Pixar Short Films Collection: Volume 1

Animation, Comedy

Jim Blinn	Himself
Eben Ostby	Himself
Craig Good	Himself
Loren Carpenter	Himself
Ralph Guggenheim	Himself
John Lasseter	Himself
Ed Catmull	Himself
Alvy Ray Smith	Himself
Bill Reeves	Himself
Thomas Porter	Himself

Director	Alvy Ray Smith; Tony Kaplan; Erica Milsom
Producer	Ann Brilz

Pixar's unprecedented string of hit animated features was built on the short films in this collection. John Lasseter and Ed Catmull used these cartoons the way Walt Disney used the "Silly Symphonies" during the 1930s: as a training ground for artists and a way to explore the potential of a new medium. Although it's only 90 seconds long, "Luxo, Jr." (1986) ranks as the "Steamboat Willie" of computer animation: For the first time, audiences believed CG characters could think and feel. (It was also the first CG film to make audiences laugh.) When the artists began work on Toy Story, they had learned so much from the shorts, they were ready to undertake that landmark creation. In the later shorts, the viewer can see the artists continuing to experiment: with a more realistic human figure in "Geri's Game" and with new ways of suggesting atmospheric effects in "Boundin'." A delightful collection of entertaining shorts, and a significant chronicle of the growth of computer animation.