David DiFrancesco (born Nutley, New Jersey, 1949) is a photoscientist, inventor, cinematographer, and photographer. He is a founding member of three organizations which pioneered computer graphics for digital special effects and film with Edwin Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith, including; New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab, Lucasfilm Computer Division, and Pixar, financed by Steve Jobs.^ "Pixar Founding Documents". Alvyray.com. Archived from the original on 2012-09-16. Retrieved 2010-04-19Pixar Business Plan Document from 1985 from Alvy Ray Smith's website
Life and career Raised in Nutley, New Jersey, DiFrancesco graduated from Nutley High School in 1967.Proctor, Owen. "MLB umpire, Navy SEAL among Nutley Hall of Fame inductees", NorthJersey.com, November 7, 2017. Accessed April 4, 2023. "David Difrancesco, a 1967 graduate of Nutley High School, is a photo scientist, inventor, cinematographer and photographer, making technical contributions to film."
As director of the Pixar Photoscience Team at Pixar, DiFrancesco and his team were responsible for the task of accurately transferring high resolution digital images to film. In this role, he developed the world's first laser scanning and recording devices for 35mm motion picture film Daily Variety, Pixar Develops Laser Recording System by Marc Graser, February 9, 1999, page 6 (on line) and established reliable, commercially successful methods for this process, called PixarVision. This pioneering work earned him two Scientific and Engineering Technical Academy Awards and 16 patents.Daily Variety, January 4, 1995, "Tech Oscars go to...," page 1 and 44. In 1996 the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers adopted his recommended practices for governing output of digital images to film.
Before that DiFrancesco worked at Computer Image Corp., working on Scanimate with Lee Harrison, and also at Xerox PARC with Dick Shoup working on the first 8-bit shift register framebuffer technology, and at JPL with Jim Blinn working on Carl Sagan's Cosmos Series. His prototype film recorder resides in the permanent apparatus collection of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. His recent research included the development of a prototype interchangeable light fieldPlenoptic lens for motion picture cameras that enables post-production re-focusing of motion picture images and the capturing of 3D motion pictures with a single lens and camera.FXGuide Article on Alvy Ray Smith
In 2004, DiFrancesco designed a custom LED-based stroboscopic lighting system to sync the animation of physical Pixar Toy Story characters in the Pixar Zoetrope, first shown at the Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with [Pixar's 20th Anniversary exhibit].Pixar: 20 Years of Animation The original Pixar Zoetrope has travelled the world to various museums and several other zoetropes are on display at Disneyland's California Adventure theme park in Southern California and other Disney theme parks.
DiFrancesco's technical knowledge with zoetropes was put into use on a two-minute film entitled “Forza/Filmspeed,” directed by Jeff Zwart. The film revealed the world's fastest Zoetrope in the form of a high resolution still images taken from the Xbox game Forza Motorsport 5. Stills from the game were printed onto panels and staged at key intervals around a Barber Motorsports Park race track to recreate the illusion of movement known as the persistence of vision.Forza/Filmspeed Zoetrope On November 19, 2017, he was inducted into the Nutley Hall of Fame.
As a photographer, DiFrancesco's work has been displayed at the MoMa in New York City, the Yale University Library collection, V&A CG collection London, England and in a number of private collections. He holds a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Superior, attended the Danish Film Institute and the MFA program at the University of Colorado. In 2000, he was awarded an honorary PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Superior.
Motorsports
DiFrancesco's early career in motorsports included road rallies, Ice Racing and Gymkhana's driving Porsches during the 1960s. In addition, DiFrancesco is a collector and restorer of vintage race cars and motorcycles including a 1953 Siata 208s, shown at the Concorso Italiano in 2007, a 1938 Brough Superior raced in CSRG vintage in the 1980s, an SCCA NW regional winning DP 1956 AC Bristol, and a brace of Yamaha factory road racers. He has contributed to the creation of the Pixar Motorama, in what started as an employee-owned event that eventually inspired the creation of the film “Cars” and grew to an internationally recognized private car show at the Pixar headquarters in Emeryville, California.
Filmography
Young Sherlock Holmes, (1985) Paramount Back to the Future Part II, (1989) Amblin/Universal The Hunt for Red October, (1990) Paramount Back to the Future Part III, (1990) Amblin/Universal Ghost, (1990) Paramount Toy Story, (1995) Disney/Pixar A Bug's Life, (1998) Disney/Pixar Toy Story 2, (1999) Disney/Pixar Monsters, Inc., (2001) Disney/Pixar Finding Nemo, (2003) Disney/Pixar The Incredibles, (2004) Disney/Pixar Cars, (2006) Disney/Pixar Ratatouille, (2007) Disney/Pixar WALL-E, (2008) Disney/Pixar Up, (2009) Disney/Pixar Brave, (2012) Disney/Pixar
References
External links
New York Times Bio List The Pixar Story: Dick Shoup, Alex Schure, George Lucas, Steve Jobs, and Disney
SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Newsletter - SIGGRAPH 98 History Project - August 98 David DiFrancesco's Linkedin page Pixar History