Two years ago, fewer than six feature films utilized computer graphics; this year perhaps six will not use any type of computerized enhancement. The embrace of cutting-edge technology by Hollywood is most ambitiously exemplified by Disney's Toy Story. Unlike movies with fantastic digital imagery like Apollo 13 and Casper, in which such graphics make up a mere fraction of the running time, every single frame of Toy Story was created on Silicon Graphics workstations and rendered on Pixar-made RenderMan software. Pixar's founder, Steve Jobs, is so confident in this project that he predicts the animated feature will jump-start a new epoch in movie-making, potentially replacing 2-D animation altogether.
|
Over one hundred studio employees worked to bring the tale of Toy Story to life, painstakingly preparing digital sets, characters, and props. Animators and VFX artists stylized the film from the storyboarding sketch phase to the last-minute shading. In the director's words, "In computer animation, it's so easy to make things move, but it's the minute detail work at the end that makes it look so real." Audiences appear enraptured by the feature, propelling it to the top of the Box Office ahead of the new James Bond picture, GoldenEye. There is certainly no shortage of home adaptations, either. Our team reviewed the superb Genesis cart released last month. Disney Interactive will also publish an Animated Storybook for PC this spring.
|
