Luxo Jr. (also known as Luxo Junior) is a 1986 American animated<!--Do NOT change "animated" to "computer-animated"; method of animation isn't defining, it is what animated is.--> short film produced and released by Pixar. Ultimately, the film took four and a half months to be completed.

The short film debuted at SIGGRAPH 1986 in Dallas, Texas. Before the film finished playing, the audience had already risen in applause. Luxo Jr. is regarded as a breakthrough in the animation industry as a whole, changing traditionalists' interpretation of computer animation. The short was the first work of animation to use procedural animation, the software written by Eben Ostby. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film, becoming the first CGI film nominated for an Academy Award.

The soundtrack music is an uncredited edit of three compositions on Brian Bennett's album (from Bruton Music) BRD17: Counterpoint In Rhythm: "Finesse", "Quicksilver", and "Chateau Latour".

In 2014, Luxo Jr. was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Plot

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In a dark room, a large illuminated balanced-arm desk lamp named Luxo Sr. sees a small yellow ball with a blue stripe and a red star on the front roll-up to him. He eyes the ball curiously and pushes it away, but the ball comes back to him. He pushes it away again, but it rolls past him as Luxo Jr., his happy and excited son, hops over and plays with the ball. Luxo Jr. then balances himself on top of the ball and bounces on it excessively, causing it to deflate. Luxo Jr. flips the deflated ball onto its side and looks up at Luxo Sr., who gently admonishes his son. Luxo Jr. then hops offscreen in shame but is later seen playing with a beach ball. Luxo Sr. looks at the camera, then shakes his head in embarrassment.

Background

The Graphics Group, which was one-third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm, had been associating with Industrial Light & Magic on computer-generated graphics in the early 1980s. In 1984, the group produced an animated short film titled The Adventures of André & Wally B., which premiered at the annual SIGGRAPH conference to great fanfare. The group, which numbered 40 individuals, was spun out as a corporation in February 1986 with investment by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple Computer. Catmull and Smith justified its existence on the basis that more films that were shown at SIGGRAPH like The Adventures of André and Wally B. would promote the company's computers. The group had no film at SIGGRAPH the preceding year, its last year under Lucas's wing, apart from a stained-glass knight sequence they produced for Young Sherlock Holmes. Catmull was determined that Pixar would have a film to show at its first SIGGRAPH as an independent company in August 1986.

Lasseter initially intended Luxo Jr. as a plotless character study. When he showed some early tests at an animation festival in Brussels, Belgium, respected Belgian animator Raoul Servais exhorted him, "No matter how short it is, it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Don't forget the story." Lasseter protested that the film would be too short for a story. "You can tell a story in ten seconds", Servais responded. The lights and the color surfaces of all the objects are calculated, each using a RenderMan surface shader, not surface textures. On the cinematic level, it demonstrates a simple and entertaining story, including effectively expressive individual characters. Catmull and Lasseter worked around the clock, and Lasseter even took a sleeping bag into work and slept under his desk, ready to work early the next morning. Before Luxo Jr. finished playing at SIGGRAPH, the crowd had already risen in applause. in the "Computer Animation/Film/ VFX” category of the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz in 1987. It also saw release on home video as part of Tiny Toy Stories in 1996 and Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 1 in 2007.

References

Primary source

  • 2009 Vintage Books edition: , Excerpt available at Google Books.