Pixar started in February 1986, when Steve Jobs acquired our team,
the computer graphics department of Lucasfilm. That's when we founded Pixar.
I was working with Bill who showed me how to build maquette models.
I was looking for the right model,
and on my drawing table stood a Luxo desk lamp.
It consisted of very basic geometric forms, and I took these
and moved them around with the animation system
as if they were alive.
Ed Catmull joined us and said:
"We are doing a film for SlGGRAPH, to introduce our new company."
Then I had a closer look at the lamp I had used as a model,
and I talked to you about the shadowing algorithm.
That's when we decided to bring those two things together for this film.
Do you remeber what the most difficult aspect of this film was?
Believe me, I'll never forget that.
It was the cord. That was dodgy.
You know what else? Rolling the ball.
- Oh yes, you're right. - Rolling the ball was a pain.
I went to Eben... You have to understand,
I was sitting in front of very expensive computers
using a pocket calculator to figure out
with the simple maths I'd learned at art school
how far a ball of this size and that speed
would roll. What's wrong in this picture?
I went to visit Eben and begged: "Please, Eben,
can you make the computer do something that could help me with this thing?"
That was the beginning of one of our procedural animation algorithms.
Back then I was working with QP.
That enabled me to give you something
that could read the animation
and move the ball as it would do in reality.
I only animated the course of the ball,
and Eben developed a fantastic program
that made the ball roll realistically.
For the cord there was no help available.
These ripples were made by hand, and that was annoying.