Les Manovich’s The Language of New Media (2002) provides a significant framework for understanding the impact of transitional digital technologies on media forms. As the first fully animated and synthetic feature film, Pixar’s “Toy Story” (Lasseter, 1995) marks the shift from analogue to digital editing.

Toy Story (1995) Official Trailer

Manovich states that new media has five principles: “numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and cultural transcoding” (2001, p. 2). Automation in Toy Story transformed the animation industry. As a critical feature of new media, Pixar used their award-winning software “RenderMan” to automate lighting, shading, and motion, thus reducing the labour-intensive process of traditional 2D and 3D animation (King, 2015). This enabled creative possibilities that animation could not reach, bridging a gap between traditional human artistry and digital precision. Pixar has been using RenderMan as its “core rendering technology for 30 years” (Pixar, 2024), displaying the symbolic impact the technology has played in modern media.

The animation process behind the scenes for Toy Story (1995) by Ash Brannon

The animated film exists entirely in a virtual space, unlike traditional films. The characters, environments, and movements are not recorded from reality but digitally generated from 3D models and algorithms.  The animators filmed accurate captures of movement in order to replicate and manipulate into the animation, providing an aspect of digital realism in the film. However,  the film does not attempt to mimic the style of traditional animation or live-action cinema but embraces the digital nature in order to simulate playful toy-like aesthetics. This aligns with David Rodowick’s claim that digital cinema is no longer about recording reality but about creating simulations that evoke reality, significantly altering the relationship between cinema and the digital world. Computational processes replaced the mechanical and chemical material elements of the cinematic equipment.

References: 

King, S. (2015). How ‘Toy Story’ changed the face of animation, taking off ‘like an explosion’. [online] Los Angeles Times. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-toy-story-anniversary-20150930-story.html [Accessed 20 Oct. 2024].

Manovich, L. (2002). The Language of New Media, MIT Press. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/goldsmiths/detail.action?docID=6246549.

Pixar, (2024). Pixar’s RenderMan | About. [online] Available at: https://renderman.pixar.com/about.

Rodowick, D.N. (2007), ‘What was cinema’ The Virtual Life of Film pp 25-88. Harvard University Press. [Accessed 20 Oct. 2024]

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