It’s difficult to imagine a more well known figure inside modern animation than John Lasseter, as the filmmaker and Pixar chief’s name has definitely end up  associated with today’s cartoons as Walt Disney’s was in the past once.

Simple Start:

As a young child, John Lasseter appeared like he was meant to pursue in the actions of his art-teacher mother - as the young child would usually spend a lot of time doodling and watching cartoons. And while he began his post-secondary education at Malibu’s exclusive Pepperdine University, John in the end chose to follow his passion by signing up for California Institute of the Arts’ newly-formed cartoon course - where he found out the techniques of the style with such future celebrities as Brad Bird and Tim Burton.

John’s Initial Experience with the Mouse:

After graduating from CalArts, John rapidly segued into a job as a low-level animator for the Walt Disney Feature Animation studio - where he worked behind the scenes on films and specials like 1981’s The Fox and the Hound and 1983’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol. John’s excitement for the new field of computer animation brought him to pitch a CGI-heavy adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, even though project never made it past the initial phases and John found himself once more searching for work.

John Goes to Pixar:

John, together with several friends from the computer industry, started working on a short computer-generated cartoon movie for a small subdivision of George Lucas’ special-effects company Lucasfilm. The two-minute motion picture, named The Adventures of Andre and Wally B., clearly pointed out the opportunity of computers in the area of cartoon, and - after Steve Jobs bought the company and renamed it Pixar in 1986 - it wasn’t long before John could work full-time on the developing computer-animated style.

John Directs Toy Story:

For the following several years, John and his Pixar team worked tirelessly at improving the software that would permit them to produce increasingly realistic cartoon effects - with their initiatives leading to Pixar’s first official short film, 1986’s Luxo Jr. Next several more well-received shorts - like the Oscar winning 1988 film Tin Toy - John began focusing on what would ultimately turn into the world’s first full-length computer-generated feature, 1995’s Toy Story. The movie, which includes voice-work from Tom Hanks and Tim Allen and eventually took to gross over $300 million worldwide, immediately set up Pixar as a serious participant in the cartoon area and paved the way for John Lasseter becoming a pioneer in the genre he had grown up admiring.