The Pixar Story Page #2

landed him his dream job

at the Walt Disney Studios.

Hello.

I'm Randy Cartwright.

-And this is Ron Miller!

-Randy, how are you?

-How are you?

-Good to see you. This is Randy.

Great way to start the film!

Well, we're off to a good start.

Here it is, April 9, 1980.

This is the past

to all you folks out there,

and we're gonna go inside

and see what it's like.

Come on. Come on!

GLEN KEANE:
Walking into

the animation building

that was built with the money from

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,

when I came in there in the '70s,

I just sensed this history around.

All of the experience

that had gone on before

was somehow impermeated

into the walls.

LASSETER:
Hi, Glen. How are you?

This is...

CARTWRlGHT:
Glen. Glen Keane.

-Thanks, John.

-LASSETER:
...Glen Keane.

He is our directing animator.

CARTWRlGHT:
Cur cameraman,

John Lasseter.

KEANE:
It was so great to meet John.

There was this immediate

sharing of information

of your passion

and excitement for animation,

and he knew a lot about the history

and the past.

NARRATOR:
As his first animation

at Disney,

John handled

the introduction of a lead character

in the 1981

teature The Fox and the Hound.

Together, John and Glen collaborated

on the climactic fight scene.

But increasing budget cutbacks

had severely limited

the multi-plane dimensional look

Walt Disney had achieved

decades earlier.

KEANE:
Animation was really at a point

where it seemed like it was

a dying art form.

All of the richness and the atmosphere

was budgeted out of our films,

and it was so frustrating.

(BUZZING)

NARRATOR:
While the animation

department felt stagnant,

Tron, a live-action foature

using the latest computer technology,

was screened for employees

at the studio.

(ENGINES REWING)

Watch it, watch it! Auuughhh!

There Tron was, these light-cycles. . .

Moving in and out of the scene

and it's. . .

And we came back to my room

and just sat there

and the depression

started to turn towards a frustration,

like, "Well, why can't we?"

"Why can't we do that?

Wouldn't it be cool, if?"

LASSETER:
Computer animation

excited me so much,

and not excited

about what I was seeing,

but the potential I saw in all this.

I was just amazed by it.

And we started thinking,

"Wouldn't it be cool if

"we had a background

that was moving like Tron did,

"but we animated

the character by hand."

It had never been done before,

but there's something about John

that you kind of get the feeling

that that doesn't matter

I mean,

if it had never been done before,

doesn't mean it can't be done.

NARRATOR:
John and Glen

soon got approval

to experiment with animation

and computerized backgrounds.

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