Illustrious Mormons: Edwin Catmull, the Heart and Soul of Pixar

Hey.

It's been a while, huh? *Clears out cobwebs.* 

Since last we spoke, I've visited my mom in the hospital nearly weekly, studied for and taken my finals as a junior in civil engineering at a reputable national university, captained a design team at a regional student civil engineering conference (we took third place), presented an ethical paper at the same regional conference (I took first place), and then found out that the same paper, which I submitted concurrently to a national competition, won first place nationally as well, so I was dealing with the logistics of that. Also, I attended two weddings in the family (including my father's), been in the car for maybe 800 miles mostly to visit family, started my summer classes, which are going twice as quickly as last term (though I only have half as many of them).

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I really didn't mean for my hiatus to extend as long as it did, but it's probably good that it did.

Today, I'm going to start on a blog mini-series that I think I'll call Illustrious Mormons – blog posts detailing the lives and work of Mormons who have made or are making a difference in modern society. But first, a word on why I write these blog posts:

For faithful Mormons, I hope it inspires us and motivates us to know that we can make a difference, and still live ever-closer to God; for non-Mormons, I hope it piques your curiosity about what we have that makes us unique (because there is plenty); for those who are wavering in your belief in Mormonism, I hope it gives you reason to stay with it a little longer; and for those who have left Mormonism for the fear of the world, I hope it helps you reconsider your decision to leave, by showing that Mormonism is a high-quality religion that anyone can be a part of.

Illustrious Mormons: Edwin Catmull, the Heart and Soul of Pixar

Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, and John Lasseter,
the early creative team at Pixar.

Edwin Catmull is a Mormon that a lot of people don't know about – I myself didn't even know about him until I started surfing famousmormons.net in earnest. Regardless, though, he makes a tremendous impact – so I thought he'd be perfect for my first Illustrious Mormon Lives blog post. Catmull is the co-founder and president of Pixar Animation Studios, and, as of 2006 (when Disney bought Pixar outright), the president of Disney Animation Studios. In addition to being the creative genius behind Pixar, Catmull has also pioneered computer animation throughout his life, and thus has made significant contributions to the way that moviegoers nationwide get their fix every weekend.

Born to a Mormon family of five children in West Virginia, and raised in Salt Lake City, Catmull enjoyed animation from a young age: he made crude animations through flip-books, and dreamed of working for Disney. Unfortunately, he wasn't a very good artist, but fortunately for him (and for us all), he was very good at math, and so he ended up at the University of Utah, studying physics and computer animation, and eventually getting a doctorate degree in computer animation.

Toy Story 3 grossed over $1 trillion
worldwide, second only to "Frozen."

This was at a time when computer animation hadn't exactly come into its own yet, but Edwin Catmull brought it into its own throughout the course of his career. He worked at Lucasfilm in the 70s, and believed that the technology to create a full-length computer animated movie was about ten years off. (It was actually twenty years before Catmull's team would create the world's first full-length animated motion picture: perhaps you've heard of Toy Story?) As such, he pioneered many of the technologies involved in creating an animated movie, both during his time at LucasFilm and afterwards.

As with many pioneers in their field, Catmull felt that the guys at Lucasfilm didn't really understand his vision, since it had never been done before. When George Lucas had to let him and his team go for cost reasons, he was contacted by Steve Jobs, who teamed up with Catmull to found Pixar.

Yep, he won an Oscar, too.

Some would say that “the rest is history” at this point, since everyone knows about Pixar's teaming up with Disney, and their long string of incredible successes (“Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” to name just a few). However, incredible successes like that don't just happen; in this case, Pixar has enjoyed such a long string of successes because of Catmull. As president of Pixar from day one (that's 26 years now that he's been at the helm), his passion, enthusiasm, creativity and hard work have been the engine that makes Pixar run. Writing in 2004, Fortune magazine had this to say about Catmull and the Pixar creative team:

Steve Jobs, Pixar's CEO, calls Catmull "our quiet Beatle" (that would be George, the deep one), and John Lasseter, the pioneering animator who directed the company's first three films, refers to him as "Pixar's heart and soul." But the best description comes from Brad Bird, a newcomer who directed The Incredibles: "I refer to those guys as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Ed, who invented this cool medium and is the designer of the human machine that is Pixar, is the Father. John, its driving creating force, is the Son. And you-know-who is the Holy Ghost." from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/11/15/8191082/

According to the late Jobs (taken from the same article), "Pixar is on really solid ground and Ed is a big reason why."

Just how good is Pixar, with Catmull at its helm? Good enough that Toy Story 3, Pixar's highest grossing film, took in over $1 billion dollars worldwide, currently behind only Disney's Frozen for the highest grossing all-time animated movie ever. 

Just how innovative is Edwin Catmull? Innovative enough to win an Oscar for his innovations in the field, two Scientific and Technical Awards the Academy, and be inducted as a museum fellow at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

And he's a Mormon.

(References: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/11/15/8191082/, http://www.famousmormons.net/computers.html, http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1859224, http://mormonsinbusiness.org/mormon_businessmen/edwin-catmull)