Blue Sky!

When I ask people "What company comes to mind when you think computer animation?" the answer tends to be Pixar. This is not without reason. They are after all a part of Disney and led by a number of what could be argued to be the best minds in the biz. So in contrast I felt like focusing on Blue Sky.

Originally founded by a bunch of old people, this company has done a whole heck of a lot for itself in a short period. You have to consider the facts: a lot of companies have risen and fallen to the beast that is Disney competition such as Bray, Barre or Fleischer Studios. The surviving animation studios are those who focused on different goals such as Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers. Blue Sky was the brainchild of just six people who decided to spend essentially all their money in an attempt to produce something new and unique. The year was 1987.

"We arrived at the name 'Blue Sky' for our company after it dawned on us that this was where we had started- with a blue-sky idea: extreme, bordering on impractical, and imbued witho our naive expectation that anything was possible." - Chris Wedge, Director.

The cool thing about Blue Sky is they created a lot of their own software. They "... developed a core of CGI Studio, which is still today the most sophisticated and advanced rendering software used in production." - Weishar. The company produces some of the best computer imagery to this day.

When one looks at their movie Ice Age it should be noted that it is rendered not-so-amazingly-photo-realistic for a reason. At this point in time Blue Sky had already produced amazing photo-realistic video and images.

"Ice Age is deliberately not naturalistic. As in satisfying children's picture books, the sets and characters look believable within their own world, but they are clearly not trying to look 'real'." - Weishar.

So it bugs me to hear people speak of Blue Sky's movie aesthetics as sub-par. I ask everyone to consider their success in the entertainment business since their inception as six people who took a risk.

Their credits include:
The Ice Age Series, Horton Hears a Who, Robots, Bunny (their award winning short)
as well as special effects and CGI for:
Alien Resurrection, Joe's Apartment, Titan A.E., Fight Club, Star Trek: Insurrection and more.

The Six:
Michael Ferraro
Alison Brown
Carl Ludwig
Eugene Troubetzkoy
David Brown
Chris Wedge

Check out:
Bunny - The short film that got them noticed and finally funded (20th Century Fox)
Blue Sky Studios

References
Blue Sky, the Art of Computer Animation - Peter Weishar, 2002
Blue Sky Wikipedia