"Luxo Jr" Textual Analysis

Pixar 3D animations were first developed as short films, with and increase of popularity and interest they began to develop in feature film length animations. The short films themselves appeal to a mass audience containing active and passive viewers. When analysing animated short films as a media text I noticed that they follow an equilibrium-disequilibrium-equilibrium pattern. They have closed endings and have a basic storyline that is simple to pick up. They have minimal amounts of characters, as the stories are too short to explain a characters journey in enough detail. This is beneficial for animated short films, as a lot of effort is needed to create characters with 3D technology.

I first looked at the famous “Luxo Jr” short film that was created in 1986, the models and rendering were created by Bill Reeves. The postproduction stage consisted of sounds and titles. The film has two characters in this case being two animated lamps fascinated by a ball. As an active audience member we can see that the lamps share and parent and child relationship. The animation itself seems quite basic however in its time this was a leap in technology in what seemed possible The film lasts roughly 2 minutes and has no camera work/one static shot, it has a plain black background and has no dialogue or narration. These elements add to the piece and make it what it is. The film is comical because of the bizarre way the lamps jump around and play with the ball, even though short films are not a genre I feel that this film uses comedy for e.g. when the small lamp (child) breaks the ball. Even though the film is about two lamps I feel that the audience can relate to what is going on especially with the parent and child relationship for e.g. when the child lamp breaks the ball he looks up to his mother asif to say sorry this is effective as it gives off a natural feel to the piece and what a human child would do.

Child lamp squashing the ball (Above)

Parent lamp looking down on child in disappointment (Above)

Child lamp has head down in shame (Above)

I strongly believe that this film shows an equilibrium – disequilibrium - equilibrium pattern. This is shown by the short film starting calm with the parent lamp playing with the a ball, tension occurs when the child lamp squashes the ball causing disequilibrium and finally ending with an equilibrium as the child lamp finds a bigger and better ball for them both to play with causing restoration.

The film was a huge success and the popularity of it allowed Pixar to experiment and develop the idea. The parent lamp is now part of Paxars ident before every animated film Pixar is involved in. The parent lamp is the “i” in “Pixar”. This is amazing when thinking that this film was made in 1986 and has helped Pixar become the successful company we all know today.