Jan Pinkava
| Jan Pinkava | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Jan Jaroslav Pinkava 21 June 1963 Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Occupation | Director, writer, animator |
| Years active | 1994-present |
| Awards |
Animated Short Film 1998 Geri's Game |
Jan Jaroslav Pinkava, PhD (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.
His 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.
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