Moving innovation
Subtitle: a history of computer animation
By: Tom Sito
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 362
ISBN-13: 9780262019095
Subjects: Computer animation; History
Description: "Computer graphics (or CG) has changed the way we experience the art of moving images. Computer graphics is the difference between Steamboat Willie and Buzz Lightyear, between ping pong and PONG. It began in 1963 when an MIT graduate student named Ivan Sutherland created the first true computer animation program. Instead of presenting a series of numbers, Sutherland's Sketchpad program drew lines that created recognizable images. Sutherland noted: "Since motion can be put into Sketchpad drawings, it might be exciting to try making cartoons." This book, the first full-length history of CG, shows us how Sutherland's seemingly offhand idea grew into a multibillion dollar industry. In Moving Innovation, Tom Sito -- himself an animator and industry insider for more than thirty years -- describes the evolution of CG. The history of traditional cinema technology is a fairly straight path from Lumière to MGM. Writing the history of CG, Sito maps simultaneous accomplishments in multiple locales -- academia, the military-industrial complex, movie special effects, video games, experimental film, corporate research, and commercial animation. His story features a memorable cast of characters -- math nerds, avant-garde artists, cold warriors, hippies, video game enthusiasts, and studio executives: disparate types united by a common vision. Computer animation did not begin just with Pixar; Sito shows us how fifty years of work by this motley crew made movies like Toy Story and Avatar possible."--Book jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-326) and index.
Table of contents: title: Film and television at the dawn of the digital revolution; title: Analog dreams : bohemians, beatniks, and the Whitneys; title: Spook work : the government and the military; title: Academia; title: Xerox PARC and corporate culture; title: Hackers; title: Nolan Bushnell and the games people play; title: To dream the impossible dream : the New York Institute of Technology, 1974-1986; title: Motion picture visual effects and Tron; title: Bob Abel, Whitney-Demos, and the eighties : the wild west of CG; title: Motion capture : the uncanny hybrid; title: The cartoon animation industry; title: Pixar; title: The conquest of Hollywood.