This film was made for SIGGRAPH 1987 in Anaheim.
Ed Catmull approached us.
He wanted a film made by using the Pixar lmage Computer.
Yes, Pixar started building computers.
We had a rendering software called ChapReyes.
And so we...
I had this idea with a clumsy clown
and a unicycle, where the unicycle is the real star of the performance.
At the same time Bill was working on... what was it again?
- Rain, wasn't it? - I wanted to do a scene with rain,
so I biult a whole city set.
That was the first thing I was working on.
Simultaneously, Eben was working...
On a bicycle. I liked bicycles.
I was riding bikes a lot and so I created a bicycle, which was a very complex model.
It was very hard to get the spokes and all the other parts right.
I saw the bike and the rain,
and then I had this idea with the clown
and I thought it would be great to put that into this beautiful scenery
of the city at night in the rain.
So I developed the idea of the bicycle shop,
where there is a small unicycle sitting in the bargain corner.
At a 50% discount.
Then we imagined the thoughts of that unicycle, and that it had a dream.
The clown was one of the first organic faces we had done.
You formed the clown with some kind of plasticine.
Then we digitized it with the 'Polhemus.'
- The Polhemus... -...converted three dimensional forms into digital data.
We could take this digitized organic form
and then use the same controls we used with our tear model.
The clown is called Lumpy.
Lumpy is a really good name, because he is kind of lumpy. isn't it?
Lots and lots of QP parameters...
Eben worked hard on that for the juggling.
You figured out how juggling works, and we included that.
All I had to do was entering the distances
the unicycle should cover
and turn the wheel, let the pedals stay level.
For the juggling I just entered
where in three dimensional space the ball should be.
And than, a few frames later, where it is now.
With the QP we created the trajectories, the crunching and stretching.
QP was used a lot.
With this model we did not have motion blur in the computer.
We exaggerated crunching and stretching
to compensate for the lack in motion.
Right, Chap Reyes did not have motion blur back then.
I can remember how you animated the price label. Remember?
- By hand. - By hand. Again.
- I am quite proud of it. - Poor John.
Of all our films
I like the ending of Red's Dream best,
because we set out to create something
with more emotions in it.
A little bit more heart.
Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two of my mentors at Disney's,
were talking about pathos all the time.
Emotions you need for good Animation.
That's why we are proud of this film.
Back then, everybody pleaded: "Please, don't let it end badly.
"It should have a happy end. The clown has to buy the little unicycle,
"or it will be too sad."
The film was the rage in Europe, especially with the sad ending.
I call it Pixar's blue period.
It was the first film with a really cool lighting, too.
We worked like crazy, and the look is pretty good.
We wanted to make a scene at night,
something that had not been done before in computer animation.
I am quite happy with it. We turned out beautifully.
- And the music is beautiful, too. - Yeah.