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Biography
Seth Holladay was the first BYU intern that Pixar ever hired, starting a relationship that has benefited many students and faculty alike.
The Holladay family enjoys the movie Ratatouille in a different way than most families. Instead of just watching Remy, the mouse turned chef, experiment with food while having exciting adventures, Seth Holladay, a new instructor in the Computer Science Department, and his family discuss aspects of Remy’s cooking that don’t really meet the eye. While animating at Pixar Animation Studios, Holladay specialized on the intricate details of Remy’s food in Ratatouille, so his wife and children hear special commentary on his contributions to the movie.
His film experience with Ratatouille is just an appetizer in Holladay’s feast of a résumé; Holladay also contributed to box-office hits Cars, Wall–E, and Up. While he makes creating victorious characters look easy, Holladay’s own road to animation was quite the adventure.
As a student, he always knew he wanted to have a career in computer animation, but was unsure how to get there. Holladay attended BYU before the animation major and the Center for Animation had been developed, so he was referred to the Department of Computer Science.
After graduating with a BS in 2004, Holladay was not immediately hired into the industry, so he decided to pursue a master’s degree. The semester he started his master’s program, he applied for an internship at Pixar, knowing his chances of getting it were slim.
“I thought it couldn’t hurt to apply,” Holladay said. “I kind of felt like if they rejected me, I wouldn’t feel too bad, because Pixar is so prestigious.”
Two weeks later, Holladay was happily surprised with a phone call from Pixar, informing him that he had been accepted into the internship. His first assignment at Pixar was rendering Cars, helping to complete the finished visual product. Since Holladay’s experience at Pixar, several other BYU students are accepted annually to the exclusive internship program. But Holladay was the first one to take that chance and apply, and now he is helping his own students get first-rate internships as well.
After gaining invaluable experience completing the internship, he returned to Provo to finish obtaining his master’s in computer science. Upon graduation, Pixar offered Holladay a full-time position, and for three years, he animated environmental effects in several Pixar films. He prefers working with environmental special effects because it illustrates how phenomena occur in real life.
“It’s like combining animation and physics,” Holladay said. “I really love animating how things work.”
Working for Pixar provided Holladay with important experience in the animation industry. He now passes down these valuable lessons in the classroom as he instructs future animators while concurrently earning his PhD. But what was the best part of working for a major motion picture studio in California?
“I have five children, and when we were there, they were excited that we got free tickets to Disneyland. So we always got into the parks for free,” Holladay said. He laughed that his kids were more excited about that than the fact that their dad helped create several of the films featured at Disneyland.
