WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Pixar Story: Part 1 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.800 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.919 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio, and how the tech 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:21.520 are you? Well, it's Friday, so it's time for a 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:25.439 tech Stuff classic. Today we're going to do part one 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:32.000 of a three part series about Pixar, the animation company 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.760 that is now part of Disney. But it wasn't always 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.280 that way. And this first episode originally published on July 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:46.440 twenty seventh, twenty sixteen. Obviously, Pixar's done a lot since 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.680 twenty sixteen, and I could very likely do a Part 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.800 four follow up, but for now, let's sit back, relax, 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:59.160 listen to this classic episode from twenty sixteen, The Pixar Story, 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.520 Part one. Now, to talk about the history of Pixar, 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.360 we first have to chat about some of its founders. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.559 But I'm not talking about John Lassner, I'm not talking 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.360 about George Lucas, I'm not talking about Steve Jobs. They 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.160 will all factor into this discussion, but those are not 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.120 Those aren't the people who are there at the very beginning. 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:25.120 At the very beginning was doctor Edwin E. Catmole and 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.960 now doctor cat Moole was born in nineteen forty five 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.080 in West Virginia, and as a child, he dreamed of 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.520 working for the Walt Disney Company, but eventually he kind 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:36.240 of gave up on that dream. He felt that he 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.640 lacked artistic talent and felt that, you know, there's just 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.160 no room for me at Disney, which is kind of funny. 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.320 So he decided to study computer science and physics instead. 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.360 You know, you can't be an animator for Disney. Go 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.960 into computer science and physics. He attended the University of 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:56.960 Utah and that's where he earned a bachelor's degree in 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.480 computer science. He earned another one in physics, and he 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.800 got a PhD in computer science. So he's a smart dude, 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.040 and he was granted his PhD in nineteen seventy four. Now, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.480 in nineteen seventy two, while he was still in school, 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.040 Doctor Catmill created a computer animated version of his own 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.600 left hand that was incorporated into the film Future World, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.840 and that marked the first full length feature film to 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.280 have computer animation in it. Now, this was just a 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.200 tiny little segment that was featured in part of the movie. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.560 It wasn't like it wasn't like they made a feature 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.560 length movie about a guy's left hand. They've since done 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:38.400 movies like that, but that was not what this one 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.800 was about. And you can actually view the animation and 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.200 how it was made on YouTube. There's the clip available 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.480 right there. The title is called A Computer Animated Hand 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.200 nineteen seventy two, and in the video you see that 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.160 they started with a physical model of Katmill's hand. I'm 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.919 guessing they cast in his hand, so, in other words, 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.800 they made a mo and then filled that mold with 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:06.840 some sort of resin or something along those lines, and 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.880 the finished product was a copy of Catmill's left hand. 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.600 Then they drew polygons on the surface of the model hand, 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:20.760 so they physically drew these polygon shapes so that it 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.560 could be translated into a digital form. They digitized the 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.480 model by scanning it with a tiny little scanner that 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.079 was kind of a attached to an arm, so they 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.800 could like a like a mechanical arm, not a human arm, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.240 but almost like one you would see on a lampstand, 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.000 and they traced out the hand. This created the digital model, 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.000 so they ended up with a wire model inside the computer. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:53.280 They then did a half tone sequence on top of 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.800 this wire model, and then a smooth shading sequence, and 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.080 that ended up creating a three D model of the 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.840 hand which they then could animate and make it do 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.400 different gestures and rotated and that kind of stuff and 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:10.480 give it that sort of three dimensional appearance. Now, that 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.080 and other projects that he was working on that Katmull 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:18.800 was working on got the attention of a somewhat eccentric, 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:26.160 wealthy entrepreneur named Alexander Shure. And Shure had founded a 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.599 technical college, the New York Institute of Technology, one of 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:38.159 the first dedicated higher learning institutions that specifically looked at technology, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.200 and he ended up hiring doctor Catmull to come over 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.479 and become the director of a brand new division called 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.600 the Computer Graphics Lab. This was in nineteen seventy five, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.120 so right after he got his PhD, doctor Campbill came 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.880 over to New York and began to work at the 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:01.280 New York Institute of Technology. At the Computer Graphics Lab, 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.479 Kemmel met with other pioneers in computer graphics, and one 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.480 of those was Alvi Ray Smith. Now Smith is also 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.840 a name we have to mention when you talk about 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.720 the beginnings of Pixar. Smith is as important to those 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:20.040 early days as Cat and Moll. He's a co founder 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.560 of the company, and he earned a bachelor's degree in 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.440 nineteen sixty five and electrical engineering from New York it's 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.400 from New Mexico State University rather, and in nineteen sixty 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:36.279 five he also earned his PhD in computer science from Stanford. 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.640 He taught electrical engineering and computer science at New York 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:43.560 University and the University of California at Berkeley before joining 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.320 Xerox Park. Xerox Park, by the way fascinating place. We 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.640 mentioned it on a few previous episodes of tech Stuff 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.920 from way back. It's one of those R and D 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:58.160 divisions that really shaped computers. Things like the graphical user 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:03.119 interface and the mouse all came out of Xerox Park. 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.760 They were not invented by Apple. It was actually a 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.720 Xerox invention first and then eventually made its way into 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:16.120 other devices and personal computers. Now, when he was at Park, 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:21.400 Smith actually helped develop a computer graphics paint program, which 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:26.480 he would continue to work in that field after moving 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:32.960 over in the computer graphics lab at the NY. Now, 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.320 also at that lab was another guy named David Di 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.280 Francesco who graduated from the University of Wisconsin. He would 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:43.160 become a founding member of Pixar as well, and in 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:48.680 nineteen seventy seven some other folks joined. Ralph Guggenheim, who 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.920 had freshly graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.760 in communications, joined the lab and he also would become 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:59.760 part of Pixar later on. So they start working in 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:05.000 this graphics lab. They're working to push the boundaries of 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:09.360 computer graphics, which was a very very young discipline at 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.200 that point. They were actually kind of defining the rules 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.520 as they were going along. And this went for a 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.360 couple of years until nineteen seventy nine, and that's when 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:23.320 George Lucas was putting together Industrial Light and Magic. Lucas 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.200 really wanted to push film editing and production technology forward. 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.800 He felt that Hollywood had been relying upon the same 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:34.320 tools for decades, and he felt that because of the 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.800 rise of computers and other technologies, the industry was ripe 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.920 for change. He just had to find the right people 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:47.679 to do it. So he created Lucasfilm Computer Division in 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.480 Industrial Light and Magic, and he recruited doctor ed Catmull 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.680 from the New York Institute of Technology to head the 0:07:54.720 --> 0:08:00.000 new department. So here's katmull. He's been working at NYA 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.960 IT for a few years. He was named the director 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.320 immediately upon being hired, Like, imagine this. Imagine going to 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.920 college and then immediately after you get your bachelor's degree, 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:14.920 imagine pursuing your post graduate work and getting your PhD. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.840 Then imagine you're immediately hired to be the head of 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:24.280 a brand new department in the first technical Institute of 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.320 the United States of America. Then imagine that George Lucas 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.080 wants you to go and work for him. Now, it's 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.840 pretty charmed life if you ask me. At any rate, 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:40.000 he recruited doctor capmmell and Campmeill came along, and then 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:44.200 he brought along Alvi Ray Smith, David D. Francesco, and 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.440 Ralph Guggenheim from the Graphics Computer Lab to join the 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.040 new department. So, in a way, I'm not saying that 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.520 he necessarily intended to do this, but Lucas raided the 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:59.480 graphics computer Lab at ny to create his own computer division, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.199 Austrial Light and Magic. So cam Will became vice president 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.400 of the division and managed development and not just film editing, 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:12.280 but also computer graphics, digital audio, and video games. One 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.440 of his earliest projects was actually coming up with a 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.120 method to imitate motion blur with computer graphics so that 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.120 it looks more like a fast moving action that's usually 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.199 cut on film, because if you're using film and things 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.000 are moving quickly, you get this blur effect, and without 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.160 that blur, the graphics would remain too sharp and then 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:35.959 seem fake or unrealistic. If you've ever watched a television 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.800 set that has a really high refresh rate and you 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.960 just feel like things don't look right, even though everything's 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.920 very clear and very sharp, it doesn't look right, that 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:50.240 might be part of it. It's the removal of that blur. Well, 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.400 doctor Camill was actually learning how to insert a blur 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.560 so that things would look more natural when they were 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.280 on screen. Over the next few years, Catpmell's team pioneers 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.720 computer graphics for film, and they published more than one 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:09.240 hundred papers on the subject in various publications. So they 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.040 continue doing this work, developing the technology necessary to do 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.720 computer graphics, but they realize there's a big, big problem. 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:22.480 Computer graphics requires a decent amount of processing and the 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.280 technology just wasn't up to speed to do this in 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:30.680 an efficient way. It was really expensive to produce computer 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:35.760 animation and really difficult as well very time consuming because 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.640 processors just weren't fast enough to handle data at the 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.600 speeds necessary to turn this stuff out quickly. And so 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:47.000 there was actually real discussion about how Moore's Law would 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.880 eventually solve this problem, but it would require them to 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:52.240 wait around a bit in order to get to it. 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:57.199 So they kept on pushing against those barriers, but they 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.839 acknowledged that there was only so much you could do 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.520 without spending ridiculous amounts of money. And in fact, this 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:11.199 entire department within Lucas's Empire was a money losing proposition. 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.520 It costs more money to develop and produce the computer 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:20.400 animation than the division was generating, or at least you 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:25.360 could argue that. In nineteen eighty three, John Lassener joined 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.880 Catmull's team as a contract employee. Here's the thing about 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.120 John Lassener. He had worked for Disney two times already, 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:38.360 although that's kind of misleading. The first time John Lassener 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.520 worked for Disney he was a skipper for the Jungle 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.120 Cruise ride at Disneyland. So if you've ever ridden the 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.640 Jungle Cruise ride, you know who these people are. They're 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.600 the folks who are your host as you get on 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.880 the boat, and they mostly pepper you with puns and 0:11:55.120 --> 0:12:00.360 really wacky jokes as you go through the ride. So 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:08.440 they might say things like, you know, that's an African elephant, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.600 how can you tell? And the answer is because we're 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.120 in Africa, instead of you know, the ears or anything 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.559 like that. Or you go behind the waterfall and says, everyone, 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.640 look here, it's the backside of water. A joke so 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:26.280 old and repeated so frequently that weird Al Yankovic worked 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.760 it into his song Skipper Dan. So John Laster was 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.360 a skipper on the Jungle Cruise ride and he you know, 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:36.079 that was a job he had when he was a 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.640 young man, like a teenager. And then later on John 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:45.040 Lasterer would join Disney as an animator. So he worked 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.040 there for a while but was eventually let go or 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:53.120 fired if you prefer. And there are different reasons that 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:54.920 have been given for this, but the one that I 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.280 see that seems to be repeated the most frequently is 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.520 that he was so interested in computer anime. He was 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.520 really pushing for Disney to start looking into computer animation 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.640 as a means of telling stories, but the company wasn't interested, 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.000 and eventually they just didn't have anything for him, so 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.199 they let him go. But Katmull and Smith were frequent 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.320 visitors to Disney. They would go to Disney to check 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.439 things out, and they met John Lassiter when they went 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.800 to Disney Animation. So as soon as Laster was fired, 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.280 kat Moll said, Hey, you should come over here and 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.120 work for us. So he joined the graphics group and 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.319 worked on a short film titled The Adventures of Andre 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.640 and Wally b. Now, at that time he was a 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.199 contract employee. He was not a full time employee because 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:45.880 kat Will only had certain amount of authority to do 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.560 things like higher on new people. He would join as 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.840 a full time employee in the computer division in nineteen 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:57.079 eighty five and his title at that time became Interface designer. 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.000 And the reason he was an interface design is because 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.920 Catmill didn't have the authority to hire on an animator, 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.600 so they made up the title or they gave him 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.280 a title that wasn't really what he did in order 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.679 to be able to hire him. We'll be back with 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:25.720 more about the Pixar story in just a moment. At 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.440 the nineteen eighty four conference of the ACM's Special Interest 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:36.520 Group on Computer Graphics, better known as Siggraph Siggraph. Seven 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.160 of the thirty papers that were accepted for publication for 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:45.800 that conference came from this Lucasfilm team headed by Catmill. So, 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:51.200 in other words, they were dominating the space. They were 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:58.600 providing a lot of the most forward thinking ideas in 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:03.240 computer graphics, and they were defining the process more than 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.720 anyone else was at that time. So they were instrumental 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:13.280 in getting computer animation and computer graphics integrated into entertainment. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.400 It was pretty impressive. Some of the movies that the 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.880 team worked on during their time there included Star Trek 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.480 two The Wrath of khn. If you're familiar with the movie, 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:29.560 you know there's a sequence in which the Genesis program, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:34.320 the Genesis device, transforms a dead planet into one that's 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:38.680 just teeming with life, and you get this interesting effect 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.600 as you watch the plant kind of sprout life everywhere. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.400 That was one of the sequences that this group worked on. 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.880 In fact, Alvi ray Smith himself directed that sequence. He 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.040 was the one in charge of it. It was also 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:56.960 used in some stuff in Return of the Jedi, and 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.560 they provided a sequence in Young Sherlock Holmes that ended 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:06.080 up being a first so Young Sherlock Holmes is the 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:10.000 story of Shelick Holmes when he's a young man. He's 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.320 attending a school and John Watson ends up being put 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.600 into the same school and the two of them have 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.120 to try and solve a mystery, and at one point 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.200 a character is hit with a dart that has a 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:29.680 hallucinogenic on it, and the hallucinogenic makes these terrible things 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.480 seem to happen to people, and it mostly drives them 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.440 to do terrible things like jump in the way of 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.760 a carriage that's racing down the street, and thus they 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.920 end up dying. But it looks like they're committing suicide, 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.960 but in reality they are trying to escape this freaky 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.080 vision they have. In this case, the freaky vision was 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.720 a figure in a stained glass window appears to come 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:55.560 to life, jump free of the window, and attack a person. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.560 This marked the first time computer graphics were incorporated into 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:03.080 a scene with live action actors and done in a 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:08.320 convincing way. Before, when you had computer graphics in movies, 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.280 it was essentially the entire frame you're looking at a 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:17.000 computer graphic. It's not something that's interacting with live action characters, 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.840 or it might be something that's on a screen within 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.240 a scene, but not something that's actually supposed to be 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.119 in the physical space along with the actors. This marked 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.800 the first time that happened. If you have not seen 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:36.200 Young Sherlock Holmes, I recommend it. It's not the best film, 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.720 but it is interesting and it is entertaining. I think 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:46.760 it gets a little maybe a little self satisfied, but 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.720 it's worth watching. I actually saw it in the theater, 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:51.960 So this is one of those moments where I think 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:56.280 I witnessed history. I saw a movie in which the 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.639 first computer generated character had an interaction with a live 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.959 action actor. Didn't know that that at the time, but 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:08.359 now it's true. Now, the technology that the team needed 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.080 to produce these sorts of effects didn't really exist, at 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.560 least not in a way that was attainable for a 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.080 division within a production studio. So the group began to 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:25.480 develop a specialized computer called the Pixar Image Computer. So 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.600 that this is where they get their name of the company. 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:33.080 Spoiler alert, but Pixar Image Computer. The name came from 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:38.000 Alvi ray Smith and Lauren Carpenter, who were trying to 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:42.680 brainstorm a name for this device. Alvi ray Smith wanted 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.480 to come up with a name that had almost kind 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.480 of a Spanish verb sound to it, and he wanted 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:54.679 to be a little a little futuristic sounding too, and 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.560 they decided to go with Pixar as if it were 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:03.080 a verb to make a picture. But it was all unvented, 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.800 and ultimately they thought Pixar sounded kind of cool, and 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.320 that's what they called the computer, the Pixar Image Computer. 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.960 The computer allowed for both image processing and computer graphics 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.240 development on the same device. So up to that point, 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.840 those processes had to be done separately on different machines, 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.080 which limited the sort of stuff you could actually produce. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.280 But the Pixar Image Computer changed that and created a 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.720 new discipline called image computing. So it's sort of a 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.960 combination of the two previously existing disciplines and it allowed 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.280 you to do a lot more interesting stuff. The Pixar 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:44.000 Image Computer had a chap channel processor, which was a 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:48.480 four parallel processor chip capable of performing forty million instructions 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.959 per second, which was not bad for the mid nineteen eighties. 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:58.399 And it had a twenty four megabyte picture memory and 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:02.800 that memory could be expanded to forty eight megabytes. The 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.719 memory bus could access that memory at a blistering two 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.639 hundred and forty megabytes per second, and the system was 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.480 also expandable. Two additional chaps could be added to provide 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.760 up to one hundred and twenty million instructions per second. 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.200 This is, you know, obviously not state of the art 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.720 compared to today's standards, but in the eighties, to be 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.280 able to create this device specifically so you could do 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.560 image computing was pretty impressive. The video controller bus was 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:32.840 twice as fast as the memory bus at four hundred 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.879 and eighty megabytes per second, and depending upon the software 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.560 load out, the computer would work with NTSC PAL and 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.280 ten twenty four by seven to sixty eight RGB displays. 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.520 The Pixar Image computer required a host computer, so it 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.160 wasn't a standalone device on its own. You actually had 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.159 to pair it with another computer in order to control it. 0:20:54.600 --> 0:21:00.639 This typically was a big, expensive computer that was not 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:04.560 meant for personal use. This wasn't a personal computer. It's 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:08.920 not like it was an Apple one or anything like that. 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.639 It wasn't anywhere along those lines. We're talking about like 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:18.520 a Sun system or a similar computer where it's a 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.560 pretty massive, powerful system all on its own, and then 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.800 you would connect that, you would network it to the 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.960 Pixar Image Computer, and it would communicate over cables a 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.679 transmission rate of eighty megabytes per second. The computer was 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:39.000 not cheap. It cost one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars, 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.120 and keep in mind this is the mid nineteen eighties, 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:43.959 so it would be significantly more than that today if 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.320 you adjust for inflation. And also keep in mind that 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:49.919 one hundred thirty five thousand dollars just gets you the 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:54.080 Pixar Image computer. You still need that host computer, which 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.840 could cost another thirty five thousand dollars. So one hundred 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.560 and seventy thousand dollars just for this one method of 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:07.840 image computing, it's pretty pretty expensive. The list of customers 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:13.719 was small, but it included some very influential ones, and 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.479 in fact, the company envisioned, or rather the division at 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:21.280 this time within LucasArts or Lucasfilm, envisioned six different markets 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:25.640 for its Image computer, and that included medical imaging, remote 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:31.359 sensing and mapping, seismic imaging, design and animation, graphic arts 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:36.360 and science, and scientific visualization. So that's kind of incredible 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:38.360 when you think about it, like this was a company 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:43.960 that eventually becomes known for creating computer animated films. But 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:49.719 early on they were trying to generate revenue through developing 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.960 hardware and selling it to a diverse group of clients, 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:59.080 not just other entertainment companies, but medical industries, you know, 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:05.280 and scientific research centers. So it's kind of incredible. One 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:10.480 of the customers that was interested in this technology was Disney, 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:16.120 the Walt Disney Company, and Walt Disney Company approached the 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:20.600 Computer Graphics division over at Lucasfilm and said, hey, we 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:24.119 have this idea, but we can't put it together. We 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:26.640 need someone else to design it for us, but we 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:32.320 want a computer animation production system or CAPS, And this 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:37.440 was their attempt to update the cell animation process. It 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:42.880 was to digitize the animation process. So in other words, 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:46.719 they still weren't going away from hand drawn animation. They 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:49.560 still wanted to do that, but they wanted an updated 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:53.800 method to process each of those cells to make it 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:59.360 more efficient and more effective. So the process of creating 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:03.439 the system CAPS spanned a couple of years. By the 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:07.800 time it was ready, the division, this computer Graphics division 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:11.640 was no longer part of Lucasfilm. It actually would take 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:14.719 so long for them to finish the CAP system that 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:18.680 it was when it was done. When Pixar became its 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:25.920 own entity. Now, Smith continued to work on other projects, 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:31.080 including creating a new channel for pixels. So by channel, 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:34.159 I mean how do you describe a pixel? You already 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.439 had the color channels of red, green, and blue, but 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:41.520 Smith added an alpha channel, and the alpha channel allowed 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:44.840 you to tag pixels with extra data that could be 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:48.560 used for matting, for a compositing, for overlays, and for 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:52.720 anti aliasinc. So you can think of it as here's 0:24:52.760 --> 0:24:56.400 an extra way of being able to describe this pixel, 0:24:56.920 --> 0:25:00.840 to get a specific effect beyond just what color is it? 0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:04.880 That's kind of cool. Now, around nineteen eighty five, Alvi 0:25:04.960 --> 0:25:09.080 Smith was looking into creating the first feature length computer 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:13.959 animated film, and he started actually having some serious conversations 0:25:14.000 --> 0:25:16.240 about it. It was going to be a collaboration with 0:25:16.320 --> 0:25:19.639 a Japanese company, and the movie they had decided to 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:23.080 try and make would be a story inspired by the 0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:29.000 famous Chinese novel Journey to the West. But when Alvi 0:25:29.119 --> 0:25:31.840 ray Smith sat down to seriously look at how much 0:25:31.880 --> 0:25:34.320 would that cost, what would the film's budget need to be, 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:38.399 he realized that the industry wasn't efficient enough to allow 0:25:38.480 --> 0:25:40.680 for a realistic budget. It's just that it would be 0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:44.320 too expensive, it would never get made. And he came 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:47.840 to the reluctant conclusion that they would continue to wait 0:25:48.280 --> 0:25:52.399 for Moore's Law to keep on being Moore's Law and 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:57.760 bring down those costs. Keep in mind, Moore's law at 0:25:57.800 --> 0:26:03.200 its heart, really isn't about how quickly computer power increases. 0:26:04.359 --> 0:26:08.960 It's really about how quickly computer power becomes more affordable. 0:26:10.280 --> 0:26:13.240 When Gordon Moore made the observation, it was really from 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:17.760 an economic standpoint, not a technological capability standpoint. He said 0:26:17.760 --> 0:26:23.440 that when the price of developing more powerful processors comes down, 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:28.480 than obviously people develop more powerful processors. And he's noticed 0:26:28.520 --> 0:26:31.679 that that tends to happen every eighteen to twenty four months. 0:26:32.480 --> 0:26:35.240 So it's interesting to think that More's law is really 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:39.280 more about economics than it is about how many discrete 0:26:39.359 --> 0:26:42.840 elements you can cram onto a square inch of a 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:48.560 silicon wafer. But at any rate, Smith recognized there just 0:26:48.720 --> 0:26:51.680 was not going to be a full length computer animated 0:26:51.680 --> 0:26:55.120