August 17 - Luxo Jr.

Image copyright Pixar

On this day, in 1986, Pixar’s first animated short, Luxo, Jr., had its world debut in Dallas, Texas at SIGGRAPH, an annual computer graphics conference. The Graphics Group, a conglomeration of 40 individuals, spent the first few years of its life as part of George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic effects shop. In February 1986, The Graphics Group was spun off into its own corporation having the financial backing of Steve Jobs, who had just left Apple. The new company, now named Pixar, was actually formed to sell computers. It had a tiny little animation department solely to create pieces that would show off the capabilities of those computers. A young man by the name of John Lasseter was in charge of those creations and was never expected to be profitable, just innovative.

In 1984, The Graphics Group had made an animated short, The Adventures of André and Wally B, which involved the first use of motion blur in a computer animated short. The film was shown at the annual computer graphics conference, SIGGRAPH, that year in Minneapolis. The group didn’t have anything of note to show the next year. When Pixar became its own entity, its President, Dr. Edwin Catmull, decided that it should have something to show every year as a way to keep the company’s name on everyone’s lips. There was only four and a half months left to make good on Catmull’s promise for 1986. In spite of the short time frame, John was confident he could get the job done. Even if it meant bringing a sleeping bag to work and napping in his office. Which it did.

Image copyright Pixar

The short was first designed as an exercise in photo realistic animation as well as the concept of self-shadowing, meaning that the two lamps in the film would be casting light and shadows on themselves rather than a fixed light source coming from off stage. It wasn't until John showed some early versions at a Brussels film festival that he was reminded by famed Belgian animator Raoul Servais that even a ten second film should have a plot. At that point, John began developing the emotional realism of his two characters and the short really began to take off. He finished his short, now titled Luxo, Jr, after the younger of the lamps, just in time for the 1986 SIGGRAPH conference.

Image courtesy extinctdisney.com

Luxo, Jr clocked in at a whole two minutes, not really enough time to connect with an audience one might think. One would be wrong. Before the 120 seconds was up, the audience was on its feet, hailing Luxo, Jr as an incredible achievement. It is widely considered to be the first time that computer animation told a story with emotional resonance. The first time that people forgot they were watching computer generated images and really connected with the characters. After the viewing, when people came up to John to ask questions about Luxo, Jr, he assumed they would be about the technical aspects of the new shadow mapping technique or how he rendered the lamps so realistically. What people actually wanted to know: was the older lamp the younger lamp's father or mother? (John considers Luxo, Sr. to be a father figure, in case you were wondering.)

Image copyright Pixar

Luxo, Jr. went on to earn a nomination for the Best Animated Short Academy Award, the first piece of computer animation to ever do that. It was later included in the National Film Registry as well. And we all know what John and Pixar went on to do. It wasn't long before Pixar stopped trying to sell computers and the animation department became the whole company (and yes it became highly profitable). And all because of Pixar's dedication to story, which they've managed to adhere to pretty well in the intervening years. As for Luxo, Jr himself, he became the mascot of the little animation studio that could, appearing before (and quite often after) every short and eventual feature Pixar has produced. He even showed up in the initial Pixar area of Disney's Hollywood Studios as an animatronic figure for a while. And I know for me, whenever I see that little lamp come bouncing onto the screen, I am most likely going to enjoy the next ninety minutes or so, easily forgetting that I'm watching computer generated images, just like that audience over thirty years ago.