Channel Frederator Blog

Back in 1992, Pacific Data Images (PDI) created a short film called “Gas Planet”, directed by Eric Darnell.

Perhaps remembered as much for it’s fart jokes as it’s render style, the film was groundbreaking in the way the imagery looked. Up until this point, most CG animation was designed to look as realistic as possible. Metallic surfaces and checkerboard floors were quite common.

In this interview with Eric Darnell and Michael Collery from fall of 1995, Eric and Michael talk a bti about the decision to go with a non photorealistic rendering solution for “Gas Planet”, their commercial work with PDI, and the upcoming release of a film about toys from Pixar.

The film “Gas Planet”, combined with PDI’s other shorts, tv, and film work were enough to secure a production deal with Dreamworks for the feature film “Antz”. Dreamworks then bought a controlling interest in PDI and merged them with their southern California animation studio. PDI’s next feature was the 2001 hit “Shrek”, which beat out “Jimmy Neutron” and “Monsters, Inc” to win the Oscar in 2002.

-Floyd Bishop