# John Whitney Jr. ## Description American animator and technologist, son of computer-animation pioneer [[John Whitney Sr.]], who co-founded Digital Productions (1981, with Gary Demos) and helped produce some of the earliest fully computer-generated feature-film sequences, including for *Looker* (1981) and *The Last Starfighter* (1984). ## Key Tags #computer-animation #tool-builder ## Essential Works - *Looker* (1981) - early use of CGI human-figure animation in a feature film - *The Last Starfighter* (1984) - Digital Productions' Cray X-MP-rendered spaceship sequences, among the first extensive fully-CGI visual effects in a Hollywood feature - Profiled in [[Expanded Cinema]] (Gene Youngblood, 1970) alongside his father and James Whitney, in Part Four's survey of early computer film pioneers ## Details Worked alongside his father, John Whitney Sr., in the family's early computer-animation practice before co-founding Digital Productions with Gary Demos in 1981 — one of the first companies built specifically to produce computer-generated imagery for film, using a Cray X-MP supercomputer to render effects sequences at a scale not previously possible. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Computer Art]] - Digital Productions' work represents a key industrial-scale application of computer-generated imagery to narrative film ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators - [[John Whitney Sr.]] - father; began working in computer animation alongside him before founding Digital Productions independently ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements - Digital Productions - co-founder, with Gary Demos, 1981 ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %% ### Secondary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %%