Pacific Data Images

ISEA1994:

Pacific Data Images (PDI) was founded in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl with a small loan from his father. In 1982, he was joined by Richard Chuang and Glenn Entis, who wrote the foundation of the in-house computer animation software that was to be used for the next two decades. Most of the 1980s were spent creating broadcast graphics for most television networks around the world. Early in 1990, Tim Johnson and Rex Grignon officially formed PDI’s Character Animation Group with the mandate to develop a group of artists with the creative and technical skills needed to produce a feature-length CG-animated film. The group originally consisted of Johnson, Grignon, Raman Hui, Glenn McQueen, Beth Hofer, Dick Walsh, Karen Schneider and Eric Darnell. Under the auspices of the group, PDI’s commercial character animation skills grew and numerous notable short films were produced including Gas Planet, Sleepy Guy, Gabola the Great, Fishing and Fat Cat on a Diet. In the early-1990s, Thaddeus Beier and Shawn Neely developed a method for morphing that resulted in a much more natural and expressive morph. PDI used this technology to create various well-known sequences, including the Exxon car-into-tiger morph and the extended morph at the end of the “Black or White” music video from Michael Jackson. In the mid-1990s.