studios with Walt Disney. A key feature Lasseter had taken from Walt Disney was his ability to create animated films that appealed to everybody, not only children.
After graduation he found himself a position as an inbetweener with Disney Studios before playing an active role in the story process. Equipped with a strong passion to create, Lasseter quickly found himself at odds with the current producers and directors.
“We were so on fire and constantly giving suggestions. It was all constructive, but the people running animation seemed to resent us.” – JOHN LASSETER VIA CNN MONEY INTERVIEW
Lasseter’s first real exposure to the potential of computers used in special effects was with the project TRON, a live action movie created by Disney Studios....
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...ed in 42-48 different languages. Great voice acting is important to storytelling. Pixar “marries” the voice to a character. The voice creates the character needs to be very believable to the character.
Pixar believes children are extremely smart and does not dumb down the content. The goal is to aim high with the story with intelligent story telling. Brave is a period film with a strong female lead character who challenges tradition and social norms. Even though children enjoyed the film, Brave had strong motifs that adults can appreciate.
WORKS REFERENCED
Cavalier, Stephen. The World History of Animation. Berkley and Los Angeles, California:
University of California Press, 2011. Print.
Lasseter, John, perf. The Pixar Story. Dir. Leslie Iwerks, and Writ. Leslie Iwerks. Leslie Iwerks Productions, Film. 20 Dec 2013. .
The first animated movie produced by Pixar, a famous space ranger named Buzz Light-year said, “To infinity and beyond!” and that is exactly where Pixar has taken the animation industry. The success of Pixar is duly noted worldwide and they remain a leader in the animation industry. The company reeled in more than 100 awards and nominations for their work on animated films, commercials, and technical contributions to the animation industry. The trials and triumphs of this company have earned it its spot as one of the leading animation companies in the entertainment industry today. With all this success it is hard to think it was almost over before it ever began. Pixar’s history of trials and triumphs starts with a group of men and their ideas that would revolutionize the entertainment industry.
...yboard to voice recordings to rough animation. Getting the details right is a huge deal for Pixar. To avoid wasting time rewriting everything at the end of the film process, each filmmaking team will hold weekly meeting to show their work. This lets the groups give a collective opinion on characters or themes, rather than having just one viewpoint. Pixar is constantly taking chances. The team does not want to be stuck in a 90’s Disney style, but they know they cannot get comfortable and only make sequels. To try to prevent that from happening, the Pixar team tries new techniques and stories and hope for the best. Being able to just throw everything away and start fresh, taking an agonizing amount of time revising their films, and being able to take risks is what makes Pixar stand out from the rest of the animation companies. (The Secret Of Pixar's Success)
...sms of Disney, these really can’t be validated as having any real effect on children and families. There is no harm in providing a fantasy and imaginative world for children to enjoy. Parents, along with the Disney Company, support the notion that a child should be a child. Children should have fun and enjoy the world of imagination while they are little. Parents also enjoy the world of imagination by providing it to their children.
As Walt grew, so did his Imagination. The more famous he got the more ideas and dreams he could make a reality. Working out of his Uncles cramped garage, in the sweltering California heat was over. Walt had begun a new chapter in his life. Now receiving countless Oscar Nominations, and being eulogized for his many movies and cartoons. Where up to this point in his life he had many role models and people he looked up to, now he was a role model to many people. Walt Disney impacted the lives of many aspiring filmmakers, and changed the movie industry.
Rivera, J. (Producer), Peterson, B., Docter, P. (Writers), & Docter, P. (Director). (2009). Up [Motion Picture]. United States: Walt Disney Pictures.
His work in modern media was revolutionary. Moreover, he broadened communication and made it easier to learn about new cultures. Disney’s movies play a vital role in children’s development and their productivity when they enter the “real world”.
An artist I really admire once said, “An animator is just an actor with a pencil”. This struck me because as much as I love animation and want to go into it, I never once thought of it that way until I heard it. The artist who said that is one of Disney’s most gifted illustrator, character designer, animator, and concept artist, Glen Keane. He will forever be one of my favorite artists because of how his work both influences and inspires my work as an aspiring artist. Using such organic line work he is able to create pieces that show years of experience behind, with nothing more than just a pencil.
Toy Story is the groundbreaking 1995 motion picture developed by Disney and Pixar and directed by John Lasseter. The film was so revolutionary not only because it was the first feature length animation to be created completely by CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) but also, also the film was more rounded in all respects. The characters not only looked more sophisticated and three-dimensional but their personalities were also more human and fewer cartoons like. The film uses a constructed text in order to put across a theme of two very different characters learning to work together beyond their rivalries to rise above a common enemy and work towards a common goal. The film uses characters and imagery very cleverly to portray this theme. The music used in the film is also different to other Disney features. Rather than the characters bursting into song themselves as in Aladdin or Hercules, the songs are played and sung by an outside person (Randy Newman) and reflect the mood and emotions of the characters in a particular scene. For example, the title sequence song “Friend in Me”, when Woody and Andy are playing together, and the scene where Andy’s room has been made over to a Buzz Lightyear theme, “Strange Things” where the song reflects Woody’s confusion and fear not only about the change in his surroundings but also the change in his friends and his own character and self-confidence. The attention to the smallest detail for example the reflections in Buzz’s visor give the film even more realism and depth. The use of unusual and imaginative camera angles, made possible by the use of CGI, also adds to the texture and pace of the film.
One of the ways he is an inspiration to all is through his willpower to never give up. Disney's cartoons became widely popular in the Kansas City area, and through their success, he was able to purchase his own studio, Laugh-O-Gram, unfortunately, studio profits were unable to cover the...
At a young age, Walt gained interest in art and took lessons at the Kansas City Institute and later the Chicago Art Institute. He also became the cartoonist for the school magazine. After
Walt took drawing and photography classes while in high school. A few years later, Walt acquired a job at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made cutout animations for commercials. It was there that he began experimenting with a camera and hand-drawn cell animation. Each cell had to be hand drawn. When the ink on each cell had dried, it was placed under glass and photographed. Then, it was pr...
But the road to this kind of success and influence wasn’t easy, and it couldn’t have happened without Disney’s ceaseless hard work and unwavering belief in his dreams. Disney faced numerous obstacles—he was put to work at just nine years old, had only an eighth-grade education and almost
Walt Disney himself once said that he does “[...] not make films primarily for children [...].” Therefore, his ...
Today, movies use CGI to create special effects to replace thousands of extras, stunt people, and puppet like characters, as witnessed in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The evolution of special effects and Computer Generated Imagery technologies has taken the film industry to a whole new level. Computer Generated Imagery began with awkward and dull effects in the early 1980’s. The 1982 film “Tron” was a desperate attempt from Disney to jump on the CGI bandwagon and start a revolution in film making technologies (imdb.com). Although this film showed an attempt at something that had never been done before in the history of cinematics, it was weird and confusing.
As a pastime, he sat around doing his favorite activity, sketching. Because of Disney’s situation, he tried joining the army, but was rejected due to his young age of 16. Because of his rejection from the military, he signed up with Red Cross’s American Ambulance Corps and arrived in France shortly after World War I ended. He was disappointed to find out the armistice was signed and the action was over. He wrote home stating the he missed out on something big. When Walt returned to the United States, he settled in Kansas City and got a job at a commercial art studio (Beginnings: Walt Disney’s Early Years (1901-1923)).