- Like many people who were in any proximity to the events of Sept. 11, the artist Spencer Finch often thought later about the color of the sky that day, the kind of crystalline blue that pilots.
- 'Stars Go Blue manages to be both warm–hearted and violent at once— a complex deeply–imagined family tale which finds unexpected gifts at its conclusion. Laura Pritchett is a writer who knows country life on the Rocky Mountain front range thoroughly and she conveys this physical world expertly, beautifully out of her long experience.
- Sky News delivers breaking news, headlines and top stories from business, politics, entertainment and more in the UK and worldwide.
How a small band of animation innovators brought movie magic to millions (with a little help from one of the world's most powerful film studios).
Sky Go Watch TV on any device. click to open detail panel. Download the app - click to open detail panel. Start Watching - click to open detail panel. Sky blue is a colour that resembles the colour of the unclouded sky at around noon (azure) reflecting off a metallic surface. The entry for 'sky-blue' in Murray's New English Dictionary (1919) reports a first sighting of the term in the article on 'silver' in Ephraim Chambers 's Cyclopaedia of 1728.
Blue Sky Studios Founders
1987 | This early image with Studio demonstrates soft shadows and smooth surface tracking (no polygons). It was entirely built with solid geometry
1990 | One of the first tests where Studio was able to demonstrate its Radiosity (Global Illumination) capabilities.
1990 | Another early CGI Studio image demonstrating Radiosity (Global Illumination) and CGI Studio's reflection/refraction capabilities.
1992 | An image from an early commercial that demonstrates CGI Studio's diffuse reflections and advance physically based lighting model. Besides winning a Clio award, there was much industry skepticism at the time about whether the razor was real or CGI.
This was a test to show Studio’s implicit surface rendering. Infinite detail with virtually no RAM footprint.
1997 | A signature image from Academy Award® winning short “Bunny”, demonstrating the first use of Radiosity in a short form theatrical picture.
1998 | The Blue Sky crew celebrates after winning the 1998 Academy Award® for Best Animated Short Film. The groundbreaking short transformed the studio from a service company to a feature animation studio.
2002 | 'Ice Age' was a cinematic milestone as it was the first feature length animated film to deploy 100% Monte Carlo Raytracing in every rendered frame.
2017 | The crew celebrates the release of Ferdinand!
2018 | Blue Sky toasts to getting nominated for an Academy Award® for 'Best Animated Feature Film' for Ferdinand.
To begin the story of Blue Sky - before the lonely bunnies, hungry squirrels, and quirky robots, we have to go back to a time when the idea of a feature film made only with computers wasn't even an idea.
The year was 1982 and intent on making use of rising computer technology, Disney hired a small computer animation company based in Columbus casino, NY named MAGI to create the majority of the CGI animation for the groundbreaking film Tron. MAGI is credited with some of the most memorable sequences in the film, including the classic light cycle sequence. It is here that a few employees met and went on to form the diverse and incredibly gifted group that would found Blue Sky Studios.
In February 1986, six of these innovators sat together in a cramped apartment and fueled only by their determined enthusiasm, decided to pool what little money they had to start their own computer animation company. These pioneers were Alison Brown, David Brown, Michael Ferraro, Carl Ludwig, Dr. Eugene Troubetzkoy and Chris Wedge.
Carl Ludwig was an electrical engineer who worked for NASA on the tracking systems of the Apollo mission’s lunar module. Alison Brown came from a marketing and special effects background. David Brown (no relation) who would become Blue Sky's first President and CEO had been a marketing executive with CBS/Fox Video. Michael Ferraro was an accomplished programmer with a Masters degree in Fine Arts who worked for the US Navy on early virtual reality simulations. Chris Wedge was a classically trained animator with extensive experience in stop-motion puppet animation as well as a Masters degree in computer graphics from Ohio State University.
While they intended from the beginning to produce high-resolution computer generated character animation for feature films, Blue Sky’s early days lacked software, money and clients. The team worked for months without pay in their tiny one room office equipped with only three computers and a coffeemaker. Each member brought his or her own unique set of skills to the table. Dr. Eugene Troubetzkoy had a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Columbia and worked as a nuclear physicist to create computer simulations of nuclear particle behavior. He is credited with helping develop the amazing technique for capturing 3D scenes with remarkable realism called Raytrace rendering.
We did a commercial for Braun. We created a computer-generated razor. There was an award we were up for and we didn’t end up as a finalist. We didn’t understand that, and when we called them up, it turned out they thought we just put some letters in a live-action scene… We explained to them there was no live action in the scene. The razor and everything was computer generated. This was juried by people in computer graphics… They were blown away.
- CARL LUDWIG
Their innovative, photo realistic commercial work soon caught Hollywood’s eye and Blue Sky was hired as the effect house for major motion pictures such as Joe’s Apartment (1996), A Simple Wish (1997), Alien Resurrection (1997) and Fight Club (1999).
During this time, despite success in the field of CG effects, creative director Chris Wedge started itching to work on a more creatively fulfilling project, something with a narrative and a character. He and the team spent any free hours they had putting together a passion project that would become Bunny, Blue Sky’s first short film.
It was a risk, it was the only thing we’ve done purely because we wanted, without any commercial gain in mind, but it paid off bigger than anything else we did.
- CHRIS WEDGE
Sky Go Uk
Bunny (1998) is the surreal, offbeat tale of a cranky elderly bunny baking in her kitchen when a pesky moth flies in to disturb her lonely late-night activity.
The short was technically groundbreaking, harnessing Ludwig and Troubetzkoy’s ingenious light-rendering techniques to create its special, naturalistic look that had not been matched by anyone else at that time. Its unique visual style and heartfelt story helped the film win the 1999 Academy Award® for Best Animated Short Film. Blue Sky was officially on the map in a major way.
At the time, Twentieth Century Fox had been a major visual effects client for Blue Sky and was in the middle of acquiring the small company as its own in-house effects firm. The critical success of Bunny proved to Twentieth Century Fox and the world that beyond making extraordinary visuals, Blue Sky had compelling stories to tell.
In 1999, Twentieth Century Fox bought Blue Sky and with the resources of a major studio behind it, Blue Sky started production on its first animated feature, Ice Age.
Ice Age (2002) is the prehistoric tale of three unlikely friends: an obnoxious sloth named Sid, a lone mammoth named Manny and Diego, a ferocious saber-toothed tiger with a conscience, who band together across treacherously cold terrain to bring a human baby back to his tribe.
Producer Lori Forte developed the idea with Twentieth Century Fox and it was originally planned as a classically animated dramatic family film. But with recent technological advances, the studio decided to take a risk and make a fully 3D animated feature - challenging Chris and the team to transform it into a comedy. The risk paid off. Ice Age grossed $46.3 million in its opening weekend, breaking the record for a March opening.
With the overwhelming success of Ice Age, Blue Sky suddenly found itself a frontrunner in what has blossomed into a powerful, billion dollar marketplace. Together, Twentieth Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios grew their diversely talented staff and crew, developed their breakthrough renderer CG Studio, and produced a total of 13 feature films, including the wildly successful Ice Age and Rio franchises. In December 2017, Blue Sky released the Academy Award® nominated Ferdinand, which was followed by 2019's Spies in Disguise starring Will Smith and Tom Holland. The studio is currently working on Nimona, which is scheduled to release on January 14, 2022.
Blue Story Sky Golf Course
In 2019, 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios were acquired by The Walt Disney Company and they are looking forward to the next chapter.
Blue Story Sky Gold
We’ve come a long way from the humble beginnings of a one room office with three computers, but the compulsion to tell thrilling stories is exactly the same. In fact, that one room office is still nearby- a 9 minute drive to be exact. Either way, the best chapters of our story are yet to come and we can’t wait to animate them.