Jul 2, 2018

Pixar premieres new short film "Purl" at SIGGRAPH

Pixar will officially unveil its new short film "Purl" at the SIGGRAPH conference in Vancouver next month.

The eight-minute short (pictured above) was directed by Kristen Lester, who has been a story artist at Pixar for the past five years. Pearl is part of the studio's experimental shorts division, which was launched last year with the short film Smash and Grab. Its earlier films have not been widely released since their completion.

Here is Purl's description from the SIGGRAPH program guide:

Last year at SIGGRAPH '17, Pixar Animation Studios presented "Smash and Grab: Off the Rails Filmmaking at Pixar" was featured. The initiative enables new creative voices and explores new storytelling techniques, pipelines, and workflows in production. The program's second short film, "Purl," directed by Kristen Lester, raised the bar and provided another example of what is possible when filmmakers are given such creative freedom within a fully functioning studio. "Purl" is a film about the "digital Purl" is an exploration of "digital backlot" management, the evolution of Smash and Grab motion capture applications, shareable animation libraries, real-time shading software "Flow," and the use of production techniques to help busy feature animation studios continue to tell more stories. This 8-minute short film explores the use of production techniques to keep busy feature animation studios telling more stories. This talk will look at the team's process for creating Purl and the impact of maintaining this initiative at Pixar.

The Purl screening and talk will take place on Monday, August 13 at SIGGRAPH and will include the following people from Pixar: Kristen Lester, Steven Clay Hunter, David Lally, David Munier, Farhez Rayani, Matthew Silas.