siggraph

META PERFORMANCE SHOW | In this episode, Jason Jaggard sits down with co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and New York Times Best-Selling Author Ed Catmull. 

Ed, quite simply, is responsible for the Renaissance Age of Animation. Walking us through his early days of being introduced to the process of creating animated stories, he details how his team was pushing the boundaries of what was technologically possible in that space as often as possible. One thing Ed shares as a part of this success was the team he put around him, holding steadfast that “getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea”. 

That said, this idea was a really good one: in the process of developing this technology into what we know today as Pixar, something big happened - he met a man named Steve Jobs. Ed speaks to his 45-year working relationship with Steve, including his initial investment in Pixar itself, how people get him “wrong”, and what leadership skills he still incorporates to this day thanks to that relationship. 

This was an incredibly motivational conversation from a pioneer at the intersection of technology and entertainment; we hope you enjoy the show! 

Order Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull 

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We want to give a special thank you to the crew for this episode. Casey Skinner was our Story and Video Editor, Robb Gilligan was our Sound Editor and Mixer, and thank you to our Videographers, Tri Nguyen and Ian Albert, and to Elle Sassenrath and Tower 33 for VFX Production, and to the Rainbow Creative Production team, Producers Matthew Jones and Stephen Selnick and Audio Editor Jeremy Davidson.

I am over the moon to kick off Series 3 with the incredible Alvy Ray Smith – co-founder of Pixar. 

Dr Alvy Ray Smith is a computer scientist and pioneer in the field of computer graphics. After starting his career in academia, Alvy had an epiphany following a serious skiing accident. He decided to move to California to combine his two passions - art and computers - in a place where he felt something good was about to happen. 

Alvy was always a pioneer. From creating his first computer graphic in 1965, Alvy became an original member of the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology, he witnessed the birth of the personal computer at Xerox PARC, and he was the first director of computer graphics at George Lucas’s Lucasfilm. It was there that Alvy gathered some of the smartest people he knew to develop computer graphics software, including early renderer technology. He and colleague Ed Catmull then spun out to co-found the famous Pixar, soon followed by the hiring of Lucasfilm colleague John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs as an investor. It was at Pixar that Toy Story would be made - the very first, entirely computer-animated, feature film. In 2006, Pixar was sold to Disney for $7.4 billion.

Alvy also co-founded Altamira Software and has created a number of computer art pieces including the famous Sunstone with Ed Emshwiller which featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Alvy was also the first Graphics Fellow at Microsoft.

In this interview, Alvy recounts his career from the early days at Xerox PARC to how Pixar got started. We discuss the Pixar journey in detail, as well as his new book – A Biography of the Pixel including how innovation is born from three strands:

An idea, chaos and a tyrant. And how Steve jobs was both the saviour and the tyrant in the incredible Pixar story.

Alvy has combined his two passions – art and computer science – to spend his career showing the world what computers and moreover, what computer graphics can do. 

 A true pioneer, this is one of my favourite conversations.

I hope you enjoy it too.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Alvy Ray Smith on Twitter @alvyray / website 

Buy Alvy Ray Smith's book A Biography of the Pixel here. 

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Mo Husseini was born in Egypt, grew up in Jordan, attended boarding school in the UK, and moved to the San Francisco bay area in the late 1980’s. He attended classes at UC Berkeley, apprenticed with various filmmakers and artists, and eventually landed a job at ILM in the commercial editorial group. Mo shares his stories of luck, the generosity of others, the Dunning–Kruger effect (uh-oh), and his amazing post-ILM career. Plus, he’s a super smart and kind human and it was great to catch up with him. We easily could have kept talking for a few more hours. 

Terrence Masson has had an incredible career. He's worked on 20+ feature films as well as many “special venue" interactive, broadcast commercials and video game projects. Some highlights include three Star Wars movies, getting SouthPark started and the world's largest interactive digital Etch-A-Sketch. Terrence is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Visual Effects Society and has been active in SIGGRAPH since 1988, including as the 2006 Computer Animation Festival Chair, the 2010 Conference Chair, and Outstanding Service Awards Chair.

Terrence's enthusiasm for the craft is infectious. Today he works at Chair of the MFA program in Computer Arts at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York.

Show Notes: (Get Links)

Previous Podcast - Cinema 4D Goes Subscription,
Which version of Cinema 4D do I subscribe to?,
What to Know About Maxon’s New Cinema 4D + Redshift Subscription,
Autodesk Maya/3ds Max Indie Licenses - CG Channel,
Blender 2.8,
Moore's Law,
RealSmart Motion Blur,
An Ode to Kai's Power Goo - MacWorld,
Nick and Chad's Computers,
Greyscalegorilla Plus,

Production Software You Should Know About:
Cinema 4D,
Adobe Creative Cloud,
After Effects,
Photoshop,
Premiere Pro,
Substance,
Houdini,
Blender,
Fusion,
Nuke

Plugins You Should Know About:
TurboSquid,
KitBash,
Greyscalegorilla Plugins and Assets,
Video Copilot,
Red Giant,

In this episode, the gang talks about Maxon's big Siggraph news, a new C4D subscription service with an option to bundle Redshift. Also, get the scoop on Greyscalegorilla+ and more exciting things announced on the Siggraph floor.

Show Notes - Get all the links