I Was a Teenage (well, 22 yr old) Model for a Lamp
In which I jump over a trash can. We did a lot of reference footage, back in the day. Here, specifically, in the mid 1980s, we wanted some reference for Luxo, Jr. So, out to the parking lot… Read More
Hayao Miyazaki gave me this Cat Bus. No you can’t have it.
Back in the late 80s, Hayao Miyazaki came to visit Pixar. He brought gifts. He had something for everyone, he gave the animation group a Seiko Talking Pyramid Clock. Craig Good and I spent the afternoon trying to… Read More
Perceptual plausibility of exaggerated realistic motion
Squashing and stretching our way across the uncanny valley. Abstract The informal heuristic practices of the fine arts have much to offer to our understanding of the appearance of phenomenological reality. One interesting example is the use of exaggeration to… Read More
Cat Came Back Jeans
Sometime in the late 80’s, I was a guest at a Spike n’ Mike animation festival, Santa Cruz I think. A bunch of us from Pixar went down, JL was probably the only ‘true’ special guest, but somehow… Read More
My Favorite Screen Credit
I don’t think IMDB has a category for this role. I’ll drop this here briefly, but this is a slide from Pete Docter‘s Student Academy Award winning short film, Next Door. I will put together a whole post… Read More
Bouncing Balls of Exaggeration
A poster from VSS2019, finally about to submit the paper. Looking at animation, physics, and the impossible yet perceptually preferable exaggeration therein. Phillips, F., Schmidt, F., Noejovich, L., & Chakalos, G. (2018). Exploring the Uncanny Valley. Journal of Vision, 18(10),… Read More
Objects, Materials, Exaggeration, and Perception
For a talk @ the ASU SciHub SciAPP Workshop on Science, the Arts & Possibilities in Perception. It is tempting to think of perception as some form of physical measurement. Indeed, animals seem to act as if they are… Read More
Animation Magazine — 1989
Unbeknownst to me until several year later, my dad kept a copy of this in his car to show anyone he ever ran into. Right after we completed knickknack, Animation Magazine did a story on the animation group at… Read More
fps interview – 1995
Published from 1991-2010, fps was an excellent animation magazine with an impressive cast of regular contributors. Shortly after I left Pixar in 1992, the publisher Emru Townsend got in touch with Tony Apodaca and me for a long-running email… Read More
VSS 2018 – Exploring the Uncanny Valley
Balls! Bouncing balls. This is science so we gotta start somewhere. Mori’s Uncanny Valley phenomena isn’t limited to robotics. It has been observed in many other areas, including the fine arts, especially photorealistic painting, sculpture, computer graphics, and… Read More