List of animation studios owned by The Walt Disney Company
Pixar () is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the computer division of Lucasfilm before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986 with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder. Pixar and Disney had a seven feature agreement that allowed Disney to distribute the films with Disney owing the character rights. With the success of "Toy Story 2" in 1999, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs began to disagree on how Pixar should be run and the terms of their continued relationship. Eisner claimed that Toy Story 2 would not count towards the "original" film count of the agreement. Jobs announced in January 2004 that Pixar would not renew their agreement with Disney and would seek out other distributors for releases starting in 2006. In 2004, Disney Circle 7 Animation was formed as a CG animation studio to create sequels to the Disney-owned Pixar properties. In Late January 2006, new Disney CEO Bob Iger and Jobs agreed to have Disney purchase Pixar which led to Disney closing Circle 7.
Disney's Animated Storybook
The Interactive Products Group (also known as the Pixar Interactive Division), a Pixar subsidiary, was founded in 1996. Its staff included 95 of Pixar's 300 and was headed by Vice President Interactive Products Pam Kerwin. It was founded to create computer games and it had its own animators, art department, and engineers. They were tasked with creating two products amid intense time constraints: "Toy Story Animated Storybook:" (released April 1996) and "Toy Story Activity Center" (released October 1996), to coincide with the VHS release of the "Toy Story" film. As vice president of the Interactive Products Group from 1996 to 1998, Pam Kerwin spearheaded development of interactive edutainment products based on Pixar's feature film properties. She adapted the feature production process to the production of interactive products. The division produced the two products within 16 months. "Disney's Animated Storybook: Toy Story" was touted as "the first CD-ROM to deliver full screen, motion-picture-quality animation on home computers". Between the two products, the group had created as much original animation as there was in the "Toy Story" film itself.