From this example of his work on The Jungle Book, Thomas proves how to create pathos.

They came down to that same SIGGRAPH to give their amazing lecture. Many of us remember the incredible lectures that Frank and Ollie gave during that time right after The Illusion of Life. And I was on the same panel and I’ll never forget someone asked after their talk, they spoke before me, they said, “When do you think computer animation will come up to the level of Disney?” And Frank said, “When computer animation can create pathos.”

I had made my second film at Pixar called Red’s Dream and it has a sad ending. It’s a little unicycle in a unicycle shop who dreams of being in the circus. It doesn’t have a happy ending even though everyone begged me to give it have a happy ending. There was a very first screening of that film — we had just finished making it at Pixar and we showed it. And I’ll never forget Frank and Ollie coming up to me afterwards, and Frank shook my hand and said, “John, you did it.”

After Toy Story, I invited them up numerous times to visit me, because I knew they were kindred spirits. Especially Frank because of his wonderful spirit of curiosity. They came up and I toured them around Pixar and they were so excited. Ollie said, “I wish I were young again.” And Frank looked around and said, “This reminds me of the Hyperion [Street Disney] studio.”

You know we had people in hallways. People jammed in. The animators took over this one open area and made it their own with Tiki huts. It was fantastic. All these young people and we were creating new stuff that no one had done before. And I realized what he was saying.

He said, “It all changed when we moved to Burbank, though.” He said, “It was the most magnificent buildings that Walt built for us. It was the most beautiful studio. But everyone had their own offices down a wing, on different floors. We were on top of each other at Hyperion. We lost touch with each other. Didn’t know what was going on anymore.”

What was very interesting was we were actually designing a new studio and our first design was actually separate buildings. We thought we’d do separate buildings for each production and old-fashioned bungalows for development. I heard what Frank said and I said, “He’s right.” So I talked to Steve Jobs and we actually scrapped the idea, mainly based on Frank’s comment. So we rethought and built one giant building that we could put everybody in. You know, we’re still on top of each other, but at least we know what is going on.

And like I said, Frank has influenced me my entire life and my entire career. I got to see him in August, which was fantastic. I visited him at his house. I walked in and I was sitting there, he was in bed and his eyes just glistened. I was talking all about what we doing at Pixar. And we were talking about story. And that computer animation is not just a novelty anymore. You have to make great stories to entertain audiences. That’s what they want. We were talking about story and character and thinking characters. Then he turned his head and he said, “You should write a book.” Then I realized I was sitting there quoting The Illusion of Life to Frank Thomas the entire time.

Steve Bristow
Animator — Kuala Lumpur

I was fortunate enough to see Frank Thomas speak at a SIGGRAPH course about 15 years ago. He was an inspiration and mentor to a generation of `SIGGI’s’ who without traditional animation backgrounds, struggled through the '80s and '90s to make polygons act. His inspiration put the squash-and-stretch into CGI.

Hans Perk
Co-owner and Tech VP, A. Film A/S

Frank has been a part of my life since 1981 - just before the first edition of The Illusion of Life. A young animator then, and working for Borge Ring on the short Anna & Bella that would win an AA five years later, I boldly wrote to him — posing questions that now make me shudder — and he was very kind in answering them all.

In 1984 I organized that Frank and Ollie were invited to Holland, and stayed — with Jeanette and Marie — at my folks’ house. And we went and saw “the sights.” For instance, in the old fisherman’s town of Marken, where I took the attached picture. Frank and Ollie later used this picture in their lectures, while talking about imagination. They started it out of focus, announcing it as “here are two strange birds in the wild in Holland.”

I do have wonderful memories of Frank playing the family piano, and Marie and I singing and dancing to his playing.