The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1984)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Alvy Ray Smith

Writer:

Alvy Ray Smith (concept)

Genre:

Animation | Short | Family

Plot:

Dawn, the forest. André is waking up. Soon, Wally is taunting him. André points the other way and, with Wally temporarily distracted...

Plot Keywords:

Forest | Anthropomorphic | Computer Animation | Pixar Animated Film | Bee

Directed by
Alvy Ray Smith

Writing credits
Alvy Ray Smith		(concept)

Sound Department
Ben Burtt	....	sound designer

Visual Effects by
Loren Carpenter	....	3D rendering
Ed Catmull	....	models: andre/wally
Don Conway	....	input/output laser scanning
Rob Cook	....	3D rendering
Tom Duff	....	models: andre/wally
John Lasseter	....	models: andre/wally
Sam Leffler	....	texturing/matteing
Tom Noggle	....	input/output laser scanning
Thomas Porter	....	texturing/matteing
William Reeves	....	forest design and rendering
William Reeves	....	models: andre/wally
David Salesin	....	models: andre/wally
Alvy Ray Smith	....	models: andre/wally

Animation Department
Tom Duff	....	3-D animation programmer
John Lasseter	....	character design and animation
Eben Ostby	....	3-D animation programmer

Other crew
Craig Good	....	computer logistics

Production Companies

• Pixar Animation Studios
• Lucasfilm

Distributors

• Buena Vista Home Entertainment (2007) (worldwide) (DVD)
• Walt Disney Home Entertainment (2007) (worldwide) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Cray Research Inc.  use of the Cray X-MP/48
• Digital Equipment Corporation  VAX 11/750s
• Sprocket Systems  sound design

Runtime:

2 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Certification:

Australia:G

Company:

Pixar Animation Studios

Trivia:

The modeling program used at the time could only produce simple geometric designs (cones, cubes, spheres). John Lasseter wanted a flexible pear shape for the characters' bodies, as is found in most cartoon characters. Eventually a teardrop shape was achieved by stretching the point of a sphere to infinity.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Empire of Dreams: The Story of the 'Star Wars' Trilogy (2004) (TV)

Amazing in its proper context

I gotta admit that if you watch this film today and don't understand the context for it, then you will most likely not be particularly impressed. It's such a very simple animated short and one that seems amazingly ordinary--something you could easily make today given the right rendering software and a home computer. However, think back to 1984. People rarely had home computers and those who did had systems that had major compatibility issues--with not much more power than a modern calculator (less in some cases). There were no hard drives--those that did exist were minuscule. Macintosh computers were yet to come and IBM compatible computers used primitive versions of DOS and many were using Commodore and other simple computers. And, most importantly, most games were either text only or had very, very rudimentary graphics. In this context, ANDRE AND WALLY B is absolutely amazing and breathtaking. The Pixar folks were not yet a big company but just a few individuals doing work on huge computers and they had to design all the software themselves!! And, in spite of all this, the graphics were lovely and the story of a cute bee quite watchable--even though it was really more an experimental film than anything else. Oddly, while this film is not terribly exciting today, I still prefer it to a couple of the later Pixar films (such as RED'S DREAM). A great start.