The Animator Series #17: Jan Pinkava

Jan Pinkava is a Prague-born animation director known as one of the early voices in the animation department at Pixar Animation Studios. Originally from Czechoslovakia, Pinkava studied abroad as an artist in residence in Wales until landing a gig directing early commercials at the then young aspiring Pixar. It was there where he started working on spots like Listerine’s “Arrows”( pictured bellow) and Levi’s Jeans For Women’s “Woman Getting What She Wants”.

After working on these he was asked to direct a short film for the company featuring a human character to experiment more on making humans and skin/cloth simulation. The result became 1997’s “Geri’s Game” ( first pictured above), which became the first Pixar film to feature a human as a main character as well as their next short to win the Academy Award for best animated short film and the company’s first original short film since 1989’s Knick Knack. A personal favorite short of mine, It kickstarted the tradition of pairing a new short from the studio theatrically in front of a new Pixar film, which made the moviegoing public much more aware to that film genre. Later on Pinkava went up to develop the original idea and characters for “Ratatouille”, his last work at Pixar.