Research Task 1: John Lasseter

Concept Development Task 01


John Alan Lasseter is an American animator and chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. As a pioneering member of Pixar, Lasseter was put in charge supervising all of Pixar's films and associated projects as an executive producer. He also personally directed Toy Story [1995], A Bug's Life [1998], Toy Story 2 [1999], and Cars [2006].

I like the clean and simplistic visual style of the animations he directed. The world of which his characters exist are always inspiring and creative yet induces believability that endear the audience to his creations. Lasseter believed that animations can entertain audiences immensely and are the 'future of live action and special effects'. 1

Lasseter is also a close friend and admirer of renown Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, and has been executive producer on several of Miyazaki's films. Lasseter revealed that whenever he was stuck with a problem during the making of Toy Story, he would watch a random scene from one of Miyazaki's many films and he gets inspired somehow every time.

In his homage to Miyazaki for the "Ghibli ga Ippai" laserdisc box set, Lasseter had written:

"At Pixar, when we have a problem and we can't seem to solve it, we often take a laser disc of one of Mr. Miyazaki's films and look at a scene in our screening room for a shot of inspiration. And it always works! We come away amazed and inspired. Toy Story owes a huge debt of gratitude to the films of Mr. Miyazaki.

In an interview about the concept development of the featured film, Cars, Lasseter talked about researching and learning the history of certain cars in the film and fusing it into the personality of the character. He also made the connection of humans having breakfast at a cafe and the cars in the film gathering around a gas station that acts like a town center.

Research References:

• 1
  The Guardian
  19 November 2001
  http://film.guardian.co.uk/lff2001/news/0,,604658,00.html
  

  "There are a few moments in my life that I will never forget, and one of them was May 1977 seeing Star Wars at the Chinese Theatre - it was only 2 days old. I remember seeing it and I could not believe a movie could entertain so much. People were of course hyped up to seeing it, but seeing it was thoroughly entertaining. I was shaking at the end of it. I was entertained. I was looking around at the audience of young people and adults and kids and everybody was just screaming. A lot of my friends thought that was the future - you know, special effects and live action, but I said, 'You know what? Animation can entertain an audience like this,' and I believed it in my heart and soul. And I just always remember thinking, 'Let's take it somewhere it hasn't been'."
  - John Lasseter

• http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.8/3.8pages/3.8lyonslasseter.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8t2LJRI14Q
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUxACOJiz2c