The Adventures of André and Wally B.

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from The Adventures of André and Wally B., a short film animated by John Lasseter

The Adventures of André and Wally B. is an animated short made in 1984 by the Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Project, which would later be spun out as a startup company called Pixar. Although it is technically not a Pixar short, the animation was by John Lasseter, who was working on his first computer animated project and would move on to be a pivotal player at Pixar. The credits for the piece are concept/direction Alvy Ray Smith, animation John Lasseter, technical lead Bill Reeves, technical contributions by Tom Duff, Eben Ostby, Rob Cook, Loren Carpenter, Ed Catmull, David Salesin, Tom Porter, and Sam Leffler, filming by David DiFrancesco, Tom Noggle, and Don Conway, and computer logistics by Craig Good.

The animation on the feature was truly groundbreaking at the time, featuring the first use of motion blur in CG animation. Lassester pushed the envelope by asking for manipulatable shapes capable of the squash and stretch style, as earlier CG models had generally been restricted to rigid geometric shapes.

It was rendered on one Cray X-MP/48 (where 48 stands for 4 processors and 8 million words of internal memory, with word size of 64 bits (i.e. 8 bytes) it means its RAM size was 64 MB) and ten VAX11/750's from Project Athena.

[edit] Plot

It involves a person named André being awakened in a forest by a pesky bee named Wally B. When André points in a different direction, the bee looks away and André gets his chance to run away. Wally chases André and eventually catches him, reappearing with a bent stinger.

[edit] Trivia

The title is a tribute to the film My Dinner with André, starring Wallace Shawn. It was originally entitled My Breakfast with André, about waking up with an android.

In the teaser trailer to Cars, a little bee is seen flying around, a possible reference to Wally B.

Lasseter initially created the short film to entertain his young son, but the finished product terrified him instead.

[edit] External links

Pixar Animation Studios

Feature Films: Toy Story (1995) • A Bug's Life (1998) • Toy Story 2 (1999) • Monsters, Inc. (2001) • Finding Nemo (2003) • The Incredibles (2004) • Cars (2006) • Ratatouille (2007) • Toy Story 3 (TBA)
Short Films: Luxo Jr. (1986) • Red's Dream (1987) • Tin Toy (1988) • Knick Knack (1989) • Geri's Game (1997) • For the Birds (2000) • Mike's New Car (2002) • Boundin' (2003) • Jack-Jack Attack (2005) • One Man Band (2005) • Mater and the Ghostlight (2006) • Lifted (2006)
See also: The Adventures of André and Wally B. • List of Disney theatrical animated features • Edit this template