Animation Historical and Contemporary Practice: Luxo Jr

At the time the movie Tron was made no one really cared about this new technique of CGI. John Lasseter was desperate to pursue this new found technology and use it on a massive commercial level. But, as I said before, no one felt the same way and he was actually fired from Disney due to his unwillingness to accept CGI was a dead-end. That is when he went off to co-found Pixar. 

The first major CGI animated short was Luxo Jr created by Pixar animation studios in INSERT DATE. It tells the father/son story of a dad lamp and it's kid. John Lasseter was inspired by his own desk lamp and was intrigued with what a smaller child desk lamp would look like. The filmmakers thought about what makes babies cute, that their heads and eyes are far bigger in comparison to adults. So when it came to the creation of Luxo Jr's character the animators gave him a far larger head and smaller body.

When the short was released it was praised by critics and audiences. Not just for the technology used but in the same way Toy Story was heavily praised, it received acclaim because of emotion, characters and unique storytelling. That proved to be the award winning formula Pixar has brought to every one of the studio's films since.