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Jan Pinkava is a Director, Original Story, Co-Director and Animation Tchèque born on 21 june 1963 at Prague (Republique tcheque)

Jan Pinkava

Jan Pinkava
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Birth name Jan Jaroslav Pinkava
Nationality Republique tcheque
Birth 21 june 1963 (60 years) at Prague (Republique tcheque)

Jan Jaroslav Pinkava, Ph.D. (born 21 June 1963, in Prague) is the director and writer of the Pixar Oscar-winning 1997 short film Geri's Game and the originator and co-director of Pixar's Oscar-winning 2007 film Ratatouille.

He is the third-born of four children of the Czech polymath Václav Pinkava alias Jan Křesadlo. The family emigrated to Britain in 1969, where he obtained British citizenship.

He attended Colchester Royal Grammar School from 1974 to 1982 showing interest and talent in the arts, music, drama and sculpture. (One of his juvenile sculptures 'Big Cat' was acquired by Essex University and put on permanent display outside the library.)

After obtaining an 8mm movie camera for Christmas in 1975, he began experimenting with pixilation, stop-motion plasticine, paper-drawn and cel animation.
He had some early prize-winning successes in animation competitions. Most notably, he won the Young Film-Maker's Competition of the Year Award 1980 on the long-running (1969 to 1984) BBC children's quiz series Screen Test for his animated short "The Rainbow". This was hailed in 2001 on Channel 4's "100 Greatest Kids' TV shows" by ex-Screen Test presenters Michael Rodd and Brian Trueman as "the only occasion in the history of the competition where we came across a piece of film that was spectacularly professional", a clip of him receiving the award is shown in the 2007 film Son of Rambow.

He went on to study Computer Science at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he graduated with first class honours and obtained his PhD, During this time he also represented his university in archery, fencing and hang-gliding competitions, and continued developing his cartoon drawing skills.

After university he turned to a career in computer animation initially in London, with Digital Pictures, who specialised in TV commercials.

In 1993 he joined Pixar, and moved to the USA. His "Arrows" TV commercial for Listerine won the Gold Clio Award in 1994.

His 1997 animated short Geri's Game won the Oscar on his mother's birthday, which prompted him to dedicate the award to her long-distance, with a message in Czech and won a string of other awards.

The short film "67 Aluminum Plates" was created during the 1998 Ottawa International Animation Festival by a group of volunteers under the direction of Jan Pinkava. The film is stop motion, filmed in one long day and edited the next. It was shown on the closing night of the festival.

In 2000, he began work as director on Ratatouille, a European-flavored, ultimate-outsider tale based on his original story. This was to have been his feature film debut and the first Pixar film beyond the terms of the then-expiring Pixar-Disney franchise.
In 2005, Pinkava was replaced as main director by The Incredibles director Brad Bird. In an interview given in 2006, Pinkava had "no comment" about this turn of events and for two years staunchly refrained from comment on the genesis of the film. At the time when he was replaced, Pinkava had written the core storyline of the film and created the styling, key characters and sets. Following his departure from the project, Pinkava initially undertook other duties and then left the company. In the final film, Pinkava is credited for his original story idea [1] and as the co-director. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a nomination for Pinkava (along with Jim Capobianco and Brad Bird) in the Best Original Screenplay category.

He subsequently worked as a director at LAIKA on his new film Little White Lie, but left in 2011 along with Claire Jennings.

In his most recent assignment, with Motorola Mobility, he came up with a new, in-phone, interactive animation genre.

Biography

Jan Pinkava est le fils de Václav Jaroslav Karel Pinkava, psychologue, mathématicien nouvelliste et poète tchèque, connu sous le pseudonyme Jan Křesadlo. Il s'intéresse assez tôt au cinéma et à l'animation, mais il est assez vite conscient de la difficulté du monde de l'animation, qui demande « la ténacité d'un Sisyphe et la patience d'un saint » de son propre aveu. Très tôt attiré par le monde de l'informatique, il effectue des études d'ingénierie informatique et robotique au pays de Galles, tout en restant proche de l'infographie.

Il fait ses armes à Digital Pictures Ltd, un studio londonien, où il réalise des spots télévisuels, et il envoie sa candidature à Pixar. Il y est engagé sur le premier long métrage de la firme, Toy Story. Tout de suite après, ses talents de réalisateur ayant été remarqués par John Lasseter, il réalise le court-métrage Le Joueur d'échecs (Geri's Game) en 1997, qui met en scène un vieillard esseulé se dédoublant pour jouer aux échecs. Ce court-métrage est récompensé par l'Oscar du meilleur court-métrage d'animation en 1998.

Il est initialement pressenti pour réaliser le huitième long métrage d'animation des studios Pixar, Ratatouille, mais c'est finalement Brad Bird, le réalisateur des Indestructibles et du Géant de fer, qui est chargé de réaliser le film, Pinkava étant crédité comme coréalisateur. Au moment où il est remplacé, Pinkava a écrit les lignes directrices du scénario et inventé les principaux personnages et décors du film. Il est d'ailleurs nommé, aux côtés de Jim Capobianco et Brad Bird, pour l'Oscar du meilleur scénario original.

Best films

Ratatouille (2007)
(Director)

Usually with

Peter Sohn
Peter Sohn
(1 films)
Brad Bird
Brad Bird
(1 films)
Angus MacLane
Angus MacLane
(2 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Jan Pinkava (2 films)

Display filmography as list

Director

Ratatouille, 1h51
Directed by Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Fantasy, Animation
Themes Films about animals, Cooking films, Films about the labor movement, Mise en scène d'un rongeur, Buddy films, Children's films, Mise en scène d'un mammifère
Actors Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Lou Romano, Daniel Day-Lewis, Janeane Garofalo, Peter O'Toole
Rating80% 4.0471954.0471954.0471954.0471954.047195
Remy is an idealistic and ambitious young rat, gifted with highly developed senses of taste and smell. Inspired by his idol, the recently deceased chef Auguste Gusteau, Remy dreams of becoming a cook himself. When an old woman sees his clan, they are forced to abandon their home; Remy is separated from them as a result of the woman's gunshots. He ends up in the sewers of Paris and eventually finds himself at a skylight overlooking the kitchen of Gusteau's restaurant.
Geri's Game, 4minutes
Directed by Jan Pinkava
Origin USA
Genres Animation
Themes Films about animals, Jeu, Sports films, Vieillesse, Films about insects, Films about chess, Children's films
Actors Bob Peterson
Rating77% 3.8974553.8974553.8974553.8974553.897455
The film is set in an empty park during autumn. The title character, Geri (voiced by Bob Peterson), is an elderly man who plays a game of chess against himself, "becoming" each of the players in turn by moving to the other side of the chessboard, where he changes his personality and either puts on or takes off his glasses to show this change. As the game progresses, it seems as though there are two people playing; at one point, the hands of both "opponents" are in frame. Black Geri (without the glasses) soon gains the upper hand over White Geri (with them), capturing every piece except his king and putting him in check. However, White Geri outsmarts Black Geri by faking a heart attack to distract him and spinning the board around. While Black Geri is still distracted, White Geri checkmates what is now his opponent's king. Finding that now he is the one with only his king left and discovering what has happened, Black Geri resigns the game and hands over a set of dentures as the prize. White Geri puts them in, then chuckles and grins in his victory, before the camera pulls back to reveal that he is alone at the chessboard.

Scriptwriter

Ratatouille, 1h51
Directed by Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Fantasy, Animation
Themes Films about animals, Cooking films, Films about the labor movement, Mise en scène d'un rongeur, Buddy films, Children's films, Mise en scène d'un mammifère
Actors Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Lou Romano, Daniel Day-Lewis, Janeane Garofalo, Peter O'Toole
Roles Story
Rating80% 4.0471954.0471954.0471954.0471954.047195
Remy is an idealistic and ambitious young rat, gifted with highly developed senses of taste and smell. Inspired by his idol, the recently deceased chef Auguste Gusteau, Remy dreams of becoming a cook himself. When an old woman sees his clan, they are forced to abandon their home; Remy is separated from them as a result of the woman's gunshots. He ends up in the sewers of Paris and eventually finds himself at a skylight overlooking the kitchen of Gusteau's restaurant.
Geri's Game, 4minutes
Directed by Jan Pinkava
Origin USA
Genres Animation
Themes Films about animals, Jeu, Sports films, Vieillesse, Films about insects, Films about chess, Children's films
Actors Bob Peterson
Roles Writer
Rating77% 3.8974553.8974553.8974553.8974553.897455
The film is set in an empty park during autumn. The title character, Geri (voiced by Bob Peterson), is an elderly man who plays a game of chess against himself, "becoming" each of the players in turn by moving to the other side of the chessboard, where he changes his personality and either puts on or takes off his glasses to show this change. As the game progresses, it seems as though there are two people playing; at one point, the hands of both "opponents" are in frame. Black Geri (without the glasses) soon gains the upper hand over White Geri (with them), capturing every piece except his king and putting him in check. However, White Geri outsmarts Black Geri by faking a heart attack to distract him and spinning the board around. While Black Geri is still distracted, White Geri checkmates what is now his opponent's king. Finding that now he is the one with only his king left and discovering what has happened, Black Geri resigns the game and hands over a set of dentures as the prize. White Geri puts them in, then chuckles and grins in his victory, before the camera pulls back to reveal that he is alone at the chessboard.

Director

Ratatouille, 1h51
Directed by Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Fantasy, Animation
Themes Films about animals, Cooking films, Films about the labor movement, Mise en scène d'un rongeur, Buddy films, Children's films, Mise en scène d'un mammifère
Actors Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Lou Romano, Daniel Day-Lewis, Janeane Garofalo, Peter O'Toole
Roles Co-Director
Rating80% 4.0471954.0471954.0471954.0471954.047195
Remy is an idealistic and ambitious young rat, gifted with highly developed senses of taste and smell. Inspired by his idol, the recently deceased chef Auguste Gusteau, Remy dreams of becoming a cook himself. When an old woman sees his clan, they are forced to abandon their home; Remy is separated from them as a result of the woman's gunshots. He ends up in the sewers of Paris and eventually finds himself at a skylight overlooking the kitchen of Gusteau's restaurant.

Visual effects

Geri's Game, 4minutes
Directed by Jan Pinkava
Origin USA
Genres Animation
Themes Films about animals, Jeu, Sports films, Vieillesse, Films about insects, Films about chess, Children's films
Actors Bob Peterson
Roles Animation
Rating77% 3.8974553.8974553.8974553.8974553.897455
The film is set in an empty park during autumn. The title character, Geri (voiced by Bob Peterson), is an elderly man who plays a game of chess against himself, "becoming" each of the players in turn by moving to the other side of the chessboard, where he changes his personality and either puts on or takes off his glasses to show this change. As the game progresses, it seems as though there are two people playing; at one point, the hands of both "opponents" are in frame. Black Geri (without the glasses) soon gains the upper hand over White Geri (with them), capturing every piece except his king and putting him in check. However, White Geri outsmarts Black Geri by faking a heart attack to distract him and spinning the board around. While Black Geri is still distracted, White Geri checkmates what is now his opponent's king. Finding that now he is the one with only his king left and discovering what has happened, Black Geri resigns the game and hands over a set of dentures as the prize. White Geri puts them in, then chuckles and grins in his victory, before the camera pulls back to reveal that he is alone at the chessboard.