Animation

动画

The digital animation business at Pixar—the group that made little animated films—was originally just a sideline, its main purpose being to show off the hardware and software of the company. It was run by John Lasseter, a man whose childlike face and demeanor masked an artistic perfectionism that rivaled that of Jobs. Born in Hollywood, Lasseter grew up loving Saturday morning cartoon shows. In ninth grade, he wrote a report on the history of Disney Studios, and he decided then how he wished to spend his life.

皮克斯的数字动画业务——制作动画短片的团队——最初只是副业，其主要目的是对外展示自己的硬件和软件，约翰·拉塞特负责这个团队的运作，他有着可爱的脸庞和气质，对于艺术的完美追求与乔布斯不相上下。拉塞特出生在好莱坞，从小就喜欢观看周六早间的卡通节目。九年级时，读完记述迪士尼工作室历史的《动画的艺术》（TheArtofAnimation）后，他写了一份读书报告，那时的他就明白了自己想要怎样度过一生。

When he graduated from high school, Lasseter enrolled in the animation program at the California Institute of the Arts, founded by Walt Disney. In his summers and spare time, he researched the Disney archives and worked as a guide on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland. The latter experience taught him the value of timing and pacing in telling a story, an important but difficult concept to master when creating, frame by frame, animated footage. He won the Student Academy Award for the short he made in his junior year, Lady and the Lamp, which showed his debt to Disney films and foreshadowed his signature talent for infusing inanimate objects such as lamps with human personalities. After graduation he took the job for which he was destined: as an animator at Disney Studios.

髙中毕业后，拉塞特进入了由沃尔特·迪士尼创办的加州艺术学院（CaliforniaInstituteoftheArts）,学习动画专业。暑假和课余时间，他研究迪士尼的档案文件，还在迪士尼乐园的丛林巡航游乐项目做导游。迪士尼乐园的导游经历让他懂得了把握时间和节奏对于讲故事的重要性，在创作一帧一帧的动画时，掌握这一概念很重要但也绝非易事。拉塞特大学三年级时拍摄的短片《小姐与台灯》（LadyandtheLamp）为他赢得了学生奥斯卡奖（StudentAcademyAward）。这部短片借鉴了《小姐与流浪汉》（LadyandtheTramp）等迪士尼电影，也展露出他的惊人天才——赋予无生命的东西以人的个性。毕业后，他得到了一份注定要从事的工作——在迪士尼制片厂（DisneyStudio）做动画师。

Except it didn’t work out. “Some of us younger guys wanted to bring Star Wars–level quality to the art of animation, but we were held in check,” Lasseter recalled. “I got disillusioned, then I got caught in a feud between two bosses, and the head animation guy fired me.” So in 1984 Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith were able to recruit him to work where Star Wars–level quality was being defined, Lucasfilm. It was not certain that George Lucas, already worried about the cost of his computer division, would really approve of hiring a full-time animator, so Lasseter was given the title “interface designer.”

但是拉塞特在迪士尼的工作并不顺心。“我们一些年轻人想要给动画艺术带来《星球大战》的水准，但却受到了约束。”拉塞特回忆说，“我的幻想破灭了，后来卷入了两个上司之间的斗法，动画部门的头儿解雇了我。”1984年，埃德·卡特穆尔和阿尔维·雷·史密斯聘请了拉塞特，而《星球大战》的水准正是出自卢卡斯影业。当时，乔治·卢卡斯就已经在担忧电脑部门的成本了，他们拿不准卢卡斯是否会同意雇用一位全职动画师，因而拉塞特的职位是“界面设计师”。

After Jobs came onto the scene, he and Lasseter began to share their passion for graphic design. “I was the only guy at Pixar who was an artist, so I bonded with Steve over his design sense,” Lasseter said. He was a gregarious, playful, and huggable man who wore flowery Hawaiian shirts, kept his office cluttered with vintage toys, and loved cheeseburgers. Jobs was a prickly, whip-thin vegetarian who favored austere and uncluttered surroundings. But they were actually well-suited for each other. Lasseter was an artist, so Jobs treated him deferentially, and Lasseter viewed Jobs, correctly, as a patron who could appreciate artistry and knew how it could be interwoven with technology and commerce.

乔布斯入主公司后，拉塞特和他开始分享彼此对于图形设计的激情。“我在皮克斯是唯一一个艺术家，因此和史蒂夫在设计感觉上有很大共鸣。”拉塞特说道。他合群，好玩，讨人喜欢，爱穿花哨的夏威夷衫，办公室里堆满古董玩具，喜欢吃芝士汉堡包。乔布斯易怒，是个身形痩削的素食主义者，喜欢简朴整洁的环境。但他们竟然非常契合。拉塞特是个艺术家，而艺术家在乔布斯眼里不是英雄就是笨蛋，拉塞特在他眼里显然属于英雄那一类。乔布斯对他恭敬有加，真心钦佩他的才华。拉塞特则理智地将乔布斯视做赞助人——能够欣赏艺术工作并且知道如何将其与技术和商业进行融合。

Jobs and Catmull decided that, in order to show off their hardware and software, Lasseter should produce another short animated film in 1986 for SIGGRAPH, the annual computer graphics conference. At the time, Lasseter was using the Luxo lamp on his desk as a model for graphic rendering, and he decided to turn Luxo into a lifelike character. A friend’s young child inspired him to add Luxo Jr., and he showed a few test frames to another animator, who urged him to make sure he told a story. Lasseter said he was making only a short, but the animator reminded him that a story can be told even in a few seconds. Lasseter took the lesson to heart. Luxo Jr. ended up being just over two minutes; it told the tale of a parent lamp and a child lamp pushing a ball back and forth until the ball bursts, to the child’s dismay.

乔布斯和卡特穆尔决定，为了展示皮克斯的硬件和软件，应该让拉塞特苒制作一部动画短片，参加1986年的SIGGRAPH（美国计算机协会计算机绘图专业组大会）。这是计算机图形学界的年度会议，两年前，《安德烈与沃利历险记》就在这一会议上引发了轰动。拉塞特的办公桌上放着一盏Luxo台灯，他把这盏台灯用做图形渲染的模型，并决定把Luxo变成一个栩栩如生的动画角色。一位朋友的小孩给了他灵感，拉塞特又在故事中添加了一个小台灯（LuxoJr.）的角色。拉塞特向另一位动画师展示一些测试帧时，对方力劝他用这两个角色讲一个故事。拉塞特表示，自己只是在做一部短片，但那位动画师提醒他说，即便几秒钟也能讲述一个故事。拉塞特将这个告诫铭记于心。《顽皮跳跳灯》（LuxoJr.）最后的成片只有两分多钟，但是它讲述了一个故事——台灯爸爸和台灯孩子把一个球推来推去，后来球爆了，小台灯很伤心。

Jobs was so excited that he took time off from the pressures at NeXT to fly down with Lasseter to SIGGRAPH, which was being held in Dallas that August. “It was so hot and muggy that when we’d walk outside the air hit us like a tennis racket,” Lasseter recalled. There were ten thousand people at the trade show, and Jobs loved it. Artistic creativity energized him, especially when it was connected to technology.

乔布斯非常激动，特意从NeXT公司压力重重的工作中抽身，和拉塞特飞赴SIGGRAPH大会。这一年的大会于8月在达拉斯举行。“天气太热太闷，我们一走出去，就觉得热气像网球拍一样迎面挥了过来。”拉塞特回忆说。展会共有一万人参加，、一切都让乔布斯很喜欢。艺术创作激励着他，尤其是当它与科技相融合时。

There was a long line to get into the auditorium where the films were being screened, so Jobs, not one to wait his turn, fast-talked their way in first. Luxo Jr. got a prolonged standing ovation and was named the best film. “Oh, wow!” Jobs exclaimed at the end. “I really get this, I get what it’s all about.” As he later explained, “Our film was the only one that had art to it, not just good technology. Pixar was about making that combination, just as the Macintosh had been.”

电影放映礼堂门口排了长长的队，乔布斯不是那种会乖乖等着进场的人，他三言两语就说服了负责人让他们先进去。《顽皮跳跳灯》赢得了观众长时间的起立鼓掌，并被评为最佳影片。“哦，眭！”乔布斯在结束时欢呼道。“我真的懂了，我懂了什么是最重要的。”正如他后来解释的，“我们的电影不仅仅拥有好技术，而且是唯一有艺术内涵的。皮克斯是在融合艺术与科技，就像麦金塔曾经所做的那样。”

Luxo Jr. was nominated for an Academy Award, and Jobs flew down to Los Angeles to be there for the ceremony. It didn’t win, but Jobs became committed to making new animated shorts each year, even though there was not much of a business rationale for doing so. As times got tough at Pixar, he would sit through brutal budget-cutting meetings showing no mercy. Then Lasseter would ask that the money they had just saved be used for his next film, and Jobs would agree.

《顽皮跳跳灯》获得了奥斯卡提名，乔布斯飞去洛杉矶参加颁奖典礼。最终该短片没能获奖，但是乔布斯从此决心每年都制作一部新的动画短片，尽管这个决定并没有太多商业上的理由。随着皮克斯处境艰难，乔布斯坚持残酷地削减预算，毫不手软。而当拉塞特要求将刚刚省下的钱拿来做下一部电影时，乔布斯却同意了。