John Lasseter was born in Hollywood, Los

Angeles, California on the 12th of January in 1975. When he was five years old, he won his very first award. He won $15 from the Model Grocerey Market in Whittier, California, for a crayon drawing of the Headless Horseman. Lasseter was the second student to be accetped into the newly formed Character Animation Program at the California Institute of the Arts in the year of 1975. Tim Burton was the third, after Lasseter. 

John Lasseter began his career in the early 1980's as an animator that worked with the Walt Disney Company, he recounted how he was initially by the work the company was doing with there work at the time. He believed that animation was like a genre, and should tell stories of all ages, not just for children.