John Lasseter
Computers don't create computer animation any more than a pencil creates pencil animation. What creates computer animation is the artist.Collection: Computers
If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.Collection: Movies
The hardest thing to get is true emotion. I always believe you need to earn that with the audience. You can't just tell them, 'Ok, be sad now.'Collection: Sad
A good part of my leadership skills is crafted from learning from experiences early in my career that were not positive experiences.Collection: Leadership
There is such amazing talent at Disney. My job is 100% creative, and I am very excited to creatively lead them.Collection: Amazing
My mother was a high school arts teacher, so I was always surrounded by the arts.Collection: Teacher
'Cars' was about Lightning McQueen learning to slow down and to enjoy life. The journey is the reward.Collection: Car
The art challenges the technology, and the technology inspires the art.Collection: Technology
I'm really proud of 'Cars.' 'Cars,' when it first came out, got probably the most mediocre reviews of a Pixar film.Collection: Car
My brother liked sewing and sculpting and making things, and my sister sewed and painted and cooked and baked. She's a professional baker now and makes the most gorgeous sculpture-like cakes. She's the queen of wedding cakes in the Lake Tahoe area.Collection: Wedding
I love 3-D. I have been a big fan of 3-D for a long, long time. I took my 1988 wedding pictures in 3-D!Collection: Wedding
I love French auto design of the early '50s, '60s, early '70s of Citorens, Renaults, and Peugeots. They're so unique.Collection: Design
Pixar is not about computers, it's about people.Collection: Computers
I am, by nature, an honest person. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. There is no 'behind closed doors' with me.Collection: Nature
'Cars' is simply near and dear to my heart.Collection: Car
I have motor oil running through my veins.
Pixar's short films convinced Disney that if the company could produce memorable characters within five minutes, then the confidence was there in creating a feature film with those abilities in story and character development.
Walt Disney always said, 'For every laugh, there should be a tear.' I believe in that.
I've got Disney blood running through my veins.
Toys are put on this Earth to be played with by a child.
I'm a car nut. My father was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership.
Art challenges technology, but technology inspires the art.
People want to be creatively satisfied, and having fun is such an important part of that.
To me, I would much rather be part of a healthy industry than being the only player in a dead industry.
I love working for a company full of geeks.
When you take something that's inert, and through motion, give it life, make it appear to be alive, living, breathing thinking and having emotions, that's animation. But when you take something that's live-action, and move a part of it, that's a special effect.
I'm a big fan of pantomime storytelling, being an animator.
Fortunately for me, I'm married to an amazing woman - Nancy Lasseter - who is wise enough not to let me buy every car I want. If I was single, I would be living in a very small apartment and renting a warehouse full of cool cars.
Everything I do and everything Pixar does is based on a simple rule: Quality is the best business plan, period.
When I started work with LucasArts Computer Division back in 1984, I went to the Palace of Fine Arts and saw the Festival of Animation for the first time. I loved the diverse collection of animated films the festival held.
Animation is the one type of movie that really does play for the entire audience. Our challenge is to make stories that connect for kids and adults.
I was mentored by great Disney animators at the end of their careers.
At Pixar, we do sequels only when we come up with a great idea, and we always strive to be different than the original.
I believe in research. Each movie at Pixar involves research with college professors or taking trips to learn as much as we can about a particular subject matter.
'Bolt' was made by Walt Disney Animation Studios, not by Pixar.
I believe once you watch a Miyazaki film, you'll get hooked.
You cannot base a whole movie on just the imagery alone. It has to be the story and the characters.
I realized that people make cartoons for a living. It had never dawned on me that you could do this as a career.
In dire economic times, movies are relatively inexpensive entertainment for the whole family.
Animation is the only thing I ever wanted to do in my whole life. I have no desire for live-action or anything else.
We make the kind of movies we like to watch. I love to laugh. I love to be amazed by how beautiful it is. But I also love to be moved to tears. There's lots of heart in our films.
Every single Pixar film, at one time or another, has been the worst movie ever put on film. But we know. We trust our process. We don't get scared and say, 'Oh, no, this film isn't working.'
I do what I do because of Walt Disney - his films and his theme park and his characters and his joy in entertaining.
I love movies that make me cry, because they're tapping into a real emotion in me, and I always think afterwards: how did they do that?
Soon I learned that the worse the puns and jokes, the funnier they could be, if you knew how to deliver them.
Walt Disney had always tried to get more dimension in his animation and when I saw these tapes, I thought, This is it! This is what Walt was waiting for! But when I looked around, nobody at the studio at the time was even halfway interested in it.
I quickly realized that this medium had a lot to offer someone like me. To do Disney-quality hand-drawn cartoons, you have to be a master of two art forms. Seriously, you have to be able to draw like a Leonardo da Vinci or a Michelangelo. But also you have to know movement and timing and control that through 24 frames a second.
Sure, they were simple desk lamps with only a minimal amount of movement, but you could immediately tell that Luxo Jr. was a baby, and that the big one was his mother. In that short little film, computer animation went from a novelty to a serious tool for filmmaking.
Never in the history of cinema has a medium entertained an audience. It's what you do with the medium.
I believe in the nobility of entertaining people and I take great, great pride that people are willing to give me two or three hours of their busy lives.