He actually did the weasel in "Ice Age."
And he said, "As an animator,
you're not a director -- you're an actor."
So, if you want to find
the right motion for a character,
don't think about it --
go use your body to find it.
Stand in front of a mirror,
act it out in front of a camera --
whatever you need -- and then
put it back in your character.
A year later I found myself at MIT
in the Robotic Life Group.
It was one of the first groups
researching the relationships
between humans and robots.
And I still had this dream
to make an actual, physical Luxo Jr. lamp.
But I found that robots didn't move
at all in this engaging way
that I was used to
from my animation studies.
Instead, they were all --
how should I put it --
they were all kind of robotic.
(Laughter)
And I thought, what if I took
whatever I learned in animation school,
and used that to design
my robotic desk lamp.
So I went and designed frame by frame
to try to make this robot as graceful
and engaging as possible.
And here when you see the robot
interacting with me on a desktop --
and I'm actually redesigning the robot,