Beach Chair (film test)

Beach Chair
Directed by	Eben Ostby
Written by	Eben Ostby
Produced by	Eben Ostby
Production company	Pixar
Release date	August 1986 (1986-08)
Running time	30 seconds
Country	United States

Beach Chair is a 30-second American short computer animation test clip created by animator Eben Ostby for Pixar in 1986. It depicts a chair walking across the sand, dipping its leg into the water, and then moving along.^[1] Ostby made the project with the feedback of John Lasseter to work out details of rendering software.^[2]

It was exhibited at SIGGRAPH in Dallas in 1986, along with Lasseter’s landmark computer-animated short Luxo Jr. and another test project, Flags and Waves by Bill Reeves.^[1][3] Beach Chair can also be found as an Easter egg in Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1, which was released in 2007.

In 1991, it was shown on an episode of MTV's Liquid Television.

Plot

Beach Chair is a short about a chair on the beach watching the sea. The chair goes to the border of the sea and it touches the water. It feels the water to be too cold, so it starts turning away from the beach.

References

1. Price, David (2008). The Pixar Touch. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26575-3. 2009 Vintage Books edition: ISBN 978-0-307-27829-6, p. 91. Excerpt available at Google Books.
2. "BEACH CHAIR". youtube.com. 1 September 2006. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
3. A.M. Buckley, Pixar: The Company and Its Founders (ABDO, 2011), ISBN 978-1-61714-810-1, p.39. Excerpt available at Google Books.