Enillydd Oscar

Dr Jan Pinkava

Cafodd Dr Pinkava, a gwblhaodd ei ddoethuriaeth ym Mhrifysgol Aberystwyth yn ogystal, ei gyflwyno gan yr Athro Chris Price o’r Adran Gyfrifiadureg.

Dyfarnwyd Oscar i Dr Pinkava yn 1998 am ei ffilm wedi ei hanimeiddio, Geri’s Game. Mae hefyd yn adnabyddus am ei waith ar A Bugs Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc a chafodd ei enwebu am ail Oscar yn y categori “Best Original Screenplay” am ei waith ar Ratatouille.

Cyflwyniad yr Athro Chris Price:
“Llywydd: braint a phleser yw cyflwyno Jan Pinkava yn gymrawd o Brifysgol Aberystwyth.

President, it is my privilege and my pleasure to present Dr Jan Pinkava as a Fellow of Aberystwyth University.

Receiving both his undergraduate degree and his doctorate from the Department of Computer Science at Aberystwyth, Dr Pinkava has very strong links to Aberystwyth University.

The height of his achievement so far has perhaps been the winning of an Oscar for his short film "Geri's Game", but the breadth of his achievement has been and still will be greater. He has excelled in the theoretical application of computer science, in the creative application of the film maker's art, and has made and continues to make a positive contribution to this university.

On the creative side, he started film-making while still at school in Colchester, and his animated film "The Rainbow" won a national Young Film-Maker's Competition of the Year Award in 1980. The organisers of the annual competition later said it was "the only occasion in the history of the competition where we came across a piece of film that was spectacularly professional".

Shortly afterwards, he came to study Computer Science at Aberystwyth, and achieved first class honours. After graduation, he continued to excel at the more challenging task of a very theoretical PhD in Sensory Robotics. The external examiner described his thesis as "a bold attempt at the very difficult problem of providing a scientific basis for the design of sensory robotic systems". After becoming Dr Pinkava, Jan returned to his first love, animation, joining a London company specialising in TV commercials.

In 1993, he joined his hero, John Lasseter, at Pixar. This was two years before Pixar's first hit feature film, Toy Story. He originally worked on commercials, and won a Gold Clio Award for his "Arrows" commercial, which animated a bottle of mouthwash as an archer fighting bad breath. After several other notable commercials, he was given permission to create one of the ground-breaking short films for which Pixar are famous.

Geri's Game tells the story of an old man playing chess with himself. As well as being a touching tale, it broke new ground as the first Pixar film to feature a human main character. It was awarded the 1998 Oscar for Best Short Film.

After Geri, Jan worked on A Bug's Life, on Toy Story 2, and on Monsters Inc, and was invited to create his own idea for a feature film. He came up with Ratatouille, the story of a rat cooking in a Paris restaurant, for which he shared a second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Original Screenplay.

Since Ratatouille, he has been working on his next masterpiece, Little White Lie, the story of a boy and his unusual dog.  We look forward to seeing it in the cinema.”

Mae wyth Cymrawd yn cael eu hurddo gan Brifysgol Aberystwyth yn ystod y seremonïau eleni sydd yn cael eu cynnal rhwng dydd Mawrth 10 a dydd Gwener 13 Gorffennaf.

Cyflwynir y teitl o Gymrawd er mwyn anrhydeddu pobl adnabyddus a chanddynt gysylltiad agos â Phrifysgol Aberystwyth neu rai sydd wedi gwneud cyfraniad mawr i fywyd proffesiynol neu gyhoeddus yng Nghymru.

Cymrodyr 2012 yw'r actor Michael Sheen, y gyflwynwraig deledu Alex Jones, Yr Athro Michael Clarke, Cyfarwyddwr y Sefydliad Gwasanaethau Unedig Brenhinol, Mark Price, Rheolwr Gyfarwyddwr Waitrose, Dr Jan Jaroslav Pinkava, enillydd Oscar, Y Parch. John Gwilym Jones, cyn Archdderwydd Cymru, Caitlin Moran, darlledwraig, beirniad teledu a cholofnydd, a’r barnwr Sir David Lloyd Jones.

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