The adventures of André and Wally B.

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Movie
German title The adventures of André and Wally B.
Original title The Adventures of André and Wally B.
The Adventures of André and Wally B. Logo.svg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1984
length 2 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Alvy Ray Smith
script Alvy Ray Smith
production Buena Vista Distribution

The Adventures of André and Wally B. (English original title The Adventures of André and Wally B. ) is the first short film by Pixar Animation Studios , then known as The Graphics Group, and was first shown in 1984. The film is a computer animation film . It is about a human-like creature who bears the name André and the bee Wally B. Both find themselves together in a forest.

Alvy Ray Smith directed and is responsible for the story for the two minute film. The adventures of André and Wally B. was marketed by Lucasfilm .

action

André, who lives in a forest, wakes up one morning and is frightened that he is haunted by the bee Wally B. This grabs André's nose so that it wobbles. As a result, André Wally distracts B. and runs away grinning in the opposite direction.

After Wally B. noticed the dizziness, she followed him and caught up with André. The viewer then sees the forest at dawn, hears a clash in the background and then André's scream. As a result, Wally B. flew back with a broken stinger and grinning, while André throws his hat at the bee. This bounces off Wally B.

background

As early as the 1970s, Pixar's filmmakers were striving for a fully animated film. However, at this point in time, the software required for implementation was not yet advanced enough. For this reason, the company's employees decided to develop them.

Pixar was part of Lucasfilm at the time and took care of computer-aided special effects. The Adventures of André and Wally B. is Pixar's first standalone short film, and the first film in which John Lasseter and Bill Reeves worked together. They then did the same for other animated films. The film is also the first single-story computer-animated film to come from the idea of ​​Alvy Ray Smith, who was also officially its director. The short film was produced for the SIGGRAPH fair. This showed three-dimensional, computer-animated figures and movements.

The original plot idea was that André, who was supposed to be an android , woke up one morning in a canyon and then went off. The title for this film should My Breakfast with André (English for my breakfast with André ) loud. This would have been a reference to the film Mein Essen with André . However, only the name of the protagonist remained for the film that was ultimately implemented.

Lasseter, animator of the film, was restricted by the computer program that could only animate simple geometric bodies. In doing so, Lasseter encountered difficulties in portraying Andrés belly, as he needed more flexibility for Andrés' silent movements. So he finally leaned the character on Mickey Mouse , who also consisted of simple shapes in their first cartoon appearance, Steamboat Willie . In addition, a new geometric body was developed for Andrés Bauch for the program. This was designed by Ed Catmull and is known as the " teardrop shape " because of its appearance . Ultimately, Lasseter found the optimum in a version inflated like a water balloon, which he used as Andrés torso. This also gave rise to the idea of ​​the bee Wally B., whose feet were given a similar shape.

Bill Reeves was in charge of the background. To this end, he developed the “ particle system ”, which has made it possible to animate a large number of objects for the background.

The adventures of André and Wally B. are considered to be the liveliest computer animation of their time. It was the first film to show computer-animated motion blur . In this process, as soon as the figures start moving, they are blurred in the respective image. This should make the film look more natural to the viewer. Motion blur was applied, for example, when a character flits from side to side of the screen or when an arm rotates over 360 degrees. In addition to a Cray X-MP , ten VAX-11s , which were part of the Athena project, were used to render the film.

publication

The Adventures of André and Wally B. premiered on July 25, 1984 in Minneapolis at SIGGRAPH . At this point, however, the animation was not ready, so the full film was first shown on August 17th in Toronto .

The adventures of André and Wally B. were first released for the home in 1996 as part of the Tiny Toy Stories , a video cassette of short films by Pixar. In 2007 the film was released on Pixar's Complete Short Film Collection on DVD and Blu-ray .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The letter B is pronounced in English just like the word bee ( bee ).
  2. a b c d cf. Pixar's Complete Short Film Collection / The Pixar Short Films: A Brief Review
  3. a b c d e cf. Pixar's Complete Short Film Collection / Audio Commentary on The Adventures of André and Wally B.
  4. ^ Karen Paik: To Infinity and Beyond !: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios . 1st edition. Chronicle Books, San Francisco 2007, ISBN 978-0-8118-5012-4 , pp. 42-44 .
  5. a b Alvy Ray Smith: THE ADVENTURES OF ANDRE & WALLY B. Summary (English) . In: Alvy Ray Smith , July 20, 1984. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
  6. Alvy Ray Smith: The Making of Andre & Wally B. . In: Alvy Ray Smith , August 14, 1984. Retrieved April 15, 2012.