John Lasseter, the business genius behind Pixar, developed a new animation process using computers resulting in successful films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. He was inspired by special effects and animation growing up and worked for Disney before joining Lucasfilms’ Industrial Light and Magic. Pixar’s first releases were short films, followed by Toy Story in 1995, which was a critical and commercial success. Lasseter also helped direct and release English-language versions of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. Pixar merged with Disney in 2006, with Lasseter now one of the heads of Disney studios.
John Lasseter is an animator, director and the business genius behind the Pixar studios. Under the leadership of John Lasseter, Pixar developed their animation process in a whole new way, through complex computer animation. The result was a series of successful films: Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Cars.
Many movies inspired John Lasseter while he was growing up in Hollywood, California. He would rush to the theater to see anything he had to do with special effects. He cites the work of Ray Harryhausen, with its stop motion technique, as one of his favorites. Like others, he was also blown away by the 1977 premiere of Star Wars, which he saw when he was in his 20s. He felt that with animation, he could achieve the same effects and make equally impressive films. Many would argue that John Lasseter achieved his goals by designing computer animation in a completely different way than he used to before.
As a teenager, John Lasseter was very determined to try to get a job with Disney as an animator. His first job for the company was not, however, in animation. He worked as a tour guide on the Jungle Safari tour at Disneyland. Disney encouraged the budding animator and guided him towards enrolling in the new character animation program at the California Institute of Arts.
Disney established the curriculum and all classes were taught by Disney animators. After finishing a four-year course of study at CalArts, John Lasseter was able to get a job in Disney’s animation department. Initially, the job was very interesting to him, but John Lasseter felt that Disney animation had deteriorated and he really wanted to try working with computers and other special effects.
This interest drew John Lasseter to Lucasfilms’ Industrial Light and Magic, which meant working for the special effects experts. In the 1980s, Industrial Light and Magic had already enjoyed a lot of fame with the Star Wars trilogy. They were particularly innovative in using computers to create dazzling special effects. However, John Lasseter kept his love of animation for animated films and in 1986 Pixar became an emerging company of Lucasfilms.
Pixar’s first releases were short films, Tin Toy and Luxo Jr.. In 1988, Tin Toy, about a boy and a toy soldier, won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject. This made Academy history, as the film was the first animated film to win an Academy Award in this category. Luxo Jr. turned into a series of films about a precocious lamp and mother to him, and they were often shown on Sesame Street.
A complete animated film would have taken nearly nine years to complete, but when John Lasseter premiered his Toy Story work in 1995, it met with critical acclaim and huge box office returns. Since John Lasseter was still developing the process by which computers would animate, Toy Story has more basic animation than its follow-ups. A Bug’s Life, released in 1998, was more complex and explored the medium further. Since Toy Story became so successful, John Lasseter set out to develop his own sequel, which became Pixar’s next release. Pixar plans for a 2008 release of Toy Story 3.
The animation in later films, such as Finding Nemo, is critically acclaimed as stunning and shows the development of the medium and the growing capabilities of the Pixar studios. John Lasseter also began a friendship in the late 1990s with Hayao Miyazaki and helped direct and release English-language versions of his animated films.
Disney Pictures, distributed and distributed Pixar films, but for a time the relationship between Pixar and Disney was severed. In 2006, however, Pixar merged with Disney and John Lasseter is now one of the heads of the Disney studios. This move solves the creative control problems of Pixar films and many are hailing it as a step forward to improve the work of Disney films as well.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
