When the lights went down for the first screenings of Toy Story across America on Nov. 22, 1995, audiences were merely eager to see how the first fully computer-animated movie had turned out. But the stakes were a bit higher for one particular team of people.

The movie was a joint venture between Disney and Pixar, a young company—then chaired by Steve Jobs—that had been recruited by the animation giant for its video capabilities. Pixar had been given a $26 million deal for three computer-animated, feature-length movies, but its filmmakers and engineers had yet to pull off a single one. Neither had anyone else for that matter. Succeeding would mean creating the software and hardware they would need as they went along, and inventing a new kind of movie altogether.

“At that point, none of us knew what we were doing. We didn’t have any production expertise except for short films and commercials. So we were all complete novices,” Ed Catmull, who was then a software engineer and is now Pixar and Disney Animation President, tells TIME. “But there was something fresh about nobody knowing what the hell we were doing.”

Catmull was a member of the Pixar “brain trust,” which also included current chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation John Lasseter, the animator selected to direct Toy Story, and screenwriters Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter.

Reflecting on the experience 20 years later, Catmull notes that the young production studio was up against the wall: one project’s failure would likely mean the end of the three-movie contract, and the demise of Pixar studios.

“The entire company,” he says, “was bet upon us figuring this out.”

Spoiler alert: it was a good bet. The storytelling and technology of Pixar still rests upon the foundation Toy Story built. By the time the Toy Story credits started rolling that first day, the movies would never be the same.

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https://time.com/4118006/20-years-toy-story-pixar/


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