Company Profile: Pixar’s Story

Ever wonder how Pixar got started? Although it has only been around for about 30 years, it has certainly made its impact in the film industry! We take a brief look at the history, films, and people involved in creating Pixar, as well as peek into the future at upcoming feature films.

---

 1979

 

Ed Catmull is recruited by George Lucas from The New York Institute of Technology to lead Lucasfilm’s Computer Division.

 

 

---

1983

John Lasseter joins the Lucasfilm crew and works on the short film The Adventures of Andre & Wally B. He is hired full – time in 1984 as an interface designer.

---

 1984

The Adventures of Andre & Wally B. is the first short film created by the studio. It features complex, flexible characters, hand-painted textures, and motion blur — ground-breaking technology at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

---

1986

Steve Jobs buys the Computer Graphics Division from George Lucas and names it “Pixar.” There are about 44 people working in the studio at the time.

---

  1989

Knick Knack is completed and the first of the company’s animations to be produced in stereoscopic 3D. The first version of RenderMan is released and will become the company’s standard software for rendering computer graphics.

 

 

 

 

---

1995

Toy Story is the world’s first computer animated feature film and becomes the highest grossing film of 1995, making $192 million domestically and $362 million worldwide. Toy Story is nominated for several awards, including Best Original Song, Best Original Score, and Best Original Screenplay by Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

---

1998

A Bug’s Life is released in November and breaks all previous U.S. Thanksgiving weekend box-office records. Pixar now employs approximately 400 people.

---

 1999

Toy Story 2 is released in November and is the first film in history to be entirely created, mastered, and exhibited digitally, and the first animated sequel to gross more than its original (it broke the box-office opening weekend records in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan).

---

 2000

For the Birds premieres at the Annecy International Film Festival in France in June, eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Pixar moves into its new building in Emeryville, CA in November, where it is still located today.

---

 2001

Monsters Inc. is released in November and grosses over $100 million in domestic box-office in just nine days – faster than any animated film in history. Pixar now has over 600 employees.

 

 

 

 

---

 2003

Finding Nemo is released in May and breaks weekend box-office records domestically for an animated feature. It’s nominated for four Academy Awards and wins the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

 

 

 

 

 

---

 2004

The Incredibles is released in November and breaks all Pixar records. Wins Best Animated Feature Film and Achievement in Sound Editing out of the four Academy Awards it was nominated for.

---

2006

Cars is released in June and receives Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. As Pixar celebrates its 20th anniversary, Disney announces its agreement to purchase Pixar.

 

 

 

 

 

---

2007

Ratatouille is released in theaters in June, and is nominated for five Academy Awards and wins the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

 

 

 

 

 

---

2008

WALL-E is released in June and is nominated for six Academy Awards and takes home the Oscar for the Best Animated Feature Film.

---

2009

Up debuts in theaters in May with the original short Partly Cloudy. The film is nominated for five Academy Awards.

---

2010

Toy Story 3 is released in June and becomes the highest-grossing animated film of all time, the first to reach the billion dollar mark. It is nominated for five Academy Awards. John Lasseter is honored with the Producers Guild of America’s 2010 David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures, making him the first producer of animated films to receive the award.

---

2012

Brave is released in June, accompanied by the short, La Luna.

 

 

 

 

 

---

2013

Monsters University is released in June, accompanied by The Blue Umbrella. ABC televised specials Toy Story of Terror and Tales from Radiator Springs  are released.

---

 2015

Inside Out is released in June and was the highest grossing original, non-sequel property opening ever.

 

 

---

---

---

News and Events: Upcoming Movies

Here are a few new feature films we can look forward to!

November 25, 2015: The Good Dinosaur

The heartwarming tale that shows what might have happened to dinosaurs if the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs never destroyed them.

---

 

June 17, 2016: Finding dory

The sequel that swims with everyones favorite blue tang fish.

---

june 16, 2017: Cars 3

The third movie that follows Mater and Lightening McQueen on another racing adventure.

---

November 22, 2017: Coco

A new film that takes audiences on an adventure through generations, both living and dead.

---

june 15, 2018: toy story 4

The love story between everyone’s favorite cowboy, Woody, and Bo Peep.

---

june 21, 2019: incredibles 2

The long-awaited sequel that takes us on an adventure with the famous super – hero family.

---

All information was taken from Pixar’s Story website and the Upcoming Pixar website, and copyright belongs to them. All images are copyright of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios. No copyright infringement intended, for educational purposes only.

 

What Does a Technical Director Do?

If you’re like most of the population, you may think of the animation industry as one big company of animators who all work together and then BOOM you get a fantastic film the entire family can enjoy. I’ll admit that, until recently, I thought the same thing. However, I quickly learned that there are hundreds of different jobs within this field of storytelling. In fact, each job can be so particular and focused on one thing, it’s amazing how everything comes together in the end. This is a quick look into what a technical director does in the animation studio.

©Copyright Disney/Pixar Animation Studios

Technical directors (also know as TDs) do not have a well-defined job.

I know, I said I’d tell you what they do. But the fact is that TDs are very fluid over the industry. They can be responsible for a variety of things, including training the entry-level animators,  create new software for the artists, create different lighting techniques, etc. The list can go on forever, because if you have a team, you need a director.

©Copyright Disney/Pixar Animation Studios

A technical director is a cross between an artist and a programmer.

When you boil it down, there are two aspects to making an animated movie – the concept artwork of the story, and the technology that helps you build it. TDs bring these two fields together and help fill in the gaps between the two. They can develop character rigs, software for the animators, program shaders, etc. Technical directors also develop custom tools to help artists make movies with the newest technology, and listen to what they wish a certain software did, helping their wishes become reality.

©Copyright Pixar Animation Studios

Technical directors are experts in their field.

TDs are the go-to people that artists and programmers seek out when they are having a problem. They know everything about the software the company uses to how to light a scene in the best way. They have programming experience, computer graphics knowledge, and a touch of artistic ability, making them essentially a “handyman” in the studio. And if they don’t know? As part of the job they also come up with solutions to problems like animating 70 ft of hair, or lighting a person from the inside out.

©Copyright Disney/Pixar Animation Studios

Want to become a Technical Director?

• Learn anything and everything about what you want to work with in the field.
• Become an expert on something specific.
• Be detail-oriented.
• Be flexible, collaborative, and a team player.
• Have great problem-solving skills.

©Copyright Disney/Pixar Animation Studios

Want to Learn More?

There’s a ton of information out there to help you learn programming skills, animate, and learn the skills you need to make your dreams of a technical director come true.

Pixar’s job qualifications

Pixar’s Animation Process

Advice from a DreamWorks TD

 

Why We Miss the Big Picture When We Criticize Body Image in Disney/Pixar Films

Copyright Walt Disney Studios

Disney and Pixar films have become famously known for creating stories that appeal to all audiences. However, they get a lot of criticism for how they present both men and women in appearance (There is even something called the Disney Princess effect). These critics are missing the big picture of what these films are trying to tell their audiences.

Much of the criticism comes from wanting to have controversy for the sake of controversy. People like to argue. Before you go and tell me that the characters the film were unrealistic and make children self-conscious, we need to keep a couple of things in mind before we rip another animated film apart for being sexist and unrealistic.

Both genders are unrealistic.

Women in Disney/Pixar movies have been famously known as having exaggerated bodies – voluminous hair, tiny waists, big eyes, and long legs. Often, people are so busy criticizing the women that the men in these films often get overlooked. Although there tends to be more variety when it comes to representing men, there are still male characters with bulging muscles, flat abs, and chiseled jaw lines. Overall, all human beings represented in an animated film are not realistic.

Anyone with muscles like that would explode.. Copyright Walt Disney Pictures

No one has bangs like that. Copyright Walt Disney Pictures

It’s animated…that means fake.

We are watching an animated film – a FAKE world that someone developed from a thought inside their head. That means a fake land, in a fake time period, with fake characters. From there, a team uses computers to create a beautiful, dazzling world that captures its viewers from the first frame to the final scene.

It’s art, not reality.

As someone’s art and craft, they have the ability to make the characters look however they want. This means that the characters of a film are not a direct representation of someone in real life. In fact, most films create characters from caricatures of people. This means you take defining features and exaggerate it..sound familiar?

Forget animated movies, look around us! We have a big problem in our country with photoshopping people to make them look ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect.’ With photoshop editing techniques, we can make the real-life celebrities around us look unrealistic. The fact that an animated film gets attention with distorted body images while we accept the celebrities on the covers of magazines we see in the supermarket should be enough for a reality check.

Actress/Singer Zendaya posted before and after shots of a photoshop edit to instagram.

The characters only help tell the story.

You may think that Disney/Pixar films are only for children because they are animated, but there is a deeper theme in every movie. Here’s a few:

Finding Nemo – “A life lived in fear is no life at all.”
The Incredibles – Value everyone’s individual talents.
Cars – The journey and the friends you make along the way are what really count, not the trophy.
Wall-E – Don’t take anything for granted.
Up – The relationships we have in life are what make it special.

Now, I think for children, these themes are more important versus how the characters looked. Animated films allow people to tell a story with dazzling effects, extraordinary technological advancements and a solid theme that make you think when you’re leaving the theater.

Characters with strong morals and flaws are the favorites.

Rather than focusing on the body image of the characters, we should focus on the themes and morals of them instead. Just like us, we need characters who are human – ones with strong leadership skills and flaws – like Merida(Brave), Elsa(Frozen), Woody(Toy Story), and Mater(Cars). People like heroes, and Disney/Pixar has shown us that heroes can come in all different shapes and forms: men, women, toys, robots, bugs, and cars. I don’t think that the animators create these characters intentionally with unrealistic bodies (bulging muscles, voluminous hair, etc.) because they wish people could look like that. I think that people create these characters to tell stories. These stories have found places into our homes because we can relate to these themes, and they teach us the values of kindness, friendship, courage, and love – and that is what is important.

Copyright Pixar Animation Studios