WEBVTT - The Pixar Story: Part 1 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:13.760 Technology with Tuck Stuff from Stuff. Hey there, and welcome 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:18.440 to tex Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, flying solo again. 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.640 This is part one of what I expect will be 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:26.240 a two part episode saga about one of my favorite companies, 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:28.639 or at least a company that produces some of my 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:34.519 favorite entertainment pis are I um decided to cover Pixar 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.440 because I've been interested in this company for a while now, 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.280 but I didn't know a whole lot about it apart 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.000 from some general notes, and as I dug down into it, 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.920 I found it much more interesting than I was already aware. 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:52.599 And this is one of those places where when you 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:58.000 see video of the Pixar campus and the amazing building 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.440 and the way people work there, it's very inspiring. But 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.560 to learn about the full history, it's pretty cool, and 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.280 it's actually kind of amazing that it even happened, because 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:13.839 the company, or the various entities that would eventually become 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:19.440 Pixar didn't always have the smoothest ride. There were a 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.280 lot of issues along the way, and the company could 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:27.360 have easily disappeared and we might not have ever seen 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:33.280 the films that Pixar created as a result. So the 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.320 story will overlap with another episode of tech Stuff from 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.120 two thousand and twelve, a good old classic episode. That 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.840 episode is called tech Stuff looks at Industrial Light and Magic, 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.040 So Pixar in Industrial Light and Magic actually have a 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.520 shared history in some ways. Um, I'm gonna look at 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.520 that innovation of of Pixar, but it's not just a 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.520 story about computer animated films. Pixar has developed tons of 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.520 technology in the field of computer graphics and image processing. 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:02.280 When the company found out that there was no tech 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.800 that could do what they wanted to do, they started 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.000 building it and then selling it to other people. We'll 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.880 get into that in this episode. Now, to talk about 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.440 the history of Pixar, we first have to chat about 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.040 some of its founders. But I'm not talking about John Lastner, 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.600 I'm not talking about George Lucas, I'm not talking about 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.800 Steve Jobs. They will all factor into this discussion, but 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.400 those are not Those aren't the people who were there 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:31.160 at the very beginning. Uh, At the very beginning was 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:36.120 Dr edwind E Catmoll now Dr Catmull was born in 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.200 nine in West Virginia, and as a child he dreamed 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.760 of working for the Walt Disney Company, but eventually kind 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:45.440 of gave up on that dream. He felt that he 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.840 lacked artistic talent and felt that, you know, there's just 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.600 no room for me at Disney, which is kind of funny. 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.480 So he decided to study computer science and physics instead. 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.040 You know, if you can't be an animator for Disney, 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.560 going to co eater science in physics. He attended the 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.880 University of Utah and that's where he earned a bachelor's 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.799 degree in computer science. He earned another one in physics, 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:13.120 and he got a PhD in computer science. So he's 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.800 a smart dude, and he was granted his PhD in 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.840 nineteen seventy four. Now, in nineteen seventy two, while he 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.080 was still in school, Dr Catmill created a computer animated 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:27.240 version of his own left hand that was incorporated into 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:31.680 the film Future World, and that marked the first full 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.880 length feature film to have computer animation in it. Now, 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.640 this was just a tiny little segment that was featured 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:40.960 in part of the movie. It wasn't like it wasn't 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:42.840 like they made a feature length movie about a guy's 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.680 left hand. They've they've since done movies like that, but 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:48.960 that was not what this one was about. And you 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.960 can actually view the animation and how it was made 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.520 on YouTube. There's the clip available right there. The title 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:01.120 is called a Computer Animated Hand nineteen seven two, and 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.440 then the video you see that they started with a 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.720 physical model of Captain Bill's hand. I'm guessing they cast 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.120 in his hand, so, in other words, they made a 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.040 mold and then filled that mold with some sort of 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.320 resin or something along those lines, and the finished product 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.760 was a copy of Captain Mill's left hand. Then they 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.320 drew polygons on the surface of the model hand, so 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:30.200 they physically drew these polygon shapes so that it could 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.120 be translated into a digital form. They digitized the model 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:36.880 by scanning it with a tiny little scanner that was 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.560 kind of a attached to an arm, so they could 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.039 like a like a like a mechanical arm, not a 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.440 not a human arm, but almost like one you would 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:51.440 see on a lampstand, and they traced out the hand. 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.120 This created the digital model, so they ended up with 0:04:55.160 --> 0:05:00.400 a wire model inside the computer. They then did a 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.800 halftone sequence on top of this wire model, and then 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.440 a smooth shading sequence, and that ended up creating a 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.400 three D model of the hand, which they then could 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:13.839 animate and make it do different gestures and rotated and 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:15.320 that kind of stuff and give it that sort of 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:21.080 three dimensional appearance. Now, that and other projects that he 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.279 was working on that Ketmol was working on got the 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:31.679 attention of a somewhat eccentric, wealthy entrepreneur named Alexander Shure, 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:38.159 and Sure had founded a technical college, the New York 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:44.200 Institute of Technology, one of the first dedicated higher learning 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:49.520 institutions that specifically looked at technology, and he ended up 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.560 hiring Dr Katmull to come over and become the director 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.159 of a brand new division called the Computer Graphics Lab. 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:01.400 This was in nineteen so right after he got his PhD, 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.359 Dr Cammel came over to New York and began to 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.280 work at the New York Institute of Technology. At that 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.760 Computer Graphics Lab, Ketmel met with other pioneers in computer 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.920 graphics and one of those was ALV. Ray Smith. Now, 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.440 Smith is also a name we have to mention when 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.400 you talk about the beginnings of Pixar. Smith is is 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:28.360 as important to those early days as cat'n Moll. He's 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.919 a co founder of the company and he earned a 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.960 bachelor's degree in nineteen sixty five and electrical engineering from 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.640 New York. It's from New Mexico State University rather, and 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:42.640 in nineteen sixty uh he also earned his PhD in 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.960 computer science from Stanford. He taught electrical engineering and computer 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:50.920 science at New York University and the University of California 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:55.560 at Berkeley before joining Xerox Park. Xerox Park, by the way, 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.359 fascinating place. We mentioned it on a few previous episodes 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.159 of tech Stuff from way back. It's one of those 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:06.040 R and D divisions that really shaped computers. Things like 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:11.280 the graphical user interface and the mouse all came out 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.320 of Xerox Park. They were not invented by Apple. It 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.160 was actually a Xerox invention first and then eventually made 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:24.600 its way into other devices and personal computers. Now, when 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.880 he was at Park, uh Smith actually helped develop a 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.320 computer graphics paint program, which he would continue to to 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.960 uh you know, work in that field after moving over 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.840 in the computer graphics lab at the n y I 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:44.360 t Now, also that lab was another guy named David 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:48.240 Di Francesco who graduated from the University of Wisconsin. He 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.040 would become a founding member of Pixara as well, and 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:57.640 in nineteen seventy seven some other folks joined. Ralph Guggenheim, 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.880 who had freshly graduated from Carnegie In University with a 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.760 degree in communications, joined the lab and he also would 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.800 become part of Pixart later on. So they start working 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.160 in this graphics lab. They're working to UH TO to 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.840 push the boundaries of computer graphics, which was a very 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.840 very young discipline at that point. They were actually kind 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.920 of defining the rules as they were going along. And 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.880 this went for a couple of years until nineteen seventy nine, 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.080 and that's when George Lucas was putting together Industrial Light 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:34.760 and Magic. Lucas really wanted to push film editing and 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.160 production technology forward. He felt that Hollywood had been relying 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:42.880 upon the same tools for decades, and he felt that 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.920 because of the rise of computers and other technologies, the 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.360 industry was ripe for change. He just had to find 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.960 the right people to do it. So he created UH 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.600 Lucasfilm Computer Division in Industrial Light and Magic, and he 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.200 recruited doctor ed Catmull from the New York Institute of 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:07.000 Technology to head the new department. So here's cat Moll. 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.000 He's been working at n y i T for a 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:14.120 few years. He was named the director immediately upon being hired, Like, 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.640 imagine this. Imagine going to college and then immediately after 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:22.080 you get your bachelor's degree, imagine pursuing your post graduate 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.440 work and getting your PhD. Then imagine you're immediately hired 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.760 to be the head of a brand new department in 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.640 the first Technical Institute of the United States of America. 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.360 Then imagine that George Lucas wants you to go and 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.800 work for him. Now, it's pretty charmed life if you 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.600 ask me. At any rate. Uh, he recruited Dr ca'm 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.160 moll and Camill came along, and then he brought along 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:54.880 Alvi ray Smith, David D. Francesco, and Ralph Guggenheim from 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.520 the Graphics Computer Lab to join the new departments. So, 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.520 in a way, I'm not saying that he necessarily intended 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:05.040 to do this, but Lucas raided the Graphics computer Lab 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.160 at n y I T to create his own computer 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:12.720 division and Industrial Light and Magic. So cat Will became 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.600 vice president of the division and managed development and not 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.120 just film editing, but also computer graphics, digital audio, and 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.880 video games. One of his earliest projects it was actually 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.120 coming up with a method to imitate motion blur with 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.240 computer graphics so that looks more like a fast moving 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.640 action that's usually cut on film, because if you're using 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.760 film and things are moving quickly, you get this blur effect. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.120 And without that blur, the graphics would remain too sharp 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.360 and then seem fake or unrealistic. If you've ever watched 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:47.000 uh a television set that has a really high refresh 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:51.040 rate and you just feel like things don't look right, 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.000 even though everything's very clear and very sharp, it doesn't 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.679 look right. That might be part of it. It's the 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:01.240 removal of that blur. Well, that a camel was actually 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.400 learning how to insert a blur so that things would 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.560 look more natural when they were on screen. Over the 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.600 next few years, Cammell's team pioneers computer graphics for film, 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.600 and they published more than one hundred papers on the 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:19.720 subject in various publications. So they continue doing this work, 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.600 developing the technology necessary to do computer graphics, but they 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:28.040 realized there's a big, big problem. Computer graphics requires a 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:33.679 decent amount of processing and the technology just wasn't up 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.360 to speed to do this in an efficient way. It 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.839 was really expensive to produce computer animation and really difficult 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.440 as well, very time consuming because processors just weren't fast 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.520 enough to handle data at the speeds necessary to turn 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.160 this stuff out quickly, and so there was actually real 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.559 discussion about how Moore's Law would eventually solve this problem, 0:11:57.720 --> 0:11:59.880 but it would require them to wait a round a 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.679 bit in order to get to it. So they kept 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:07.800 on pushing against those barriers, but they acknowledged that there 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.760 was only so much you could do without spending ridiculous 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.240 amounts of money. And in fact, this entire department within 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:21.520 Lucas's empire was a money losing proposition. It costs more 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:26.880 money to develop and produce the computer animation than the 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.480 division was generating, or at least you could argue that. 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.839 In nine three, John Lastner joined Capt. Moll's team as 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:40.040 a contract employee. Here's the thing about John Lastner. He 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.800 had worked for Disney two times already, although that's kind 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.440 of misleading. The first time John Lastner worked for Disney 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.480 he was a skipper for the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland. 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.480 So if you've ever ridden the Jungle Cruise ride, you 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.200 know who these people are. There, the folks who are 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.280 your host as you get on the the boat, and 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:06.280 they mostly pepper you with puns and really wacky jokes. 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:11.800 As you go through the ride, so they might say 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:17.800 things like, uh, you know, that's an African elephant. How 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.880 can you tell? And the answer is because we're in Africa, 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.640 instead of you know the ears or anything like that. 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.320 Or you go behind the waterfalls, is everyone look here, 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:32.040 it's the backside of water. A joke so old and 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:36.040 repeated so frequently that weird Al Yankovic worked it into 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.520 his song Skipper Dan. So John Laster was a skipper 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.600 on the Jungle Cruise ride and uh, he you know, 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:45.319 that was a job he had when he was a 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.280 young man, like a teenager. Uh. And then later on 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:53.920 John Lastner would join Disney as an animator. So he 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.240 worked there for a while but was eventually let go 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:02.320 or fired if you prefer. And they're different reasons that 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.120 have been given for this, but the one that I 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.520 see that seems to be repeated the most frequently is 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.720 that he was so interested in computer animation. He was 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.840 really pushing for Disney to start looking into computer animation 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.840 as a means of telling stories, but the company wasn't interested, 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.200 and eventually they just didn't have anything for him, so 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.960 they let him go. But Captain Bull and Smith were 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.720 frequent visitors to Disney. They would go to Disney to 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.240 check things out, and they met John Lassen when they 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.000 went to Disney Animation. So as soon as Laster was fired, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.520 cat Will said, Hey, you should come over here and 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.360 work for us. So he joined the graphics group and 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.520 worked on a short film titled The Adventures of Andre 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:45.840 and Wally b. Now, at that time he was a 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:49.440 contract employee. He was not a full time employee because 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:55.080 cat Will only had certain amount of authority to do 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.760 things like higher on new people. He would join as 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:03.080 a full time employee the Computer division in nine and 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:07.240 his title at that time became Interface designer. And the 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.720 reason he was an interface designer is because Captain Will 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:15.200 didn't have the authority to hire on an animator, so 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:17.960 they made up the title, or they gave him a 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.560 title that wasn't really what he did in order to 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.880 be able to hire him. At the conference of the 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.040 a c m S Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.800 better known as siggraph S I g g R A 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.880 p H, seven of the thirty papers that were accepted 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:41.240 for publication for that conference came from this Lucasfilm team 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.600 headed by Captain Bill so. In other words, they were 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:51.160 dominating the space. They were providing a lot of the 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:57.120 uh most forward thinking ideas in computer graphics, and they 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:01.640 were defining the process more than anyone else was at 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:07.040 that time. So they were instrumental in getting computer animation 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:12.440 and computer graphics integrated into entertainment. It was pretty impressive. 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:15.800 Some of the movies that the team worked on during 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.720 their time there included Star Trek to the Wrath of Cohn. 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.320 If you're familiar with the movie, you know there's a 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:28.360 sequence in which, uh, the Genesis program, the Genesis device 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.360 transforms a dead planet into one that's just teeming with 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.080 life and you get this, um this interesting effect as 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.840 you watch the plant kind of sprout life everywhere. That 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.600 was one of the sequences that this group worked on. 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.080 In fact, Alvi ray Smith himself directed that sequence. He 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.280 was the one in charge of it. It was also 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.200 used in some stuff in Return of the Jedi, and 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:58.760 they provided a sequence in Young Sherlock Holmes that ended 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:03.280 up being a first So Young Sherlock Holmes is the 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:07.200 story of Sherlock Holmes when he's a young man. He's 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.480 attending a school and John Watson ends up being put 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.760 into the same school and the two of them have 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.200 to try and solve a mystery, and at one point 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.359 a character is hit with a dart that has a 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:26.840 hallucinogenic on it, and the hallucinogenic makes these terrible things 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.680 seem to happen to people, and it mostly drives them 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.320 to do terrible things like jump in the way of 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:36.440 a of a carriage that's racing down the street, and 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.320 thus they end up dying. But it looks like they're 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.439 committing suicide, but in reality they are trying to escape 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.560 this freaky vision they have. In this case, the freaky 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.640 vision was a figure in a stained glass window appears 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.280 to come to life, jump free of the window and 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:55.199 attack a person. And this marked the first time computer 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.080 graphics were incorporated into a scene with live action actors 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:03.680 and done in a convincing way. Before when you had 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:08.520 computer graphics in movies, it was essentially the entire frame 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:12.040 you're looking at a computer graphic. It's not something that's 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.240 interacting with live action characters, or it might be something 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:19.040 that's on a screen within a scene, but not something 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.280 that's actually supposed to be in the physical space along 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.440 with the actors. This marked the first time that happened 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.280 uh if you have not seen Young Sherlock Holmes, I 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.560 recommend it. It's not the best film, but it is 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.359 interesting and it is entertaining. I think it gets a 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:45.120 little um, maybe a little self satisfied, but it's worth watching. 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:47.919 I actually saw it in the theater, So this is 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.880 one of those moments where I think I witnessed history. 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:55.120 I saw a movie in which the first computer generated 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:59.680 character had an interaction with a live action actor. Didn't 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:04.000 know that that at the time, but now it's true. Now, 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.760 the technology that the team needed to produce these sorts 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.919 of effects didn't really exist, at least not in a 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:14.760 way that was attainable for a a division within a 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.399 production studio. So the group began to develop a specialized 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:23.960 computer called the Pixar Image Computer. So that this is 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.080 where they get their name of the company. Spoiler alert, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.280 but Pixar Image Computer. The name came from Alvi ray 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:36.159 Smith and Lauren Carpenter, who were trying to brainstorm and 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.080 name for this device. Uh. Alvi ray Smith wanted to 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.800 come up with a name that had almost kind of 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.800 a Spanish verbs sound to it, and he wanted to 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:51.520 be a little, um, a little uh futuristic sounding too, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.520 and they decided to go with pixar as if it 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.480 were a verb to to make a picture. But it 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.479 was all on at it and ultimately they thought Pixar 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.159 sounded kind of cool, and that's what they called the computer, 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:08.959 the Pixar Image Computer. The computer allowed for both image 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.399 processing and computer graphics development on the same device. So 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.280 up to that point, those processes had to be done 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:20.040 separately on different machines, which limited the sort of stuff 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.480 you could actually produce. But the Pixar Image Computer changed 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.560 that and created a new discipline called image computing. So 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.639 it's sort of a combination of the two previously existing 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.000 disciplines and it allows you to do a lot more 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:40.159 interesting stuff. The Pixar Image Computer had a chap channel processor, 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.160 which is a four parallel processor chip capable of performing 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.960 forty million instructions per second, which was not bad for 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:52.639 the mid nineties, and it had a twenty four megabyte 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.119 picture memory AH and that memory could be expanded to 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:02.119 forty eight megabytes UH memory bus could access that memory 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.359 and a blistering two forty megabytes per second, and the 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.280 system was also expandable. Two additional chaps could be added 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.920 to provide up to a hundred twenty million instructions per 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:16.040 second um. This is, you know, obviously not state of 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.200 the art compared to today's standards, but in the eighties, 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.159 to be able to create this device specifically so you 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.360 could do image computing was pretty impressive. The video controller 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:29.600 bus was twice as fast as the memory bus at 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.120 four eighty megabytes per second, and depending upon the software 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.000 load out, the computer would work with in TSC PAL 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:42.320 and ten twenty four by seven r GB displays. The 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.119 Pixar Image Computer required a host computer, so it wasn't 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:48.320 a standalone device on its own, and you actually had 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:51.359 to pair it with another computer in order to control it. 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:57.840 This typically was a big, expensive computer that was not 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.560 meant for personal you. So this wasn't a personal computer. 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.320 It's not like it was a an Apple one or 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:08.200 anything like that. It wasn't anywhere along those lines. We're 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:12.600 talking about like a Sun system or a similar computer, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:18.399 where uh, it's a pretty massive, powerful system all on 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.480 its own, and then you would connect that, you would 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:25.200 network it to the Pixar Image Computer and it would 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:31.080 communicate over cables a transmission rate of eighty megabytes per second. Uh. 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.880 The computer was not cheap. It cost one thirty five 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:37.440 thousand dollars, and keep in mind this is the mid 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.560 nineteen eighties, so it would be significantly more than that 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.199 today if you adjust for inflation. And also keep in 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:46.840 mind that a hundred thirty five thousand dollars just gets 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:51.000 you the Pixar image computer. You still need that host computer, 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:55.080 which could cost another thirty five thousand dollars. So hundred 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:59.400 seventy thousand dollars just for this one method of image 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:05.040 computer geting, it's pretty pretty expensive. The list of customers 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:10.879 was small, but it included some very influential ones, and 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:13.679 in fact, the company envisioned, or rather the division at 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:18.480 this time within LucasArts or Lucasfilm, envisioned six different markets 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:22.840 for its image computer, and that included medical imaging, remote 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:28.520 sensing and mapping, seismic imaging, design and animation, graphic arts 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:33.560 and science, and scientific visualization. So that's kind of incredible 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:35.760 when you think about it, like this was a company 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:41.159 that eventually becomes known for creating computer animated films, but 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:46.920 early on they were trying to generate revenue through developing 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:51.120 hardware and selling it to a diverse group of clients, 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:56.239 not just other entertainment companies, but medical industries, you know, 0:23:56.359 --> 0:24:00.920 and and scientific research centers. So it was kind of incredible. 0:24:02.240 --> 0:24:06.560 One of the customers that was interested in this technology 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:11.359 was Disney that the Walt Disney Company and Walt Disney 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:17.640 Company approached the Computer Graphics division over at Lucasfilm and said, hey, 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:21.119 we have this idea, but we can't put it together. 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:23.600 We need someone else to design it for us, but 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:29.320 we want a computer animation production system or CAPS, And 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:33.720 this was their attempt to update the cell animation process. 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:39.240 It was to digitize the cell animation animation process. So 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:41.880 in other words, they still weren't going away from hand 0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:45.760 drawn animation. They still wanted to do that, but they 0:24:45.760 --> 0:24:50.160 wanted an updated method to process each of those cells 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:55.240 to make it more efficient and uh more effective. So 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:59.639 the process of creating the system CAPS spanned a couple 0:24:59.640 --> 0:25:03.440 of years. By the time it was ready, the division, 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:07.760 this computer Graphics division was no longer part of Lucasfilm. 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:10.720 It actually would take so long for them to finish 0:25:10.720 --> 0:25:14.520 the CAP system that it was when it was done 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:20.879 when Pixar became its own entity. Now, Smith continued to 0:25:21.080 --> 0:25:26.000 work on other projects, including creating a new channel for pixels. 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.720 So by channel, I mean how do you describe a pixel? 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:33.879 You already had the color channels of red, green, and blue, 0:25:34.520 --> 0:25:38.320 but Smith added an alpha channel, and the alpha channel 0:25:38.359 --> 0:25:41.920 allowed you to tag pixels with extra data that could 0:25:41.960 --> 0:25:45.639 be used for matting, for a compositing, for overlays, and 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:49.280 for anti aliasing. So you can think of it as 0:25:49.680 --> 0:25:53.600 here's an extra way of being able to describe this pixel, 0:25:54.080 --> 0:25:58.080 to get a specific effect beyond just what color is it? 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:03.080 That's kind of cool Now around, Alvie Smith was looking 0:26:03.080 --> 0:26:08.520 into creating the first feature length computer animated film, and 0:26:08.560 --> 0:26:12.000 he started actually having some serious conversations about it. It 0:26:12.080 --> 0:26:15.080