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Pixar

Rick Sayre: Computer Animation / Visual Effects Jury Member

You have been working with Pixar since 1987, you have been working on all the big productions. What have been the milestones for you in your work with computer animation?

Sayre: I think the biggest milestone had to be Toy Story, living through the transition from smaller projects where one or two people could keep it all in their heads and pull something off through sheer force of will, to what seemed at the time a huge project where it became more of a team sport. Along the way has been the privilege of watching the birth of an industry from the inside, and refocusing from technology to storytelling and film-making.

What will be the next big steps in computer animation and digital film? Everything seems already very perfect ... What about the content?

Sayre: I think we are right in the middle of the next big step, a shift in the landscape where the tools became 'good enough' to do very credible work without a huge infrastructure or investment in R&D. This is leveling the playing field, in that a Good Idea now matters more than Expensive Hardware. While we still have a very long way to go indeed until the hyped motto 'anything is possible' is really true without infinite resources, it is no longer enough to simply use the computer in order to dazzle the audience. We have been out of the 'locomotive rushing at the screen' stage for long enough that content is beginning to matter once more.

I would like to think that some day 'happy accidents' in the computer will no longer look like computer accidents, but I fear this is much further off.

You have a background in theater and interactive arts, too. You have been awarded a Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica 91 in the category Interactive Art. Are you still active in this field? Or is computer animation more of a challenge for you?

Sayre: The pursuits are not so different, and drawing upon those disparate backgrounds can be tremendously useful in film. It was quite rewarding to be able to apply techniques and experience, and indeed some of the same hardware I had originally developed for 1991's The Tumbling Man, to computer animation devices I co-developed for Jurassic Park. I do miss the thrill (and fear) of live performance, and now sublimate with occasional club work.

The denomination 'computer animation /visual effects' for the Prix Ars Electronica Category is not very adequate. You have been suggesting the term 'computer potentiated linear-time visual media'. Why? How to deal with the contradicition 'artistic works'/'commercial works'?

Sayre: I suggest that horrible moniker to provoke a rethink of our domain. What is it exactly which we are considering, and how do we evaluate it? I think we agree that as a jury we focus on linear-time visual media ('otherwise it would be interactive'), but beyond that the distinctions become harder to quantify. That's OK! If we could boil it all down to an air-tight quantity it would perhaps be very boring. I'm trying to suggest that somehow the computer should be used in a way which potentiates, which makes possible something new. If you can do it 'the old way', you probably should. Why [dis]simulate what can be filmed?

The easiest way to deal with the contradiction is to annihilate it.

What are you working on in the moment?

Sayre: I am heading up the technical crew on Brad Bird's first film at Pixar.




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