Pete Docter
Docter in 2009
Born	Peter Hans Docter[1] (1968-10-09) October 9, 1968 (age 43) Bloomington, Minnesota, U.S.
Occupation	Film director, animator, screenwriter, producer, voice actor
Years active	1990 – present
Spouse	Amanda Docter (2 Children)

Peter Hans "Pete" Docter (born October 9, 1968) is an American film director, animator, screenwriter, producer and voice actor from Bloomington, Minnesota.^[2] He is best known for directing the films Monsters, Inc. and Up, and as a key figure and collaborator in Pixar Animation Studios. The A. V. Club has called him "almost universally successful".^[3] He has been nominated for six Oscars (one win thus far for Up -- Best Animated Feature), three Annie Awards (winning two), a BAFTA Children's Film Award (which he won), and a Hochi Film Award (which he won).^[4] He has described himself as a "geeky kid from Minnesota who likes to draw cartoons."^[2]

He is currently directing an upcoming animated feature, set for release on June 19, 2015, and described as "...an inventive new film that explores a world that everyone knows, but no one has seen: inside the human mind."^[5]

Early life[link]

Docter was born in Bloomington, Minnesota, growing up introverted and socially isolated, preferring to work alone and having to remind himself to connect with others. He often played in the creek beside his house, pretending to be Indiana Jones and acting out scenes.^[6] A junior-high classmate later described him as "this kid who was really tall, but who was kind of awkward, maybe getting picked on by the school bullies because his voice change at puberty was very rough".^[2]

The front gate to Pixar Studios

Both his parents worked in education: his mother, Rita, taught music and his father, Dave, was a choral director at Normandale Community College. He attended Nine Mile Elementary School, Oak Grove Junior High, and John F. Kennedy High School in Bloomington. Unlike his two sisters, Kirsten Docter, who is now the violist of the Cavani String Quartet,and Kari Docter, a cellist with the Metropolitan Opera, Docter was not particularly interested in music. Nevertheless, he can be seen playing on Michael Giacchino's score on the Up Blu-ray extra features. He taught himself cartooning, making flip books and homemade animated shorts with a family movie camera.^[2] He later described his interest in animation as a way to "play God", making up nearly living characters. Cartoon director Chuck Jones and producer Walt Disney and cartoonist Jack Davis were major inspirations.^[7]

He spent about a year at the University of Minnesota^[2] studying both philosophy and making art^[7] before transferring to the California Institute of the Arts, where he won a Student Academy Award for his production "Next Door" and graduated in 1990. Although Docter had planned to work for the Disney Corporation, his best offers came from Pixar and from the producers of The Simpsons.^[2] He did not think much of Pixar at that time,^[7] and later considered his choice to work there a strange and unusual one.^[3]

Career[link]

Pete Docter in 2009 promoting the movie Up.

Before joining Pixar, Docter had created three non-computer animations, "Next Door", "Palm Springs", and "Winter".^[8] He was a fan of the company's early short films, but he knew nothing about them otherwise. He commented in an October 2009 interview, "Looking back, I kind of go, what was I thinking?"^[9]

He started at Pixar at the age of 21,^[6] and began work the day after his college graduation,^[3] the tenth employee the company hired,^[7] and its third animator.^[10] He first met owner Steve Jobs when Jobs came to lay off some older workers. Docter instantly felt at home in the tight-knit atmosphere of the company. He has said, "Growing up... a lot of us felt we were the only person in the world who had this weird obsession with animation. Coming to Pixar you feel like, 'Oh! There are others!'"^[2]

Docter had been brought in with limited responsibilities, but John Lasseter quickly assigned him larger and larger roles in writing, animation, sound recording, and orchestra scoring.^[9] He was one of the three key screenwriters behind the concept of Toy Story, and partially based the character of Buzz Lightyear on himself.^[7] He had a mirror on his desk and made faces with it as he conceptualized the character.^[9]

Docter's fascination with character development was further influenced by a viewing of Paper Moon, he told journalist Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life.^[11]

I like the more character-driven stuff, and Paper Moon brought that home to me in a way that I had not seen in live action, really focusing on the whole story just about characters. It was almost theatrical in the same way you might see a stage show because you’re locked in a room. It’s got to be about characters, and yet it was so cinematic, a film that couldn’t be done in any other medium. It just kind of blew my socks off.^[12]

Docter has been an integral part of some of Pixar's most seminal works, including Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc., all of which received critical acclaim and honors. He contributed to these animated films as a co-author to the scripts, and worked with CGI stalwarts such as John Lasseter, Ronnie Del Carmen, Bob Peterson, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, and Joe Ranft. Docter has referred to his colleagues at Pixar as a bunch of "wild stallions".^[3]

In 2004, he was asked by John Lasseter to direct the English translation of Howl's Moving Castle.^[13] Docter made his directorial debut with Monsters, Inc., which occurred right after the birth of his first child, Nick. Docter has said that the abrupt move from a complete, single-minded devotion to his career to parenting drove him "upside down" and formed the inspiration for the storyline.^[14] Docter then directed the 2009 film Up, released on May 29, 2009. He based the protagonist of Up partially on himself, based on his frequent feelings of social awkwardness and his desire to get away from crowds to contemplate.^[6]

Docter appeared at Comic-Con 2008 and the 2009 WonderCon.^[15]

In May 2009, Docter remarked retrospectively to Christianity Today that he had lived "a blessed life" so far.^[6] The A. V. Club has called him "almost universally successful".^[3] He has been nominated for four Oscars (winning one for Up), three Annie Awards (winning two), a British Academy Children's Award (which he won), and a Hochi Film Award (which he won).^[4] He also won a Bafta for best animation for UP. Accepting his Academy Award for Best Animated Feature he said, "Never did I dream that making a flip book out of my third-grade math book would lead to this."^[16]

Personal life[link]

He is married to Amanda Docter and has two children, Nick and Ellie.^[6] Ellie has a speaking part in Up as "Young Ellie".^[17]

Docter is a fan of anime, particularly the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Docter has said that Miyazaki's animation has "beautifully observed little moments of truth that you just recognize and respond to".^[13] He is also a fan of the work done by his competitors at DreamWorks as well. He has said, "I think it’s a much healthier environment when there is more diversity".^[3] Docter is also a devout Christian. Though he incorporates his personal morality into his work, he has said that he does not intend to ever make a movie with an explicitly religious message.^[7]

About the relationship between his faith and his filmmaking, Docter has said:

I don't think people in any way, shape, or form like to be lectured to. When people go to a movie, they want to see some sort of experience of themselves on the screen. They don't come to be taught. So in that sense, and in terms of any sort of beliefs, I don't want to feel as though I'm ever lecturing or putting an agenda forth.^[6]

Pixar filmography[link]

• Toy Story (1995) - Story / Head Animator
• Geri's Game (1997)- Animator
• A Bug's Life (1998)- Additional Storyboard Artist
• Toy Story 2 (1999) - Story
• Monsters, Inc. (2001) - Director / Story
• Mike's New Car (2002) - Director / Story
• Boundin' (2003)- Special Thanks
• Howl's Moving Castle (2004) - Director / Executive Producer (U.S. production)
• WALL-E (2008) - Story
• Partly Cloudy (2009) - Special Thanks
• Up (2009) - Director, Story, Writer/ Voice of Kevin and Campmaster Strauch
• Dug's Special Mission (2009) - Executive Producer
• The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside the Mind (2015) - Director^[18]

See also[link]

• List of Pixar staff

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pete Docter

• Pete Docter at the Internet Movie Database
• Pixar Animation Studios website
• "Pete Docter" at the Pixar Wiki

John Lasseter
Lasseter at the Austin Film Festival on October 22, 2011. Photograph taken by Vanessa Lua.
Born	John Alan Lasseter (1957-01-12) January 12, 1957 (age 55) Hollywood, California
Occupation	Animator, film director, Chief Creative Officer, Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Principal Creative Advisor, Walt Disney Imagineering
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Nancy Lasseter (1979–present)

John Alan Lasseter (born January 12, 1957) is an American animator, film director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.^[1]

Lasseter's first job was with The Walt Disney Company, where he became an animator. Next, he joined Lucasfilm, where he worked on the then-groundbreaking use of CGI animation. After the Graphics Group of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm was sold to Steve Jobs and became Pixar in 1986, Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer and he directed Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Cars, and Cars 2. Lasseter is also the creator of Cars.

He has won two Academy Awards, for Animated Short Film (for Tin Toy), as well as a Special Achievement Award (for Toy Story).^[2]

Early years[link]

Lasseter was born in Hollywood, California. His mother, Jewell Mae (née Risley), was an art teacher at Bell Gardens High School, and his father, Paul Eual Lasseter, was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership.^[3][4][5] Lasseter grew up in Whittier, California. His mother's profession contributed to his growing preoccupation with animation. He often drew cartoons during church services at the Church of Christ his family attended. As a child, Lasseter would race home from school to watch Chuck Jones cartoons on television. While in high school, he read The Art of Animation by Bob Thomas. The book covered the history of Disney animation and the making of a book about Sleeping Beauty, which made Lasseter realize he wanted to do animation himself. When he saw Disney's 1963 film The Sword in the Stone, he finally made the decision that he should become an animator.^[6]

His education began at Pepperdine University. It was the alma mater of both his parents and his siblings. However, he heard of a new program at California Institute of the Arts and decided to leave Pepperdine to follow his dream of becoming an animator. His mother further encouraged him to take up a career in animation, and in 1975 he enrolled as the second student in a new animation course at the California Institute of the Arts. Lasseter was taught by three members of Disney's "Nine Old Men" team of veteran animators – Eric Larson, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston – his classmates included Brad Bird, John Musker, Henry Selick and Tim Burton.^[7] During his time there, he produced two animated shorts; Lady and the Lamp (1979) and Nitemare (1980), which both won the student Academy Award for Animation.^[8]

Disney (first time)[link]

On graduation, Lasseter joined The Walt Disney Company, and was promoted quickly up the ranks to a Jungle Cruise skipper at Disneyland in Anaheim.^[9] Lasseter later obtained a job as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation, but felt something was missing; after 101 Dalmatians, which in his opinion was the film where Disney had reached its highest plateau, the studio had lost momentum and was criticized for often repeating itself without adding any new ideas or innovations.^[10][11]

In 1980 or 1981, he coincidentally came across some video tapes from one of the then new computer-graphics conferences, who showed some of the very beginnings of computer animation, primarily floating spheres and such, which he experienced as a revelation.^[12] But it wasn't until shortly after, when he was invited by his friends Jerry Rees and Bill Kroyer, while working on Mickey's Christmas Carol, to come and see the first lightcycle sequences for an upcoming film entitled Tron, featuring (then) state-of-the-art computer generated imagery, that he really saw the huge potential of this new technology in animation. Up to that time, the studio had used a multiplane camera to add depth to its animation. Lasseter realized that computers could be used to make films with three dimensional backgrounds where traditionally animated characters could interact to add a new, visually stunning depth that had not been conceived before.

Later, he and Glen Keane talked about how great it would be to make an animated feature where the background was computer animated, and then showed Keane the book The Brave Little Toaster by Thomas Disch, which he thought would be a good candidate for the film. Keane agreed, but first they decided to do a short test film to see how it worked out, and chose Where the Wild Things Are, a decision based on the fact that Disney had considered producing a feature based on the works of Maurice Sendak. Satisfied with the result, Lasseter, Keane and Thomas L. Wilhite went on with the project, especially Lasseter who dedicated himself to it, while Keane eventually went on to work with The Great Mouse Detective.^[13]

Lasseter and his colleagues unknowingly stepped on some of their direct superiors' toes by circumventing them in their enthusiasm to get the project into motion. During a pitch meeting for the film to two of them, animation administrator Ed Hansen, and head of Disney studios, Ron W. Miller, the project was cancelled, due to lack of perceived cost benefits for the mix of traditional and computer animation.^[14] A few minutes after the meeting, Lasseter was summoned by Hansen to his office, where John was told that his employment in the Walt Disney Studios had been terminated. The Brave Little Toaster would later become a 2D animated feature film directed by one of John's friends, Jerry Rees, and some of the staff of Pixar would be involved in the film alongside Lasseter.

Lucasfilm/Pixar[link]

John Lasseter with George Lucas in 2009.

While putting together a crew for the planned feature, he had made some contacts in the computer industry, among them Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull at Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group. After being fired, Lasseter visited a computer graphics conference at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, where he met and talked to Catmull again. Before the day was over, Lasseter had made a deal to work with Catmull and his colleagues on a project that resulted in their first computer animated short: The Adventures of André and Wally B. Because Catmull was not allowed to hire animators, he was given the title "Interface Designer";^[15] "Nobody knew what that was but they didn’t question it in budget meetings".^[16] The short turned out to be more revolutionary than Lasseter first had visualized before he joined Lucasfilm. His original idea had been to create only the backgrounds on computers, but in the final short everything was computer animated, including the characters. After this short CGI film, things would continue to grow until it became Toy Story, the first ever computer-animated feature film.

Due to George Lucas's financially crippling divorce, he was forced to sell off Lucasfilm Computer Graphics. It was acquired by Steve Jobs in 1986, and became Pixar. Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer. He also personally directed Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Cars, and Cars 2.

He has won two Academy Awards, for Animated Short Film (Tin Toy), as well as a Special Achievement Award (Toy Story).^[2] Lasseter has been nominated on four other occasions – in the category of Animated Feature, for both Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Cars (2006), in the Original Screenplay category for Toy Story (1995) and in the Animated Short category for Luxo, Jr. (1986), while the short Knick Knack (1989) was selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time.^[17]

Lasseter received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California on November 1, 2011.^[18]

Back at Disney[link]

Disney purchased Pixar in April 2006, and Lasseter was named chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He was also named principal creative advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he helps design attractions for Disney's theme parks. He reports directly to Disney President and CEO Robert Iger, bypassing Disney's studio and theme park executives. He also received green-light power on films with Roy E. Disney's consent.

In December 2006, he announced that Disney will start producing animated shorts that will be released theatrically once more. Lasseter said he sees this medium as an excellent way to train and discover new talent in the company as well as a testing ground for new techniques and ideas. The shorts will be in 2D, CGI or a combination of both.^[19]

Lasseter is a close friend and admirer of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, and has been executive producer on several of Miyazaki's films for their release in the United States, also overseeing the dubbing of the films for their English language soundtrack. The gentle forest spirit Totoro from Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro makes an appearance as a plush toy in Toy Story 3.

Other work[link]

Lasseter drew the most widely known versions of the BSD Daemon, a cartoon mascot for the BSD Unix operating system.^[20]

He owns the "Marie E." steam locomotive, which is an H.K. Porter engine. The "Marie E." was once owned by Ollie Johnston, who was one of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men". In May 2007 and again in June 2010, the locomotive visited, and was run by Lasseter at the Pacific Coast Railroad in Santa Margarita, CA alongside the original Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad "Retlaw 1" coaches.^[21]

Personal life[link]

John Lasseter with his wife Nancy Lasseter at the 2006 Annie Awards red carpet at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California.

Lasseter lives in Glen Ellen, California with his wife Nancy, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, whom he met at a computer graphics conference. He has five sons, their ages ranging from 14 to 33. The family has a Dachshund named Frank and a cat named Moocher.^[22]

The Lasseters own Lasseter Family Winery, located in Glen Ellen, CA.^[23]

John is an avid NASCAR fan and loves to attend the races at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California.^[7]

On May 2, 2009, Lasseter received an Honorary Doctorate degree from Pepperdine University.^[24] He gave a commencement address where he encouraged the graduating class of more than 500 students never to let anyone tarnish their dreams.

Filmography[link]

Feature films[link]

Short films[link]

See also[link]

• List of Pixar films
• List of Pixar shorts

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Lasseter

• John Lasseter at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Verrier and Dawn C. Chmielewski, Fabled Film Company May Get a Reanimator, Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2006
• Fortune Magazine interview with John Lasseter – includes biographic information
• KCRW's The Treatment: John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton (02/04)
• KCRW's The Treatment: John Lasseter (06/06)

Hayao Miyazaki
Born	(1941-01-05) January 5, 1941 (age 71) Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Anime Director Animator Screenwriter Manga Artist Storyboard Artist Author Illustrator
Years active	1963–2012
Known for	Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Castle in the Sky My Neighbor Totoro Kiki's Delivery Service Porco Rosso Princess Mononoke Spirited Away Howl's Moving Castle Ponyo The Secret World of Arrietty
Spouse	Akemi Ōta

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Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿, Miyazaki Hayao^?, born January 5, 1941) is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli, an animation studio and production company. The success of Miyazaki's films has invited comparisons with American animator Walt Disney, British animator Nick Park and Robert Zemeckis; he has also been named one of the most influential people by Time magazine.^[1][2]

Born in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Miyazaki began his animation career in 1961, when he joined Toei Animation. From there, Miyazaki worked as an in-between artist for Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon where he pitched his own ideas that eventually became the movie's ending. He continued to work in various roles in the animation industry over the decade until he was able to direct his first feature film Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro which was released in 1979. After the success of his next film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, he co-founded Studio Ghibli where he continued to produce many feature films until his temporary retirement in 1997 following Princess Mononoke.

While Miyazaki's films have long enjoyed both commercial and critical success in Japan, he remained largely unknown to the West until Miramax Films released Princess Mononoke. Princess Mononoke was the highest-grossing film in Japan—until it was eclipsed by another 1997 film, Titanic—and the first animated film to win Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards. Miyazaki returned to animation with Spirited Away. The film topped Titanic's sales at the Japanese box office, also won Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards and was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award.

Miyazaki's films often incorporate recurrent themes like humanity's relationship with nature and technology, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic. The protagonists of his films are often strong, independent girls or young women. While two of his films, The Castle of Cagliostro and Castle in the Sky, involve traditional villains, his other films like Nausicaä and Princess Mononoke present morally ambiguous antagonists with redeeming qualities. He recently co-wrote the film The Secret World of Arrietty, which was released in July 2010 in Japan and February 2012 in the United States.

Early life and education[link]

Miyazaki, the second of four sons, was born in the town of Akebono-cho, part of Tokyo's Bunkyō. During World War II, Miyazaki's father, Katsuji, was director of Miyazaki Airplane, owned by his brother (Hayao Miyazaki's uncle), which made rudders for A6M Zero fighter planes. During this time, Miyazaki drew airplanes and developed a lifelong fascination with aviation, a penchant that later manifested as a recurring theme in his films.^[3]

Miyazaki's mother was a voracious reader who often questioned socially accepted norms. From 1947 until 1955 his mother underwent treatment for Pott disease. She spent the first few years mostly in the hospital, but was eventually able to be nursed from home.^[3]

During his childhood, Miyazaki was forced to switch schools several times. These would all impact elements of his films. First, when he was three, Miyazaki's family was forced to evacuate Bunkyō. He began school as an evacuee in 1947. At age nine his family returned home, but the following year he switched to another American-influenced elementary school.^[3] Miyazaki attended Toyotama High School. In his third year there, he saw the film Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent), which has been described as "the first-ever Japanese feature length color anime."^[4] After high school, Miyazaki attended Gakushuin University, from which he would graduate in 1963 with degrees in political science and economics. He was a member of the "Children's Literature research club," the "closest thing to a comics club in those days."^[4]

Manga and anime interest[link]

Like many children in postwar Japan, Miyazaki decided he wanted to become a manga artist during high school. However, his talents were limited to things like planes, tanks and battleships; he had an especially hard time drawing people. Famous manga artists like Osamu Tezuka, Tetsuji Fukushima and Sanpei Shirato influenced his early works. In order to distance himself from the criticism he expected from following Tezuka's form, he consciously developed his own style, but was unable to fully shake Tezuka's influence off until he began studying animation.^[5]

His interest in animation began during high school after watching Japan's first full-length feature animation The Tale of the White Serpent by Taiji Yabushita. Miyazaki "fell in love" with the movie's heroine and it left a strong impression on him. It was after this Miyazaki decided to stop his pursuit of being a manga artist and pursue animation.^[6] However, in order to become an animator, he had to learn to draw the human figure, since his prior work had been limited to airplanes and battleships.^[4]

Animation career[link]

Toei Animation[link]

In April 1963, Miyazaki got a job at Toei Animation, working as an in-between artist on the anime Watchdog Bow Wow (Wanwan Chushingura) Also known as Ken the wolf boy. He was a leader in a labor dispute soon after his arrival, becoming chief secretary of Toei's labor union in 1964.^{[7][page needed]} He first gained recognition while working as an in-between artist on the Toei production Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon (Garibā no Uchuu Ryokō) in 1965. He found the original ending to the script unsatisfactory and pitched his own idea, which became the ending used in the final film. In October 1965, he married fellow animator Akemi Ota, who later left work to raise their two sons, Gorō and Keisuke.^{[citation needed]}

In 1968 Miyazaki played an important role as chief animator, concept artist, and scene designer on Hols: Prince of the Sun, a landmark animated film directed by Isao Takahata, with whom he continued to collaborate for the next three decades. In Kimio Yabuki's Puss in Boots (1969), Miyazaki again provided key animation as well as designs, storyboards and story ideas for key scenes in the film, including the climactic chase scene. Shortly thereafter, Miyazaki proposed scenes in the screenplay for Flying Phantom Ship, in which military tanks would roll into downtown Tokyo and cause mass hysteria, and was hired to storyboard and animate those scenes. In 1971, Miyazaki played a decisive role in developing structure, characters and designs for Animal Treasure Island and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (アリババと40匹の盗賊, Aribaba to Yonjūbiki no Tozuku^?). He also helped in the storyboarding and key animating of pivotal scenes in both films.

Works for other studios[link]

Miyazaki left Toei in 1971 for Mushi Production, A Pro, Nippon Animation, and TMS Entertainment where he co-directed six episodes of the first Lupin III series with Isao Takahata. He and Takahata then began pre-production on a Pippi Longstocking series and drew extensive story boards for it. However, after traveling to Sweden to conduct research for the film and meet the original author, Astrid Lindgren, they were denied permission to complete the project, and it was canceled.^{[7][page needed]}