December 18, 1995. Copyright, 1995, Graphic News. All rights reserved

ANIMATION: THEN AND NOW
By Nicholas Booth, Science Editor

LONDON, December 18, Graphic NewsÐ This yearÕs top Christmas film in America is ÔToy StoryÕ, Walt DisneyÕs first full-length animated feature created entirely using computer graphics. In just three weeks, Variety reports it has taken $69,170,281 at the box office, making it one of the most successful movies ever released by the studio, whose profits are already buoyed with the performance of ÔPocahontasÕ worldwide. But ÔToy StoryÕ marks a new direction and takes the art of animation Ôto infinity and beyondÕ Ð a sentiment agreed by the critics, one of whom has called it Ôa visionary rollercoaster of a movieÕ.

The film marks the first collaboration between Disney and Pixar Animation, a computer graphics company owned by Steven Jobs, a co-founder of Apple in the 1970s. The company has developed software to depict texture, colour and lighting to recreate a realistic 3-D feel to situations which have been created entirely within a computer. The software was designed to be as Ôuser-friendlyÕ as possible for traditionally-trained animators. 

The finished film required the use of 300 Sun microprocessors and an estimated 800,000 hours of computing time were required to create the movie. The film involves 76 characters, 1,561 shots and each individual frame took anywhere up to 15 hours to generate. All 77 minutes of the film are computer generated: by comparison, ÔJurassic ParkÕ employed six minutes of computer generated imagery. Perhaps it is small wonder that one of the filmÕs producers has said that there were more Ph.D.s involved in the making of this film than ever before in cinema history.

ÔToy StoryÕ inhabits a world where toys come to life when nobody is watching. It focuses on the rivalry between Woody, a traditional string-pulled cowboy, who is leader of the toys owned by a young boy called Andy. Then Ôstrange thingsÕ begin to happen with the arrival of Buzz Lightyear, a space age figure with a voice sampler and a laser beam who suffers from the delusion that he is defender of the galaxy. The voice of Woody is provided by Tom Hanks and that of Buzz by Tim Allen, star of TVÕs ÔHome ImprovementÕ and last yearÕs U.S. box office smash, ÔThe Santa ClauseÕ, now on release here.

It is 60 years since work began on DisneyÕs first full-length feature, ÔSnow White and the Seven DwarfsÕ. Then, a team of a hundred or more animators drew up animation boards, celluloid sheets and inking and painting boards. It is little known that they studied acting, mime and life-drawing during pre-production on the film. They also filmed actors and used photostats of individual frames to create a realistic effect of motion. In ÔToy StoryÕ, actors were also filmed reading their lines to provide a realistic basis for animation. In the same way that experimental shorts paved the way for ÔSnow WhiteÕ, Disney and Pixar Animation have experimented with short animated features, particularly in the advertising field.

In all, ÔToy StoryÕ took four years to complete and in Britain we will have to wait until the new year to see the film. To get a taste of the excitement, we should turn to American critic, Roger Ebert, who has said of the movie: ÔI felt I was in at the dawn of a new era of movie animation, which draws on the best of cartoons and reality, creating a world somewhere in between, where space not only bends but snaps, crackles and pops.Õ

Sources: Variety, The Walt Disney Company, The Ebert Co. Ltd