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Portrait of John Lasseter

Film · Animation & documentary

John Lasseter

born 1957 · American

Computer animation; Pixar

John Lasseter was sacked by Disney in the 1980s for pushing computer animation and then spent a decade at Pixar proving it worked, directing the first feature-length computer-animated film in Toy Story. As chief creative officer he oversaw Pixar and, after Disney bought it in 2006, Walt Disney Animation Studios too, presiding over the run from Frozen to Zootopia. He left Disney in 2018 after admitting to unwanted physical contact with staff, and has since led animation at Skydance.

How to spot them

  • ▸The first feature-length computer-animated film, and the argument that the technology is a pencil, not a story
  • ▸Inanimate objects given life: toys, insects, cars, lamps
  • ▸The Pixar lamp Luxo Jr., which became the studio's logo
  • ▸CalArts character animation, and the mentorship of Disney's Nine Old Men
  • ▸His collection of loud Hawaiian shirts

Key films

A desk lamp and its smaller offspring play with a ball that deflates, in the short that became a studio's logo (1986)

Luxo Jr. — the first computer-animated film nominated for an Academy Award.

A wind-up one-man band flees a dribbling infant and hides under the sofa with the rest of the playthings (1988)

Tin Toy — the first computer-animated film to win an Academy Award, for Best Animated Short, and the seed of a later feature.

A pull-string cowboy doll's place as a boy's favourite is taken by a delusional space ranger who believes he can fly (1995)

Toy Story — the first feature-length computer-animated film; Lasseter received a Special Achievement Academy Award.

An inventor ant hires a circus troupe he mistakes for warriors to defend his colony from grasshoppers (1998)

A Bug's Life — loosely after Aesop's ant and the grasshopper, and Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

A cowgirl, a prospector and a horse are found in a collector's cabinet, and a toy is nearly sold to a museum in Japan (1999)

Toy Story 2 — the first feature to be entirely created, mastered and exhibited digitally.

An arrogant red racing car is stranded in a forgotten desert town on a decaying stretch of Route 66 (2006)

Cars — the last film he directed at Pixar before running both animation studios; he directed its 2011 sequel too.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Toy Story (1995) was the first feature-length film animated entirely by computer, and the first animated film nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar
  • •Lasseter received a Special Achievement Academy Award in 1996 for leading the Toy Story team
  • •Tin Toy (1988) was the first computer-animated film to win an Academy Award, taking Best Animated Short Film
  • •He was fired from Walt Disney Productions in 1984 after championing computer animation; he joined the computer division of Lucasfilm, which Steve Jobs bought in 1986 and renamed Pixar
  • •Luxo Jr. (1986), the hopping desk lamp, became the Pixar logo and was the first CG film nominated for an Oscar
  • •He studied in the first character animation class at the California Institute of the Arts alongside Tim Burton and Brad Bird
  • •After Disney bought Pixar in 2006 he became chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, and principal creative adviser for Walt Disney Imagineering
  • •He took a leave of absence in November 2017 after acknowledging 'missteps' with employees and left Disney at the end of 2018
  • •Since 2019 he has been head of animation at Skydance Animation, now part of Paramount
  • •He is famous for his Hawaiian shirts, of which he is said to own more than a thousand

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources