The Strake ( ? )

To Infinity and Beyond!

The Amazon Wishlist Fairies came through this Christmas with To Infinity and Beyond! The Story of Pixar Animation Studios. It’s a pretty expensive book, but I was still surprised by the size of it as well as the quality of the materials (cloth cover, heavy/glossy page stock, bookmark ribbon, etc.) - definitely coffee table worthy.

I’ve been a Pixar fanboy since watching their shorts in my computer graphics classes at Ohio State. I can still remember leaving the computer lab one night late in 1995 to see Toy Story (probably for the second or third time). One of my classmates even started working there towards the end of “A Bug’s Life” production (and is still there).

If you’re interested in learning more about the tremendous amount of sweat and blood that goes into the making of CG movies, I can’t recommend this book enough. It starts with background on Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs and goes through the Lucasfilm days (you knew George Lucas once owned this crew, right?), each movie up through “The Incredibles”, and wraps up with the Disney acquisition. There are also small pieces covering the making of the shorts, the celebrity voice talent, sound engineering, RenderMan, and tons more.