July 10, 2002
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@sa.ucsb.edu

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents the free four-film series
Celebrating Pixar Animation Studios

Summary Facts:

• UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Celebrating Pixar Animation Studios
• A series of all four feature-length Pixar Studios films
• Sunday, August 4 through Sunday, August 25
• All screenings at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall
• Free Admission
• For information, phone UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Celebrating Pixar Animation Studios—a festival featuring all four of Pixar’s full-length films—to honor the ground-breaking work of this pioneering company. The screenings of Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. will be free. Pixar began as George Lucas’s computer division in 1979, and became an independent enterprise making computer-generated films in 1986 when Steven Jobs (one of the co-founders of Apple Computers) bought the business and recruited a talented team including John Lasseter, who would go on to direct many of Pixar’s productions. Not only has the studio created its own award-winning shorts and features, but its state-of-the-art software, RenderMan, has been used by 26 of the last 30 films nominated for a visual effects Oscar.

The movie-going public, however, best knows the studio for its inventive and clever films. John Lasseter has said, “To say that the computer creates the animation is like saying the pen writes the novel. What’s most important are characters and story.” The Los Angeles Times concurs, writing, “With its wonderful blend of wit, sophistication, sincerity and technical savvy, Pixar pioneered the computer-animated feature and made it appealing to child and adult alike, reinventing the Disney storytelling formula for a new generation.”

The series begins on Sunday, August 4 with Toy Story, cinema’s first entirely computer-animated feature. This film not only introduces charming rival toys Cowboy Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) and spaceman Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), but also a three-dimensional reality and freedom of movement never before experienced in “cartoons.” The visual and technical marvels of the film provide true wonderment; Woody’s facial expressions, for example, appear lifelike because of minute control, with 58 “avars” or articulation variables, used just for his mouth. The film, however, is not merely an animation showcase, as it is warm, full of wit and sprung from the clever premise that toys come to life when humans aren’t with them. Upon seeing the film, critic Roger Ebert claimed, “I felt I was in at the dawn of a new era of movie animation, which draws on the best of cartoons and reality.” (John Lasseter, 1985, 81 minutes)

A Bug’s Life, the film that screens on Sunday, August 11, took 12 times the computer power that Pixar needed to make Toy Story. Mild-mannered ant Flik (Dave Foley) and the ragtag band of flea circus misfits he’s hired attempt to outwit the terrifying grasshopper gang, led by the nasty Hopper (Kevin Spacey). This bug-eat-bug world is brilliantly rendered by even more sophisticated animation than in Pixar’s first outing, to the point where individual blades of grass seem to sway in the breeze. The Sacramento Bee insists that A Bug’s Life “literally crawls with characters, all of them memorably designed and voiced.” (John Lasseter, 1998, 94 minutes)

The series continues on Sunday, August 18 with Toy Story 2, one of the rare follow-ups to escape the dread disease of sequel-itis. Salon.com writes, “Not only is [Toy Story 2] just as visually stunning and witty as the first, but it’s funnier, more thoughtful and more grown-up.” Now best buddies, Woody and Buzz are launched into new adventures, battling an unscrupulous toy collector and toy mortality itself. The animation reaches such an exquisite quality that even a Barbie doll seems to be imbued with a full range of human emotions. Toy Story 2 swept seven of the 2000 Annie Awards, presented by the International Animated Film Society, including the award for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Theatrical Feature. (John Lasseter, 1999, 92 minutes)

Pixar’s estimable success—and its not always friendly rivalry with Dreamworks Animation that had the fortunate result of spurring creativity and innovation in both studios—led to the introduction of an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2002. Although the last film in Arts & Lectures’ series, Monsters, Inc., which screens August 25, lost in that first animated Oscar race to Dreamwork’s Shrek, it still wowed audiences and critics alike. The San Francisco Examiner called the film “an eye-popping, jaw-dropping wonderland” that will “delight and dazzle any youngster with a healthy sense of wonder, and greatly amuse any adult.” Monsters, Inc. is a witty, uncommonly intelligent and savvy journey into the world of childhood nightmares that posits there is something scary lurking in the closet. It features the talented voices of John Goodman, Jennifer Tilly and Billy Crystal. The film did win an Academy Award, as 16-time nominee Randy Newman, who has provided memorable tunes for all the Pixar releases, finally took home an Oscar for Best Song for “If I Didn’t Have You.” (Peter Docter, 2001, 88 minutes)

All film screenings begin at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. All four screenings are free. Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, these films are supported in part by UCSB Summer Sessions and the Division of Student Affairs.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.