Research Guru / Moderator
Posted:
Mar 22, 2008, 2:44 PM
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Pixar storyboard artist Justin Wright dead at 27
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Storyboard artist Justin Wright, who worked on the 2D line drawings featured in the end titles of Pixar's Ratatouille, died Tuesday night of a heart attack. He was 27.
"He was born with a number of heart defects that ultimately resulted in a heart transplant at age 12," said former colleague John Sanford. "He grew up painfully aware of his own mortality."
Wright was working on a new animated short that will be released with Wall•E in theaters this June.
He attended Pacific Union College, a Seventh-Day Adventist institution near Santa Rosa, California, from 1999 to 2000 as a fine arts major.
"I loved the art department, especially my classes with Thomas Morphis and Bob Seyle," he said. "I learned so much in those classes about composition and technique. Now as a storyboard artist, it’s all about composition."
Later, he finished a degree in character animation at CalArts, the alma mater of his boss John Lasseter. It took him two tries to get accepted. "But I didn’t give up."
Wright was introduced to Pixar because of his heart transplant.
When he was born in 1981, his many heart complications included cardiomyopathy, a complete block, a hole between the upper two chambers, and a hole in the mitral valve.
Recovering in hospital from his heart transplant as an adolescent, he drew pictures -- a hobby he says he started in childhood when he got bored in church. His doctor at Stanford, California's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital noticed his interest.
One day, after Wright was fully recovered, his doctor took him on a tour at Pixar, where he had some connections.
Early in his career, Wright went so far as to quit a job as a production assistant at Pixar because he didn't want to be thought of as "the PA guy" in his quest to be a storyboard artist.
"When my friends heard I'd quit a job, any job, at Pixar, they thought I was crazy -- I mean, people do work their way up from being a production assistant," he said. "But I knew that I wanted to be seen as a storyboard artist. So I quit."
According to a profile on PUC's alumni Web site, Wright credited his heart transplant with giving him the courage to make such risky decisions. "I knew I'd been allowed to stay on this earth, and that I was lucky. I do think that influenced my decision," he said.
An internship at Pixar led to his storyboarding job. Due to the extreme secrecy of Pixar projects, Wright wouldn't reveal his work in the studio outside Ratatouille and the short accompanying Wall-E.
"Justin was a very enthusiastic person and full of energy. You'd never guess that he had already gone through so much in life," Ratatouille storyboard artist Ronnie del Carmen wrote on his blog.
When Wright was hired as a colleague, "he was so happy," del Carmen recalled.
"He could hardly contain the energy in his lanky body and even promised that he would work hard and prove us right. He didn't really need to say all those things, we knew he had it in him and the months since then proved it all. I wish we had more time with him."
(This post was edited by eminovitz on Mar 22, 2008, 2:44 PM)
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