Channel Frederator Blog

The Pixar Touch by David A. Price is an exhaustive look into the rise of the famously innovative and super successful animation studio. This podcast interview with the author, from The Sound of Young America, will give you a taste for what’s inside the covers.

One fascinating aspect of Pixar history is the company’s roots at The New York Institute of Technology in the 70’s and 80’s. Alexandre Schure, a forward-thinking and mysterious millionaire—and founder of the school—bankrolled a Computer Graphics Lab and hired computer programmer Edmund Catmull to run it. Shure was interested in using computers to help finish up his animated feature adaptation of Tubby the Tuba. Ultimately, Tubby (1975) was completed using traditional methods (and is said to be absolutely awful!) Catmull developed many early computer animation programs and was eventually plucked away by George Lucas, and after a stint at Lucasfilms went on to run Pixar.Michael Sporn has some really funny anecdotes about his brief employment working on Tubby The Tuba at NYIT on his SPLOG.So if you are currently working on a crappy project, just remember that you never know where it might lead you!—Anne D. Bernstein PS: Have you seen Tubby The Tuba? Should I?