When was Pixar founded?
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.
Pixar universe theory
The Pixar universe theory, or simply Pixar theory, proposes the existence of a "shared universe" in which every film that is created by Pixar takes place, sharing characteristics and an internal logic. Media discussion about a "Pixar universe" has existed since at least 2003, and has been referred to in disparate sources such as SlashFilm, "Washington Times", "Reno Gazette-Journal", and MTV News.
Andrew Stanton
After the acquisition of Pixar by The Walt Disney Company in 2006, Stanton became the vice president of creativity of Pixar alongside other fellow Pixar director Pete Docter. He is a member of the studio's coveted brain trust and has executive produced and served as a creative and mentor like voice on the following films: "Ratatouille", "Up", "Brave", "Monsters University", "Inside Out", and "The Good Dinosaur".
Toy Story
Pixar, which had produced short animated films to promote their computers, was approached by Disney to produce a computer-animated feature film after the success of their short film "Tin Toy" (1988), which is told from a small toy's perspective. Lasseter, Stanton, and Docter wrote early story treatments which were rejected by Disney, who wanted the film's tone to be "edgier". After several disastrous story reels, production was halted and the script was re-written, better reflecting the tone and theme Pixar desired: that "toys deeply want children to play with them, and that this desire drives their hopes, fears, and actions". The studio, then consisting of a relatively small number of employees, produced the film under minor financial constraints.
The Pixar Story
The Pixar Story, directed by Leslie Iwerks, is a documentary of the history of Pixar Animation Studios. An early version of the film premiered at the Sonoma Film Festival in 2007, and it had a limited theatrical run later that year before it was picked up by the Starz cable network in the United States.
Pixar Canada
Pixar Canada was a wholly owned subsidiary of Pixar Animation Studios. It was located in Vancouver, British Columbia. The studio was tasked to produce short films based on Pixar's feature film characters.
Pixar
The Pixar Co-op Program, a part of the Pixar University professional development program, allows their animators to use Pixar resources to produce independent films. The first CGI project accepted to the program was "Borrowed Time" (2016); all previously accepted films were live-action.
Pixar
Since December 2005, Pixar has held exhibitions celebrating the art and artists of themselves over their first twenty years in animation.
Pixar
On July 1, 2016, two upcoming untitled Pixar films were announced to be scheduled for release on March 6 and June 19, 2020, which are said to be original projects. One of these has now been revealed to be "Onward".
Antz
After DreamWorks' acquisition of PDI, Pixar director John Lasseter, Steve Jobs, and others at Pixar were dismayed to learn from the trade papers that PDI's first project at DreamWorks would be another ant film, to be called "Antz". By this time, Pixar's project, then similarly called "Bugs", was well known within the animation community. In general, both "Antz" and "A Bug's Life" center on a young male ant, a drone with oddball tendencies, who struggles to win a princess's hand by saving their society. Lasseter and Jobs believed that the idea was stolen by Katzenberg. Katzenberg had stayed in touch with Lasseter after the acrimonious Disney split, often calling to check up. In October 1995, when Lasseter was overseeing postproduction work on "Toy Story" at the Universal Studios lot, where DreamWorks was also located, Lasseter and Andrew Stanton visited Katzenberg and they discussed their plans for "Bugs" in detail. Lasseter had high hopes for "Toy Story", and he was telling friends throughout the tight-knit computer-animation business to get cracking on their own films. "If this hits, it's going to be like space movies after "Star Wars"" for computer-animation studios, he told various friends. "I should have been wary," Lasseter later recalled. "Jeffrey kept asking questions about when it would be released."
Ralph Guggenheim
After his time at CMU, Ralph worked for the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab. He was soon contacted by Lucasfilm and moved to California in 1980. During his time at Lucasfilm, Guggenheim developed EditDroid, which proved to be a revolutionary film-editing system. After his research lab at Lucasfilm was sold to Steve Jobs and renamed Pixar, Guggenheim continued to work in the world of graphics and animation. Guggenheim, a respected founder of Pixar, eventually became Vice President of Feature Animation and was a lead producer for "Toy Story." Guggenheim left the company in 1997 after Disney forced Pixar to remove him as producer from "Toy Story 2".
Stephen Rosenbaum
Rosenbaum began his career in visual effects at the reconstructed Computer Graphics Department of Lucasfilm's effects division Industrial Light & Magic in 1989. The previous members of this department moved to the building next door and formed the company Pixar. This new group of artists received their first chance to make a computer generated character when James Cameron asked them to create the Pseudopod water creature for "The Abyss". Cameron followed with Terminator 2 and the group expanded the artist base and created one of the first digital manipulations of a human character. The artists continued to thrive with opportunities to animate and render the seminal dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park". Rosenbaum then oversaw the removal of Lt. Dan's legs, rephrasing the words of presidents, and the fanciful feather animation in "Forrest Gump". These movies help spark the rapid transition of traditional film-processed visual effects and inspired a complete paradigm shift in visual effects and filmmaking methodologies and commercial digital imagery manipulation.
Edwin Catmull
In June 2007, Catmull and Lasseter were given control of Disneytoon Studios, a division of Disney Animation housed in a separate facility in Glendale. As president and chief creative officer, respectively, they have supervised three separate studios for Disney, each with its own production pipeline: Pixar, Disney Animation, and Disneytoon. While Disney Animation and Disneytoon are located in the Los Angeles area, Pixar is located over 350 miles (563 kilometers) northwest in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Catmull and Lasseter both live. Accordingly, they appointed a general manager for each studio to handle day-to-day affairs on their behalf, then began regularly commuting each week to both Pixar and Disney Animation and spending at least two days per week (usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays) at Disney Animation. In November 2014, the general managers of Disney Animation and Pixar were both promoted to president, but both continued to report to Catmull, who retained the title of president of Walt Disney and Pixar. On October 23, 2018, Catmull announced his plans to retire from Pixar and Disney Animation, staying on as an adviser through July 2019.
Edwin Catmull
In 1986, Steve Jobs bought Lucasfilm's digital division and founded Pixar, where Catmull became the Chief Technical Officer. At Pixar, he was a key developer of the RenderMan rendering system used in films such as "Toy Story" (1995) and "Finding Nemo" (2003).
Creativity, Inc.
Eventually, this led him to a graduate degree under Ivan Sutherland, the "father of computer graphics," also at the University of Utah. Many decades before computer animation existed, Catmull began developing the programming to do 2D and 3D programming. During this time, he found himself recruited to work at Lucasfilm, becoming vice president of Industrial Light and Magic's computer graphics division, until 1986 when a Steve Jobs bought it up and started Pixar. Catmull soon became Chief Technical Officer.
Alvy Ray Smith
Alvy Ray Smith III is an American computer scientist who cofounded Lucasfilm's Computer Division, and Pixar, participating in the 1980s and 1990s expansion of computer animation into feature film.
Pixabay
The enterprise was founded in November 2011 in Ulm, Germany by Hans Braxmeier and Simon Steinberger. In March 2012, Pixabay was redesigned, switching from a personal image collection into an interactive online community, supporting 20 languages. In May of the same year, a public Application Programming Interface (API) was launched, allowing third party users and website developers to search Pixabay's image database. Today, the API is being used by the designer community Psykopaint, and inside Jimdo's WYSIWYG homepage editor. Along with Flickr, YouTube and Wikimedia Commons, in June 2012, Pixabay was included on Creative Commons' official CC search site. On a regular basis, Pixabay received attention in international print and online magazines. In 2014, six additional interface languages were implemented (Thai, Vietnamese, Greek, Slovak, Bulgarian, Danish) and in 2015, Pixabay started offering film footage in addition to images - all of which released under Creative Commons license CC0.
Pixar
However, the Image Computer never sold well. Inadequate sales threatened to put the company out of business as financial losses grew. Jobs invested more and more money in exchange for an increased stake in the company, reducing the proportion of management and employee ownership until eventually, his total investment of $50 million gave him control of the entire company. In 1989, Lasseter's growing animation department, originally composed of just four people (Lasseter, Bill Reeves, Eben Ostby, and Sam Leffler), was turned into a division that produced computer-animated commercials for outside companies. In April 1990, Pixar sold its hardware division, including all proprietary hardware technology and imaging software, to Vicom Systems, and transferred 18 of Pixar's approximately 100 employees. That same year, Pixar moved from San Rafael to Richmond, California. Pixar released some of its software tools on the open market for Macintosh and Windows systems. RenderMan was one of the leading 3D packages of the early 1990s, and Typestry was a special-purpose 3D text renderer that competed with RayDream addDepth.
Pixlet
When it was introduced by Steve Jobs at Worldwide Developers Conference 2003, it was said that the codec was developed at the request of animation company Pixar.
List of Pixar films
This is a list of films from Pixar Animation Studios, an American CGI film production company based in Emeryville, California, United States. As of , Pixar Animation Studios has released 20 feature films, which were all released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner. The company produced its first feature-length film, "Toy Story", in 1995. Their second production, "A Bug's Life", was released in 1998, followed by their first sequel, "Toy Story 2", in 1999. Pixar Animation Studios had two releases in a single year twice: "Inside Out" and "The Good Dinosaur" in 2015 and "Cars 3" and "Coco" in 2017.
Pixar
On April 20, 2010, Pixar opened Pixar Canada in the downtown area of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The roughly 2,000 square meters studio produced seven short films based on "Toy Story" and "Cars" characters. In October 2013, the studio was closed down to refocus Pixar's efforts at its main headquarters.
Stan Kinsey
The evolution of CAPS and Pixar resulted in the great success envisioned by Kinsey. An Oscar for Scientific and Engineering Achievement was awarded in 1992 to the team that developed the CAPS system. Pixar became the Pixar Animation Studios, which went on to win 26 academy awards, 7 Golden Globes, and 3 Grammy Awards, and generate over $6.3 billion worldwide in revenue by the early 2000s. (The Walt Disney Company did purchase Pixar Animation Studios outright on January 24, 2006 for 7.4 billion.)
Roy E. Disney
As announced, on September 30, Eisner resigned both chief executive and a member of the board. Severing all formal ties with the company, he waived his contractual rights to perks such as use of a corporate jet, a Golden Pass and an office at the company's Burbank headquarters. Bob Iger, Eisner's long-time lieutenant, who had been effectively running the company, now assumed the title of CEO. One of Roy Disney's stated reasons for engineering his second "Save Disney" initiative had been Eisner's well-publicized disputes with long-time production partner Pixar Animation Studios and its CEO Steve Jobs, with whom Disney had produced such computer animated hits as "Toy Story", "Monsters, Inc.", "Finding Nemo", which were both critically acclaimed and financially successful for both partners. Iger quickly repaired the estrangement, and on January 24, 2006, the company announced the acquisition of Pixar in an all-stock deal worth $7.4 billion. This deal made Jobs, best known as co-founder and CEO of Apple, Inc, Disney's largest shareholder with 7% of all outstanding shares and gave him a new seat on Disney's board of directors. Eisner, who retained 1.7% of shares, became Disney's second-largest shareholder, followed by Roy Disney, with 1% of shares. Disney's second "Save Disney" campaign against Eisner was chronicled by James B. Stewart in his best-selling book, "DisneyWar".
Pixar Canada
The Vancouver animation establishment opened with much fanfare around Gastown in 2010, with an approval to produce short films based on esteemed Pixar characters. The Vancouver company worked on layout, sets and characters, animation, effects, lighting and rendering departments.
Walt Disney Studios closed its Vancouver-based Pixar Canada studio leaving nearly 100 Pixar employees without a job three years after opening. Viewers of the animation scene in Vancouver disregarded Pixar’s departure, suggesting the industry is robust enough in the province to easily absorb the displaced Pixar workers. When Pixar set in motion in British Columbia came the arrival of U.S. studios such as Digital Domain and Sony Pictures Imageworks, with Pixar touting Vancouver’s talent base, proximity and shared time zone with Los Angeles and a digital animation tax credit offered by the B.C. government. Provincial Jobs Minister Shirley Bond said that it is “disappointing” that Pixar is leaving the province, however, she saw the decision as tied to the company’s overall business strategy as opposed to the B.C. business climate.
Andrew Stanton
Andrew Stanton (born December 3, 1965) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and voice actor based at Pixar, which he joined in 1990. His film work includes co-writing Pixar's "A Bug's Life" (1998) (as co-director), "Finding Nemo" (2003) and its sequel "Finding Dory" (2016), "WALL-E" (2008), and the live-action film, Disney's "John Carter" (2012). He also co-wrote all four "Toy Story" films and "Monsters, Inc." (2001)
Pixart
Its origins date back to 1999, when the founder and CEO of Pixart, Gabriel Ortiz, decided to develop a user-friendly distribution intended mainly for hardware assemblers. After an agreement in 2007 between Lenovo and Pixart, Rxart version 3.2 was made available pre-installed on desktop PCs in Argentina.
Pixar
On April 25, 2017, two untitled upcoming films are scheduled for June 19, 2020 and June 18, 2021. On March 1, 2018, two more untitled Pixar films were announced and scheduled for March 18 and June 17, 2022.
Circle 7 Animation
In 2004, Disney Circle 7 Animation was formed as a CGI animation studio to create sequels to the Disney owned Pixar properties, and the studio began to hire staff shortly after. It was seen as a bargaining chip by people within Pixar and Disney, but also as a backup plan by Eisner in the event that negotiations fell through.
Knick Knack
In 1988, Pixar's third short film, "Tin Toy", won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, the first computer-animated film to claim the award. It was also the first win for the hardware company, which was still struggling to sell its main product: the Pixar Image Computer. The key animator and director behind "Tin Toy", John Lasseter, had once worked at Disney several years prior but was fired by unknowingly stepping on his superiors' toes with his support for computer animation. Now, Disney took notice of the Oscar win for "Tin Toy" and began a campaign to win Lasseter back.
List of animation studios owned by The Walt Disney Company
Steve Jobs, Pixar CEO, 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.
Walt Disney Animation Studios
It was founded as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923 and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. The studio was exclusively dedicated to producing short films until it expanded into feature production in 1934. In 1983, Walt Disney Productions named its live action film studio Walt Disney Pictures. During a corporate restructuring in 1986, Walt Disney Productions was renamed The Walt Disney Company and the animation division, renamed Walt Disney Feature Animation, became a subsidiary of its film division, The Walt Disney Studios. In 2007, Walt Disney Feature Animation took on its current name, Walt Disney Animation Studios after Pixar was acquired by Disney in the same year.
Toy Story 3
In January 2006, Disney bought Pixar in a deal that put Pixar chiefs Edwin Catmull and John Lasseter in charge of all Disney Animation. Shortly thereafter, Circle 7 Animation was shut down and its version of "Toy Story 3" was cancelled. The following month, Disney CEO Robert Iger confirmed that Disney was in the process of transferring the production to Pixar. John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Lee Unkrich visited the house where they first pitched "Toy Story" and came up with the story for the film over a weekend. Stanton then wrote a treatment.
Circle 7 Animation
Jobs announced in January 2004 — after ten months of negotiations — that Pixar would not renew their agreement with Disney, and would seek out other distributors for releases starting in 2006. Jobs wanted Pixar to receive most of the profits that their films made (giving Disney the standard 10% distribution fee) as well as full ownership of any future films and characters that the studio would create post "Cars" (2006).
Disney's Hollywood Studios
Toy Story Mania! was originally a standalone attraction within Pixar Place, an area dedicated to films and characters created by Pixar, resembling the animation studio's Emeryville, California campus. Pixar Place was also the home of Luxo Jr., a six-foot-tall audio-animatronic version of Pixar's desk-lamp mascot. The moving character performed periodic shows throughout the day and evening across from Toy Story Midway Mania.
Steve Jobs
In 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership, and in early 2004, Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films after its contract with Disney expired.
Toy Story 2
Pixar showed the completed film at CalArts on November 12, 1999, in recognition of the school's ties with Lasseter and more than 40 other alumni who worked on the film. The students were captivated. The film held its official premiere the next day at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles—the same venue as "Toy Story"s—and was released across the United States on November 24, 1999. The film's initial theatrical and video releases include "Luxo Jr.", Pixar's first short film released in 1986, starring Pixar's titular mascot. Before "Luxo Jr.", a disclaimer appears reading: "In 1986 Pixar Animation Studios produced their first film. This is why we have a hopping lamp in our logo".
Walt Disney Animation Studios
With Iger in place as the new CEO of Disney, Steve Jobs resumed negotiations for Pixar with Disney. On January 24, 2006, Disney announced that it would acquire Pixar for $7.4 billion in all stock deal, with the deal closing that May. and the Circle 7 studio launched to produce "Toy Story 3" was shut down, with most of its employees returning to Feature Animation and "Toy Story 3" returning to Pixar's control. As part of the acquisition, Edwin Catmull and John Lasseter were named President and Chief Creative Officer, respectively, of Feature Animation as well as Pixar.
List of Pixar characters
The following is an alphabetic list of Disney/Pixar characters, in feature films, shorts and specials originally conceived by Pixar Animation Studios, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company since 2006.
Pixar
In 1982, the team began working on special effects film sequences with Industrial Light & Magic. After years of research, and key milestones such as the Genesis Effect in "" and the Stained Glass Knight in "Young Sherlock Holmes", the group, which then numbered 40 individuals, was spun out as a corporation in February 1986 by Catmull and Smith. Among the 38 remaining employees, there were also Malcolm Blanchard, David DiFrancesco, Ralph Guggenheim, and Bill Reeves, who had been part of the team since the days of NYIT. Tom Duff, also an NYIT member, would later join Pixar after its formation. With Lucas' 1983 divorce, which coincided with the sudden dropoff in revenues from "Star Wars" licenses following the release of "Return of the Jedi", they knew he would most likely sell the whole Graphics Group. Worried that the employees would be lost to them if that happened, which would prevent the creation of the first computer animated movie, they concluded that the best way to keep the team together was to turn the group into an independent company. But Moore's Law also said that the first film was still some years away, and they needed to focus on a proper product while waiting for computers to become powerful enough. Eventually, they decided they should be a hardware company in the meantime, with their Pixar Image Computer as the core product, a system primarily sold to government agencies and the scientific and medical community.
The Pixar Story
The success story of Pixar Animation Studios from the ground up.The film was given generally positive reviews, receiving an aggregated score of 86% from Rotten Tomatoes, based on 7 reviews.
List of Pixar films
In 2005, Pixar began collaborating with Disney and Warner Bros. on a live-action film adaptation of James Dalessandro's novel "1906", with Brad Bird attached to direct. It would have marked Pixar's first involvement in a live-action production. The film was abandoned by Disney and Pixar due to script problems and an estimated budget of $200 million, and it is now in limbo at Warner Bros. In June 2018, Bird mentioned the possibility of adapting the novel as a TV series, with the earthquake sequence as a feature film.
Pixar Image Computer
When George Lucas recruited people from NYIT in 1979 to start the Computer Division, the group was set to develop digital optical printing, digital audio, digital non-linear editing and computer graphics. Where computer graphics were concerned, the quality was just not good enough due to technological limitations at the time. The team then decided to solve the problem by starting a hardware project, building what they would call the Pixar Image Computer, a machine with more computational power that was able to produce images with higher resolution.
Pixar
The newly independent Pixar (1986) was headed by Edwin Catmull as President and Alvy Ray Smith as Executive Vice President. While looking for investors, Steve Jobs showed interest, but initially Lucas found his offer too low. Yet he eventually accepted after it turned out to be impossible to find other investors. At that point Smith and Catmull had been turned down 45 times; thirty-five venture capitalists and 10 large corporations had declined. Jobs, who had recently been fired from Apple, and was now founder and CEO of the new computer company NeXT, paid $5 million of his own money to George Lucas for technology rights and invested $5 million cash as capital into the company, joining the board of directors as chairman.
List of Pixar awards and nominations (feature films)
After directing "Finding Nemo", Stanton felt Pixar had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was willing to direct a film set in space. Most of the characters do not have actual human voices, but instead communicate with body language and robotic sounds, designed by Ben Burtt, that resemble voices. In addition, it is the first animated feature by Pixar to have segments featuring live-action characters.
Coco (2017 film)
"Coco" is the second Pixar offering of the year, following "Cars 3", with 2017 being the second year Pixar released two films, after 2015 (with "Inside Out" and "The Good Dinosaur"). The film was accompanied in theaters by Walt Disney Animation Studios' 21-minute featurette "Olaf's Frozen Adventure" as a limited time offering, featuring the characters from "Frozen", making "Coco" the first Pixar film not to be accompanied by a Pixar short in theaters since their first film, "Toy Story", in 1995. The film also has its own VR game, being Pixar's first VR development.
Art Ludique
• Pixar – 25 years of animation: Art Ludique – The Museum was inaugurated with the exhibition "Pixar – 25 years of animation". Co-created by Pixar and the New York Museum of Modern Art in 2006, the exhibition opened in Paris on 16 November 2013 after having visited London, Tokyo, Helsinki and Mexico (amongst others). The exhibition brings together over 500 artworks (drawings, sculptures, storyboards…) and two attractions: the Toy Story Zootrope created for the exhibition that gives an illusion of movement, and the Artscape, an immersive panoramic animated film. The exhibition saw over 180,000 visitors.
Pixar
While some of Pixar's first animators were former cel animators including John Lasseter, they also came from computer animation or were fresh college graduates. A large number of animators that make up the animation department at Pixar were hired around the time the studio released "A Bug's Life" (1998), "Monsters, Inc." (2001) and "Finding Nemo" (2003). Although "Toy Story" was a successful film, it was Pixar's first feature film at the time, becoming the first major computer-animation studio to successfully produce theatrical feature films. The majority of the animation industry was (and still is) located in Los Angeles while Pixar is located north in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also, traditional hand-drawn animation was still the dominant medium for feature animated films.
Pixar
"Toy Story" was the first Pixar film to be adapted for television as and TV series. "Cars" became the second with the help of "Cars Toons", a series of 3-to-5-minute short films running between regular Disney Channel shows and featuring Mater (a tow truck voiced by comedian Larry the Cable Guy). Between 2013 and 2014, Pixar released its first two television specials, "Toy Story of Terror!" and "Toy Story That Time Forgot". A television series spin-off of "Monsters, Inc." was confirmed in a Disney press release in November 2017.
Knick Knack
"Knick Knack" premiered at the 1989 SIGGRAPH in Boston. It was one of the last pieces of animation that Lasseter would animate personally during Pixar's years as an independent company. In 1990, it won the Best Short Film award at the Seattle International Film Festival. When Lasseter presented it at the London Film Festival in 1991, "The Independent" of London called it "a four-minute masterpiece" and "The Guardian" hailed Lasseter as "probably the closest thing to God that has ever graced the electronic images community." In 2001, Terry Gilliam selected it as one of the ten best animated films of all time. After "Knick Knack", Pixar took a break from animated shorts and re-focused on animating television commercials to build income and hire new animators.
List of Pixar films
In July 2013, Pixar Studios President Edwin Catmull said that the studio planned to release one original film each year, and a sequel every other year, as part of a strategy to release "one and a half movies a year." On July 3, 2016, Pixar president Jim Morris revealed that after "Toy Story 4", there are no plans for further sequels, and right now Pixar is only developing original ideas with five films currently in the works.
Pixiv
Starting as the idea of the programmer Takahiro Kamitani, who is himself an artist known as Bakotsu on the website, Pixiv was launched on September 10, 2007 as a beta test. When the number of users exceeded 10,000 only nineteen days after launch, it became difficult for Kamitani to maintain Pixiv on his own, leading him to establish Crooc Inc. on October 1, 2007. The website underwent a major upgrade on December 18, 2007 into what is similar to the current version of the website. While the website was originally only available in Japanese, Chinese was the first additional language offered due to an increasing tendency of international registrants from Taiwan and China; there is also an increasing number of registrants from the United States and South Korea. In 2009, an English-language version was considered to be the lowest in terms of priority, but was later established in early 2011. Internationalization of the website continued with the addition of French, Korean, Russian and Thai. Certain European countries with a high number of hits on the website such as Germany and Italy will also be considered. The management company Crooc was renamed Pixiv Inc. on November 1, 2008. The CEO of Pixiv Inc. is Takanori Katagiri.
John Lasseter
Lasseter began his career as an animator with The Walt Disney Company. After being fired from Disney for promoting computer animation, he joined Lucasfilm, where he worked on the then-groundbreaking use of CGI animation. The Graphics Group of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm was sold to Steve Jobs and became Pixar in 1986. Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer. In addition, he directed "Toy Story" (1995), "A Bug's Life" (1998), "Toy Story 2" (1999), "Cars" (2006), and "Cars 2" (2011). From 2006 to 2018, Lasseter also oversaw all of Walt Disney Animation Studios' (and its division Disneytoon Studios') films and associated projects as executive producer.
Luxo Jr.
Luxo Jr. is a 1986 American computer-animated short film produced and released by Pixar in 1986. Written and directed by John Lasseter, this two-minute short film revolves around one larger and one smaller desk lamp. The larger lamp, named Luxo Sr., looks on while the smaller, "younger" Luxo Jr. plays exuberantly with a ball that it accidentally deflates. "Luxo Jr." was Pixar's first animation after Ed Catmull and John Lasseter left Industrial Light & Magic's computer division of Cinetron Computer Systems. It is the source of Luxo Jr., the hopping desk lamp included in Pixar's corporate logo.
SuperPaint
SuperPaint was used in the mid-1970s to make custom television graphics for KQED-TV in San Francisco, and later to make technical graphics and animations for the NASA Pioneer Venus project mission in 1978. Due to differences with management at PARC, Shoup left Xerox in 1979 to found graphics company Aurora Systems, while colleague Alvy Ray Smith went to work at New York Institute of Technology. In 1980, Smith and others joined Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas' movie special effects firm, and this group later founded Pixar. Shoup won an Emmy Award in 1983, and an Academy Award shared with Smith and Thomas Porter in 1998, for his development of SuperPaint.
John Lasseter
Due to George Lucas's financially crippling divorce, he was forced to sell off Lucasfilm Computer Graphics, by this time renamed the Pixar Graphics Group, founded by Smith and Catmull, with Lasseter as one of the founding employees. It was spun off as a separate corporation with Steve Jobs as its majority shareholder in 1986. Over the next 10 years, Pixar evolved from a computer company that did animation work on the side into an animation studio. Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer. As well as "Toy Story", he also personally directed "A Bug's Life" (1998), "Toy Story 2" (1999), "Cars" (2006), and "Cars 2" (2011).
Modern animation in the United States
Lucas experienced cash flow issues after his 1983 divorce, and in 1986 Pixar was spun off from Lucasfilm as a separate corporation with $10 million in capital from Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs. At that time, Pixar primarily developed computer animation hardware, but Lasseter helped the company make a name for itself by creating acclaimed CGI short films such as "The Adventures of André and Wally B." (1984). After the spin-off, he would go on to produce "Tin Toy" (1988), which won an Oscar. The company transitioned into TV commercial production and projects such as the Computer Animation Production System for Disney. After the success of "Tin Toy", Pixar made a deal with Disney to produce feature films. The first of these films, 1995's "Toy Story", was a smash hit, which in turn led to additional successful films such as "A Bug's Life" and "Toy Story 2". By then, Jobs had become the owner of Pixar by keeping it alive with additional investments over the years; he had often considered selling it but changed his mind after "Toy Story".
Pixar
The Graphics Group, which was one-third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm, was launched in 1979 with the hiring of Catmull from NYIT, where he was in charge of the Computer Graphics Lab. He was then reunited with Smith, who also made the journey from NYIT to Lucasfilm, and was made director of The Graphics Group. At NYIT, the researchers pioneered many of the CG foundation techniques—in particular the invention of the alpha channel (by Catmull and Smith). Years later, the CGL produced a few frames of an experimental film called "The Works". After moving to Lucasfilm, the team worked on creating the precursor to RenderMan, called REYES (for "renders everything you ever saw") and developed a number of critical technologies for CG—including "particle effects" and various animation tools.
A Computer Animated Hand
Catmull would later go on to form his own Computer Graphics Lab, later contacted by George Lucas of Lucasfilm to bring computer graphics into the entertainment field. The Graphics Group, one third of the computer division at Lucasfilm, was later purchased in 1986 by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs, and it was renamed Pixar. Pixar produced the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story", in 1995, and has since become the world's dominant animation studio, producing a string of immensely commercially and critically successful films. Catmull has won four Academy Awards for his technical feats and helped create some of the key computer-generated imagery software animators rely on today.
Pixar Canada
In October 2013, Pixar Animation Studios permanently closed Pixar Canada and laid off its approximately 100 employees, to refocus Pixar's efforts at its main headquarters in Emeryville, California. The former studio space is currently Industrial Light & Magic's Vancouver studio.
Pixar Photoscience Team
The Pixar Photoscience Division, a division of Pixar Animation Studios, was founded in 1979 at Lucasfilm for the express purpose of designing and building a laser recorder/scanner system to input and output film to a computer for compositing and color correction of special effects. In the early years of Pixar's history, the team was responsible for the design of color monitoring instrumentation to control the color gamut and gamma of the digital images onto 35mm film using a more advance laser recorder system called PixarVision. In later years at Pixar, the team was responsible for transforming the artists computer animated images onto film master negatives. Today the team manages all digital content to a variety of delivery media, film, DVD, and digital cinema projection. The team has won Engineering and Technical Academy Awards and patents for their work in Motion Picture Sciences.
Pixar
Pixar got its start in 1974 when New York Institute of Technology's (NYIT) founder Alexander Schure, who was also the owner of a traditional animation studio, established the Computer Graphics Lab (CGL), recruited computer scientists who shared his ambitions about creating the world's first computer-animated film. Edwin Catmull and Malcolm Blanchard were the first to be hired and were soon joined by Alvy Ray Smith and David DiFrancesco some months later, which were the four original members of the Computer Graphics Lab. Schure kept pouring money into the computer graphics lab, an estimated $15 million, giving the group everything they desired and driving NYIT into serious financial troubles. Eventually, the group realized they needed to work in a real film studio in order to reach their goal. Francis Ford Coppola then invited Smith to his house for a three-day media conference, where Coppola and George Lucas shared their visions for the future of digital moviemaking.
And when Lucas approached them and offered them a job at his studio, six employees decided to move over to Lucasfilm. During the following months, they gradually resigned from CGL, found temporary jobs for about a year to avoid making Schure suspicious, before they joined The Graphics Group at Lucasfilm.
List of Pixar awards and nominations (feature films)
The Good Dinosaur is a computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Peter Sohn from a screenplay by Meg LeFauve. Set in a world in which dinosaurs never became extinct, the film follows a young "Apatosaurus" named Arlo, who meets an unlikely human friend while traveling through a harsh and mysterious landscape. The film stars Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Sam Elliott, Anna Paquin, A. J. Buckley, Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand and Steve Zahn. "The Good Dinosaur" had its premiere on November 10, 2015 in Paris, and was released in the United States on November 25, 2015.
Monsters, Inc.
In November 2000, early in the production of "Monsters, Inc.", Pixar packed up and moved for the second time since its Lucasfilm years. The company's approximately 500 employees had become spread among three buildings, separated by a busy highway. The company moved from Point Richmond to a much bigger campus in Emeryville, co-designed by Lasseter and Steve Jobs.
Pixar
Pixar has produced 20 feature films, beginning with "Toy Story" (1995), which was the first-ever computer-animated feature film; its most recent film was "Incredibles 2" (2018). All of the studio's films have debuted with CinemaScore ratings of at least an "A−," indicating positive receptions with audiences. The studio has also produced dozens of short films. , its feature films have earned approximately $13 billion at the worldwide box office, with an average worldwide gross of $659.7 million per film. "Finding Nemo" (2003), along with its sequel "Finding Dory" (2016), as well as "Toy Story 3" (2010) and "Incredibles 2" (2018) are among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, with the latter being the second-highest-grossing animated film of all time with a gross of $1.2 billion. Fifteen of Pixar's films are also among the 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time.
Disney's Animated Storybook
Jobs said that while Pixar staff enjoyed creating the titles, the studio chose to focus talent on films produced under its partnership with Disney, as that was "where our greatest opportunities lie". Ultimately, the "uncertain future of this market, combined with Pixar's enhanced opportunities to create longer format film and made for home video products under its new partnership with Disney, triggered Pixar's decision to redirect its valuable talent". The computer games operation dissolved on March 31, 1997 and no further games were made, while Kerwin was assigned to start a shortfilm group. Their first project, "Geri's Game", was released alongside "A Bug's Life" and started a trend of shorts being paired with films. Robertson Stephens analyst Keith Benjamin felt it "[made] no sense for Pixar to waste their scarce talent on CD-ROMs now that they have a better deal with Disney. They're going to concentrate on films because that's where the real money is". Pixar co-founder, Ed Catmull, told "Variety" in 1999 "we did the very best and only did fine financially" on the games, noting that the company spent as much on them as they did on films. When asked in 2012 if Pixar would return to the gaming industry, "Brave" director Mark Andrews firmly said "no" based on his experience at the Interactive Products Group, while the film's producer Katherine Sarafian said "I don't think we would consider it now because we want to focus on the primary business of filmmaking".
List of Pixar awards and nominations (feature films)
The Incredibles was released in 2004, written and directed by Brad Bird, a former director and executive consultant of "The Simpsons" and the screenwriter/director of the critically acclaimed 1999 animated film "The Iron Giant". "The Incredibles" was originally developed as a traditionally-animated film for Warner Bros., but after the studio shut down its division for fully animated theatrical features, Bird took the story with him to Pixar, where he reunited with John Lasseter. "The Incredibles" is the first Pixar film to win more than one Academy Award.
Pixar
During this period Pixar continued its successful relationship with Walt Disney Animation Studios, a studio whose corporate parent would ultimately become its most important partner. As 1991 began, however, the layoff of 30 employees in the company's computer hardware department—including the company's president, Chuck Kolstad, reduced the total number of employees to just 42, essentially its original number. Yet Pixar made a historic $26 million deal with Disney to produce three computer-animated feature films, the first of which was "Toy Story". By then the software programmers, who were doing RenderMan and IceMan, and Lasseter's animation department, which made television commercials (and four Luxo Jr. shorts for "Sesame Street" the same year), were all that remained of Pixar.
Pixar
With the scarcity of Los Angeles-based animators willing to move their families so far north to give up traditional animation and try computer animation, Pixar's new hires at this time either came directly from college or had worked outside feature animation. For those who had traditional animation skills, the Pixar animation software Marionette was designed so that traditional animators would require a minimum amount of training before becoming productive.
History of computer animation
In 1995, there came the first fully computer-animation feature film, Disney-Pixar's "Toy Story", which was a huge commercial success. This film was directed by John Lasseter, a co-founder of Pixar, and former Disney animator, who started at Pixar with short movies such as "Luxo Jr." (1986), "Red's Dream" (1987), and "Tin Toy" (1988), which was also the first computer-generated animated short film to win an Academy Award. Then, after some long negotiations between Disney and Pixar, a partnership deal was agreed in 1991 with the aim of producing a full feature movie, and "Toy Story" was the result.
Circle 7 Animation
Eisner found these terms unacceptable. Then executive producer of Pixar John Lasseter, who had personally directed "Toy Story" (1995), "A Bug's Life" (1998), and "Toy Story 2" (1999), was distraught at the breakdown of the Disney Pixar relationship, as he was worried about what Disney might do with the characters Pixar had created.
Pixar Canada
Pixar Canada was founded in 2009 and officially opened on April 20, 2010 in Gastown area of Vancouver, British Columbia. The location was chosen for tax incentive reasons, for Vancouver's computer-generated animation talent pool and for time zone compatibility with the Hollywood studio. Studio's initial three-year plan was to produce animated short films based on established Pixar film characters, to be shown in all of Disney-related businesses, including television, DVD compilations, internet, theme park attractions, and theatrical presentations. Post-production and stereoscopic 3D work remained in the hands of the Pixar's main studio in California.
Disney was attracted to Vancouver's location because of tax incentives, and this closure comes in the wake of British Columbia incentives falling behind those offered by Ontario and Quebec. Pixar Canada produced a number of short films, including "Air Mater", "Small Fry" and "Partysaurus Rex" since 2010. Pixar’s shorts have been a proving ground for new directors and concepts for the studio.
Disney Digital 3-D
On May 29, 2009, Disney released Pixar's "Up", the first Pixar film to be presented in 3D. This film was then followed by a 3D double feature re-release of "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" on October 2, 2009, although neither of these films' animations was altered. Subsequent Pixar films, such as "Toy Story 3" and "Cars 2", were also released in Disney Digital 3-D.
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Talks between Eisner and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs over renewal terms for the highly lucrative Pixar-Disney distribution deal broke down in January 2004. Jobs in particular disagreed with Eisner's insistence that sequels such as the then in-development "Toy Story 3" (2010) would not count against the number of films required in the studio's new deal. To that end, Disney announced the launching of Circle 7 Animation, a division of Feature Animation which would have produced sequels to the Pixar films, while Pixar began shopping for a new distribution deal.
Tin Toy
The short premiered in a partially completed edit at the SIGGRAPH convention in August 1988 to a standing ovation from scientists and engineers. "Tin Toy" went on to claim Pixar's first Oscar with the 1988 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, becoming the first CGI film to win an Oscar. With the award, "Tin Toy" went far to establish computer animation as a legitimate artistic medium outside SIGGRAPH and the animation-festival film circuit. "Tin Toy" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2003.
List of Pixar awards and nominations (feature films)
Pixar Animation Studios is a CGI animation production company based in Emeryville, California, United States. Created in 1979 as a division of Lucasfilm, it has been a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company since 2006. Feature films produced by Pixar have won numerous awards, including fifteen Academy Awards, nine Golden Globes and eleven Grammys.
Pixlr
Pixlr was founded in Sweden in 2008 by Ola Sevandersson. On 19 July 2011, Autodesk announced that they had acquired the Pixlr suite and that Sevandersson had joined the company. 123rf acquired Autodesk Pixlr for an undisclosed agreement on 24 April 2017.
Pixar
Pending the Disney acquisition of Pixar, the two companies created a distribution deal for the intended 2007 release of "Ratatouille", if the acquisition fell through, to ensure that this one film would still be released through Disney's distribution channels. In contrast to the earlier Pixar deal, "Ratatouille" was to remain a Pixar property and Disney would have received only a distribution fee. The completion of Disney's Pixar acquisition, however, nullified this distribution arrangement.
Pixar
The studio has earned 19 Academy Awards, 8 Golden Globe Awards, and 11 Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Many of Pixar's films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature since its inauguration in 2001, with nine winning; this includes "Finding Nemo" (2003) and "Toy Story 3" (2010), along with "The Incredibles" (2004), "Ratatouille" (2007), "WALL-E" (2008), "Up" (2009), "Brave" (2012), "Inside Out" (2015), and "Coco" (2017). "Monsters, Inc." (2001) and "Cars" (2006) are the only two films that were nominated for the award without winning it, while "Cars 2" (2011), "Monsters University" (2013), "The Good Dinosaur" (2015), "Finding Dory" (2016), and "Cars 3" (2017), were not nominated. "Up" and "Toy Story 3" were also the respective second and third animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, the first being Walt Disney Animation Studios' "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Luxo Jr., a character from the studio's 1986 short film of the same name, is the studio's mascot.
Circle 7 Animation
Pixar and Disney originally had a seven film distribution agreement that gave Disney full ownership of Pixar's feature films and characters, as well as sequel rights. With the success of "Toy Story 2" in the end of 1999, then Disney CEO Michael Eisner and then Pixar owner Steve Jobs began to disagree on how Pixar should be run and the terms of a continued relationship.
Pixar Image Computer
The Pixar Image Computer is a graphics designing computer originally developed by the Graphics Group, the computer division of Lucasfilm, which was later renamed Pixar. Aimed at commercial and scientific high-end visualization markets, such as medicine, geophysics and meteorology, the original machine was advanced for its time, but did not sell in quantity.
Pixar
In a bid to drive sales of the system and increase the company's capital, Jobs suggested to make the system available to mainstream users and released the product to the market. Pixar employee John Lasseter, who had long been working on not-for-profit short demonstration animations, such as "Luxo Jr." (1986) to show off the device's capabilities, premiered his creations at SIGGRAPH, the computer graphics industry's largest convention, to great fanfare.
Cars (franchise)
Cars is a CGI-animated film series and Disney media franchise set in a world populated by anthropomorphic automobiles created by John Lasseter. The franchise began with the 2006 film of the same name, produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was followed by a sequel in 2011. A third film was released in 2017. The now defunct Disneytoon Studios produced the spin-off films "Planes" (2013) and "" (2014).
Pixar
In 1985, while still at Lucasfilm, they had made a deal with the Japanese publisher Shogakukan to make a computer animated movie called "Monkey", based on the Monkey King. The project continued some time after they became a separate company in 1986, but in the end it became clear that the technology was simply not there yet. The computers were not powerful enough and the budget would be too high. So it was decided to focus on the computer hardware business some more years while waiting till Moore's law made a computer animated feature possible.
The Incredibles
He imagined it as a homage to the 1960s comic books and spy films from his boyhood and he initially tried to develop it as a 2D cel animation. When "The Iron Giant" became a box office bomb, he reconnected with old friend John Lasseter at Pixar in March 2000 and pitched his story idea to him. Bird and Lasseter knew each other from their college years at CalArts in the 1970s. Lasseter was sold on the idea and convinced Bird to come to Pixar, where the film would be done in computer animation. The studio announced a multi-film contract with Bird on May 4, 2000. "The Incredibles" was written and directed solely by Brad Bird, a departure from previous Pixar productions which typically had two or three directors and as many screenwriters with a history of working for the company. In addition, it would be the company's first film in which all characters are human.
Bird came to Pixar with the lineup of the story's family members worked out: a mom and dad, both suffering through the dad's midlife crisis; a shy teenage girl; a cocky ten-year-old boy; and a baby. Bird had based their powers on family archetypes. During production, Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli visited Pixar and saw the film's story reels. When Bird asked if the reels made any sense or if they were just "American nonsense," Miyazaki replied, through an interpreter, "I think it's a very adventurous thing you are trying to do in an American film."
List of Pixar awards and nominations (feature films)
On January 25, 2011, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that "Toy Story 3" was not only nominated for Best Animated Feature, but also for Best Picture. This makes "Toy Story 3" only the third animated film to be nominated for Best Picture (following Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" and Disney·Pixar's "Up"). It became the second Pixar film to be nominated for both awards. "Toy Story 3" also became the first ever Pixar film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, though six of Pixar's previous films were nominated for the Best Original Screenplay – ("Toy Story", "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Ratatouille", "WALL-E", and "Up"). In 2011, it was nominated for a Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Animated Movie, but lost to "Despicable Me".
Pixar
Jim Morris, president of Pixar, produced Disney's "John Carter" (2012) which Andrew Stanton co-wrote and directed.
Pixar
"The Science Behind Pixar" is a travelling exhibition that first opened on June 28, 2015, at the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts. It was developed by the Museum of Science in collaboration with Pixar. The exhibit features forty interactive elements that explain the production pipeline at Pixar. They are divided into eight sections, each demonstrating a step in the filmmaking process: Modeling, Rigging, Surfaces, Sets & Cameras, Animation, Simulation, Lighting, and Rendering. Before visitors enter the exhibit, they watch a short video at an introductory theater showing Mr. Ray from "Finding Nemo" and Roz from "Monsters, Inc.".
Major film studio
Only one of the major studios changed corporate hands during the first decade of the 2000s, though it did so three times: Universal was acquired by Vivendi in 2000, then by General Electric four years later, and finally by Comcast in 2011. More developments took place among the majors' subsidiaries. The very successful animation production house Pixar, whose films were distributed by Buena Vista, was acquired by Disney in 2006. In 2008, New Line Cinema lost its independent status within Time Warner and became a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Time Warner also announced that it would be shutting down its two specialty units, Warner Independent and Picturehouse. In 2008 as well, Paramount Vantage's production, marketing, and distribution departments were folded into the parent studio, though it retained the brand for release purposes. Universal sold off its genre specialty division, Rogue Pictures, to Relativity Media in 2009. Disney closed down Miramax's operations in January 2010, and sold off the unit and its library that July to an investor group led by Ronald N. Tutor of the Tutor Perini construction firm and Tom Barrack of the Colony Capital private equity firm.
Alexander Schure
Although Clark would move on to found Silicon Graphics and Netscape, the rest of the NYIT team continued to play key roles as Pixar's animation developed from its first short films in the mid-1980s onward. It can be said that Dr. Schure's vision and support from 1975 to 1980, and the low-pressure academic research lab environment at NYIT, was an essential contributor to the development of many of the technical innovations needed to produce realistic computer generated films. He funded the computers and frame buffers used in the making of the unfinished computer-generated film "The Works (film)". It was also during this time that Schure directed the animated movie Tubby the Tuba (1975 film).
Pixies discography
Pixies formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1985. Following their 1987 demo tape, the band signed to the English independent record label 4AD. They released "Come On Pilgrim", comprising eight songs from their demo tape, in October 1987. Their first full-length album, "Surfer Rosa", was released in 1988 on 4AD; an American distribution deal was agreed with Rough Trade Records several months later. However, "Surfer Rosa" did not see wide distribution in the United States.
Luxo Jr.
Some variations of this sequence were created for specific Pixar films. For "Cars", the message "Celebrating 20 Years" appeared as the background faded out, with Luxo Jr.'s head used as the zero. Pixar was founded in 1986; "Cars", released in 2006, marked their 20th anniversary.
Circle 7 Animation
The first (and only) projects that the studio worked on were early drafts of "Toy Story 3", "Monsters, Inc. 2: Lost in Scaradise", and "Finding Nemo 2". In the end of January 2006, new Disney CEO Bob Iger and Jobs agreed to a deal in which Disney would purchase Pixar for $7.4 billion, with Pixar's leadership (Edwin Catmull and Lasseter) taking control of Disney's animation group, and Pixar would be making "Toy Story 3" – director Andrew Stanton stated that Pixar purposely avoided looking at Circle 7's script.
Jim Morris (film producer)
Morris joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2005. He was producer of Pixar's critically acclaimed 2008 film, "WALL-E", and was responsible for managing the production of the studio's features, shorts, DVD content, and theme park activities. In 2008 he was named as general manager for Pixar Animation Studios.
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.
Ann Mather
Ann Mather (born April 10, 1960) is an English business executive. She currently serves on the board of directors of Alphabet, Netflix, Glu Mobile, Shutterfly, MGM Holdings, Airbnb and Arista Networks. Mather was formerly executive vice president and chief financial officer of Pixar Studios from September 1999 to April 2004. She is an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
Pixar
After the deal closed in May 2006, Lasseter revealed that Iger had realized Disney needed to buy Pixar while watching a parade at the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland in September 2005. Iger noticed that of all the Disney characters in the parade, not one was a character that Disney had created within the last ten years since all the newer ones had been created by Pixar. Upon returning to Burbank, Iger commissioned a financial analysis that confirmed that Disney had actually lost money on animation for the past decade, then presented that information to the board of directors at his first board meeting after being promoted from COO to CEO, and the board, in turn, authorized him to explore the possibility of a deal with Pixar. Lasseter and Catmull were wary when the topic of Disney buying Pixar first came up, but Jobs asked them to give Iger a chance (based on his own experience negotiating with Iger in summer 2005 for the rights to ABC shows for the fifth-generation iPod Classic), and in turn, Iger convinced them of the sincerity of his epiphany that Disney really needed to re-focus on animation.
Lasseter and Catmull's oversight of both the Disney Animation and Pixar studios did not mean that the two studios were merging, however. In fact, additional conditions were laid out as part of the deal to ensure that Pixar remained a separate entity, a concern that analysts had expressed about the Disney deal. Some of those conditions were that Pixar HR policies would remain intact, including the lack of employment contracts. Also, the Pixar name was guaranteed to continue, and the studio would remain in its current Emeryville, California, location with the "Pixar" sign. Finally, branding of films made post-merger would be "Disney•Pixar" (beginning with "Cars").
Brenda Chapman
Chapman moved to Pixar in 2003, where she had a brief stint on "Cars" before beginning development on and directing "Brave". Chapman conceived the project and was announced as the director of the film, making her Pixar's first female director. In October 2010, however, she was replaced by Mark Andrews following creative disagreements. There were rumors that she subsequently left Pixar, but she remained on staff until shortly after the release of "Brave", and started work as a consultant at Lucasfilm at the end of July 2012, where she helped solve story problems of "Strange Magic". When asked whether she will return to Pixar, Chapman responded: "That door is closed. I made the right decision to leave and firmly closed that door. I have no desire to go back there. The atmosphere and the leadership doesn't fit well with me." She has stated a sequel to "Brave" is inevitable.
Pixar
At the time Walt Disney Studios was interested and eventually bought and used the Pixar Image Computer and custom software written by Pixar as part of their Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) project, to migrate the laborious ink and paint part of the 2D animation process to a more automated method.
Pixar
As a result of the success of "Toy Story", Pixar built a new studio at the Emeryville campus which was designed by PWP Landscape Architecture and opened in November 2000.
Robert B. Ingebretsen
Ingebretsen worked with Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull in 1972 to produce one of the first digital films, a 20-second portrait of a human hand.
George Lucas
The animation studio Pixar was founded in 1979 as the Graphics Group, one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm. Pixar's early computer graphics research resulted in groundbreaking effects in films such as "" and "Young Sherlock Holmes", and the group was purchased in 1986 by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple Computer. Jobs paid Lucas US$5 million and put US$5 million as capital into the company. The sale reflected Lucas' desire to stop the cash flow losses from his 7-year research projects associated with new entertainment technology tools, as well as his company's new focus on creating entertainment products rather than tools. A contributing factor was cash-flow difficulties following Lucas' 1983 divorce concurrent with the sudden dropoff in revenues from "Star Wars" licenses following the release of "Return of the Jedi".