The First 3D Digital Film Created by Ed Catmull, Co-Founder of Pixar (1970)

Long before Ed Cat­mull became pres­i­dent of Walt Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion Stu­dios, he head­ed up the com­put­er graph­ics group at Lucas­film, which even­tu­al­ly spun into Pixar, the mak­er of so many cut­ting edge ani­mat­ed films. And before all of that, Cat­mull went to grad­u­ate school at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah, where he cut his teeth on emerg­ing ani­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies, and put him­self in a posi­tion to devel­op this — a very ear­ly (and appar­ent­ly the first) 3D dig­i­tal movie.

Work­ing with Fred Parke, Cat­mull shot A Com­put­er Ani­mat­ed Hand in 1970. The hand makes only a brief appear­ance — about 20 sec­onds — and the rest of the film shows you what went into mak­ing the hand (and oth­er ani­mat­ed body parts). Nerd­PlusAlert has more on the ani­mat­ed reel.

via i09

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Rare Look Inside Pixar Stu­dios

Vin­cent: Tim Burton’s Ear­ly Ani­mat­ed Film

Ger­tie the Dinosaur: The Moth­er of all Car­toon Char­ac­ters