History, Ownership and Structure of Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios is an American CGI animation film studio based in Emeryville, California, United States. They originally started in 1979 as the Graphics Group, a part of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm before it was acquired by Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs in 1986.
Pixar was founded as The Graphics Group, which is one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm that was launched in 1979
Disney announced on January 24, 2006 that it had agreed to buy Pixar for approximately $7.4 billion in an all-stock deal. Following Pixar shareholder approval, the acquisition was completed May 5, 2006.
Types of products made:
All Pixar features have a common theme. The setting of the film is always a world in which people/creatures/objects that are not commonly thought to have normal everyday lives live in societies resembling modern American society, For example:
Toy Story - Toys come to life and live in a community in their owner's room while he's away.
A Bug's Life - Insects live in harmony and have their own hierarchy and tiny little cities.
Monsters, Inc. - Horrifying monsters live everyday lives in their own community. Scaring kids is just their day job.
Finding Nemo - The ocean, like Earth's land mass, has its own cities, schools and communities ruled by fish.
The Incredibles - Superheroes live among us and take ordinary jobs and have ordinary problems, such as a greedy boss or a troublemaking son.
Cars - Vehicles are by themselves without humans.
Ratatouille - A rat visits Paris and wants to cook.
WALL•E - Two robots fly to space.
Up - An old man's house gets lifted by balloons.
Brave- In a kingdom, a rebellious princess wants to live as freely as she desires.
Feature Films:
Toy Story (1995) was Pixar's first fully animated film using CGI. A little boy named Andy loves to be in his room, playing with his toys,
especially his doll named "Woody". But, what do the toys do when Andy is
not with them, they come to life. Woody believes that he has life (as a
toy) good. However, he must worry about Andy's family moving, and what
Woody does not know is about Andy's birthday party. Woody does not
realize that Andy's mother gave him an action figure known as Buzz
Lightyear, who does not believe that he is a toy, and quickly becomes
Andy's new favorite toy. Woody, who is now consumed with jealousy, tries
to get rid of Buzz. Then, both Woody and Buzz are now lost. They must
find a way to get back to Andy before he moves without them, but they
will have to pass through a ruthless toy killer, Sid Phillips.
A Bug's Life (1998) was the first Pixar film to be released in 2.35:1 (Cinemascope) Widescreen. Every year, a bunch of grasshoppers come to the anthill and eat what the
ants have gathered for them. The "offering", as the ants call the
ritual, is a part of their fate.
One day in spring, when the offering's
preparation has just been finished, Flik, unliked inventor ant,
accidentally drops the whole offered seeds into the river. The
grasshoppers come and give the ants a second chance to collect food
until fall. Flik sets off to find bugs that are willing to fight the
grasshoppers (nobody expects him to succeed anyway) and, due to a double
misinterpretation, returns with a circus crew, giving everybody new
hope. When the misunderstanding finally gets cleared out, there is only
little time left for a new plan, which has to work, or else
Toy Story 2 (1999) had been originally slated as a direct-to-video film which means it was set to release straight to DVD/VHS instead of going to the cinema first. While Andy is away at summer camp Woody has been toynapped by Al
McWiggin, a greedy collector and proprietor of "Al's Toy
Barn"! In this
all-out rescue mission, Buzz and his friends Mr. Potato Head, Slinky
Dog, Rex and Hamm springs into action to rescue Woody from winding up as
a museum piece. They must find a way to save him before he gets sold in
Japan forever and they'll never see him again!
Monsters, Inc. (2001) was nominated for the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. A city of monsters with no humans called Monstropolis centers around the
city's power company, Monsters, Inc. The lovable, confident, tough,
furry blue behemoth-like giant monster named James P. Sullivan (better
known as Sulley) and his wisecracking best friend, short, green cyclops
monster Mike
Wazowski, discover what happens when the real world
interacts with theirs in the form of a 2-year-old baby girl dubbed
"Boo," who accidentally sneaks into the monster world with Sulley one
night. And now it's up to Sulley and Mike to send Boo back in her door
before anybody finds out, especially two evil villains such as Sulley's
main rival as a scarer, chameleon-like Randall (a monster that Boo is
very afraid of), who possesses the ability to change the color of his
skin, and Mike and Sulley's boss Mr. Waternoose, the chairman and chief
executive officer of Monsters, Inc.
Finding Nemo (2003) was the Academy Award winner for 2004.
A clown fish named Marlin lives in the Great Barrier Reef loses his son,
Nemo. After he ventures into the open sea, despite his father's
constant warnings about many of the ocean's dangers. Nemo is abducted by
a boat and netted up and sent to a dentist's office in Sydney. So,
while Marlin ventures off to try to retrieve Nemo, Marlin meets a fish
named Dory, a blue tang suffering from short-term memory loss. The
companions travel
a great distance, encountering various dangerous sea
creatures such as sharks, anglerfish and jellyfish, in order to rescue
Nemo from the dentist's office, which is situated by Sydney Harbor.
While the two are doing this, Nemo and the other sea animals in the
dentist's fish tank plot a way to return to Sydney Harbor to live their
lives free again.
Cars (2006) was the last Pixar film made before Disney's acquisition of Pixar. While traveling to
California for the dispute of the final race of the
Piston Cup against The King and Chick Hicks, the famous Lightning
McQueen accidentally damages the road of the small town Radiator Springs
and is sentenced to repair it. Lightning McQueen has to work hard and
finds friendship and love in the simple locals, changing its values
during his stay in the small town and becoming a true winner.
Shorts:
Aside from big feature films, Pixar also made 'Short's' which is self explanatory, Short Animations.
Luxo Jr. (1986) a major point to their success, this became the source of today's Pixar logo.
It was the first short film produced by the newly formed Pixar Animation Studios
. The only characters are two Anglepoise desk lamps
Red's Dream (1987) about a red unicycle named Red, who dreams of becoming the star in a circus act. In his dream, a clown called Lumpy is seen riding Red and juggling.
Tin Toy (1988) The Academy Award winner for 1988. About a small toy named Tinny, who is trying to escape from Billy,
a baby who wants to play with him and dribble on him
Knick Knack (1989) A snowman in a snow globe wants to get to a pretty woman on an ashtray knick knack that says Sunny Miami on it. He tries various methods to escape.
Geri's Game (1997), Academy Award winner 1997. An old man named Geri
plays a game of chess in the park against himself. He starts off
playing as white, but then hoists himself up, and lumbers over to play
as the black opponent. He quickly dominates the game as the black side,
although he is his own opponent.
For the Birds (2000) Academy Award winner 2001. Fifteen blue birds land one-by-one on a power line, and soon they
encounter a huge and goofy-looking bird. They mimic and tease him, but
he goes on the cord anyway. The little birds start pecking on him. They
successfully get him off, but when the big bird falls off, the birds are
flung away into the sky.
Mike's New Car (2002) based on characters from Monsters, Inc. Mike is obsessed with his new six-wheel drive car, and insists on showing
it off to his pal Sulley. Unfortunately for Mike, everything that can
go wrong does go wrong. Sulley plays with the ultra-adjustable seats
until an annoyed Mike asks him to stop. Mike starts the engine and the
seatbelt reminder tone sounds. He finds his seatbelt stuck and
accidentally locks himself out of the car while trying to unstick it.
Since December 2005, Pixar has held exhibitions celebrating the art and artists of Pixar, over their first twenty years in animation.
20 Years of Animation
Pixar held one such exhibition, from April to June 2010, at Science Centre Singapore, in Jurong East, Singapore. It was their first time holding an exhibition in Singapore.
25 Years of Animation
Pixar celebrated 25 years of animation in 2011 with the release of its twelfth feature film, Cars 2. The Pixar: 25 Years of Animation exhibition was held at the Oakland Museum of California from July 2010 until January 2011.
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Technologies and techniques used:
Since its incorporation, Pixar has been responsible for many important breakthroughs in the application of computer graphics (CG) for filmmaking. The company has attracted some of the world's finest talent in this area.
Pixar's technical and creative teams have collaborated since 1986 to develop production software used in-house to create its movies and further the state of the art in CG movie making. This proprietary technology allows the production of animated images of a quality, richness and vibrancy that are unique in the industry, and above all, allows the director to precisely control the end results in a way that is exactly right for the story. Pixar continues to invest heavily in its software systems and believes that further advancements will lead to additional productivity and quality improvements in the making of its computer animated films.
RenderMan is the render software Pixar created in 1988, and now uses to help produce its CGI films. Since it's creation, RenderMan has become the industry-standard and has since been used to render many films including The Abyss, Terminator II and Jurassic Park.
Marionette is the animation software developed and used in-house by Pixar Animation Studios in the animation of their movies and shorts. Marionette is not available for sale and is only used by Pixar. As a result little is known outside of Pixar about the detailed workings of this software.
