It's been one year

Ralph Eggleston 1965-2022

It’s been one year since Ralph died. If you’ve ever seen any of these classic Pixar films- Toy Story, WALL-E, The Incredibles, Incredibles 2, Inside Out, to name a few- you’ve seen Ralph Eggleston’s amazing work.

Ralph was a classmate of mine in the Character Animation department at California Institute of the Arts in the early 1980’s. A skinny kid with an enthusiasm level over the top, Ralph was full of energy and creatively prolific. I still remember the time I was waiting my turn in the video room at CalArts as Ralph shot a test scene of his animation for class. As he chatted away with another person, he went through the motions of changing out each pose, shooting a frame, and then playing back the animation, still chatting away. I watched wide-eyed. Here’s this kooky young kid who’s always talking a mile-a-minute and completely oblivious to how good he was. Even in those early days you could see that Ralph was an exceptional talent.

And Ralph was a friend. We lost touch after CalArts but reconnected when we both won major awards in 2001 (Ralph won the Oscar for Best Animated Short for his charming short film For the Birds). Living on opposite coasts, we kept in touch occasionally by email and then texted regularly during the 2016 election. Ralph was very politically engaged and loved sending the latest parodies about the Republican candidates, especially Trump. We would also talk about design and animated films. He was a firm believer in a solid story and would rail about how many of the current films didn’t have a developed story. I agree- if the story isn’t there, all the spiffy designs, snappy songs and CG wizardry isn’t going to save it.

When he became sick with pancreatic cancer in 2018 he would send out regular group updates about his treatments to his friends. He was truly a fighter but occasionally he would be down and ever the sweetheart, texted to ask if it was okay to call.

I visited him in the hospital a few weeks before he passed. There would be times he was visibly in pain but still telling jokes and stories.

I really miss his mile-a-minute phone calls.

(Ralph and Yogi)