P2. Researching Pixar

Pixar is an computer animation film studio based in California. It started in the 1970's when Alexander Schare was looking for someone to help him create an animated film from the sound recordings of Tubby the Tuba. He met Ed Catmull who was a computer scientist and set up a work

place at New York institute of technology, NYIT's long island campus to work on computer graphics. However Tubby the Tuba was never made, they did produce video artwork. In 1979 George Lucas suggested to move the team to the West coast to be part of the Lucasfilm Utd. They first started as a software company. Over the next couple of years Ed Catmull worked on a imaging computer called "Pixar". They used it to create high-tech graphics and animation sequences for Lucasfilm projects. They also worked on creating their own Renderman called Reyes. They perfected critical technologies for CG and animation tools. In 1982 they helped Industrial light & magic with special effects for their film sequences. 

In 1983 John Lasseter helped them make a short film called The adventures of Andre & Wally B. After a year he joined the company permanently as an interface designer. Then in 1986 Steve Jobs, co founder of apple acquired the computer graphics division from George Lucas,Lucasfilms. This made Pixar a independent film studio. Also in 1986 the short film Luxo Jr, directed by John Lasseter 

 was finished. It was the first film John Lasseter had directed. Luxo Jr was nominated for the Best animated short film Oscar, which made it the first three-dimensional computer animated film to be nominated for the award. In 1987 another short film, Red's dream directed by John Lasseter was created. By the end of 1988 a 3rd film, Tin Toy was partially completed. Just like the other two films it was screened for Siggraph in August. It was then shown at the Ottawa international film fest when finished. Tin Toy then won Best animated short film of 1988, which made it the first computer animated film to win an Academy award. In 1989 they produced their first stereoscopic 3D animation, Knick Knack. Also in 1989 the first commercial version of Renderman was released. Pixar's Renderman is used to render 3D animation and visual effects. Pixar has been using it on all short and feature films they have created.

In 1991 Pixar and Disney decided to make and distribute at least one computer generated animated film. In 1995 they has done one, Toy Story. It was the worlds first computer animated film. Toy Story made $192 million domestically and $362 million worldwide. It was also nominated for 3 awards, Best original song, Best original score and Best original screenplay by the Academy of motion pictures arts and sciences. By 1997 Pixar employed 375 people. They also had an agreement with The Walt Disney Studios that they will be producing five movies over ten years but in 2004 the agreement was having problems after the production of Toy Story 2. This was because Pixar wanted it to go straight to video release but Disney wanted it to go to theatres. However before creating Toy Story Pixar started making commercials, two of which won the CLIO award. Due to their short films they had a lot of people asking them to make them for them but Pixar was only interested if they would be involved in the designing and creativity of the adverts because they wanted recognition for their work. Then in 2006 The Walt Disney Company brought Pixar for $7.4 billion. This made Steve Jobs Disney's highest shareholder. 

During 1997-2011 Pixar released many short films and fourteen feature films such as A bugs life,Cars 1+2, Finding Nemo, The incredible's, Geri's game,For the birds and Lifted. All were nominated for awards and are all in the top 50 highest grossing animated films. Since 1979 they have won awards including 27 Academy awards, 7 Golden globes and 11 Grammys. Their films were all aimed at children but all ages enjoy them. Which has turned their films genre into kids and family. In 2002 Pixar made a short film, Mike's new car' using characters from one of their feature films. The short film was released as part of Monster Inc and was nominated for Best animated short film. Even though all their films have been successful their Cars sequel has been the least. The films have been very succesful compared to other studios animated films but wasn't as successful as Pixar's famous and popular movies such as Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and Toy Story. In 2013 Pixar went back to producing adverts. They have recently done promotional adverts for Sky's broadband services. They used characters from their most successful movies, Toy Story. They also did a short Toy Story film, Toy Story of terror which was only played on Sky for Halloween and was promoted through their broadband adverts.

Pixar's success has mainly been because of technology and the time and effort they put into their work. Pixar develops and spends time trying to get the best out the technology they use. They make films using animation which many people thought would be impossible. Pixar also try to learn about what they need in their films by physically doing things that are related to their stories. For example when creating Finding Nemo they learnt how to scuba dive and when creating Ratatouille they learnt gourmet cooking. 

Pixar are well known for their cartoon computer animation however recently they have revealed videos of realistic and painted (stylising) animation. Realistic animation is where you use normal footage and just use a little bit of animation. For example in their short film "the blue umbrella" the people and surroundings are normal but the umbrellas have eyes and a mouth. However everything does have a slight animated feel to it and some of the buildings and objects around also have eyes and mouths. The painted (stylising) animation is where you paint 2D illustrations over a couple of the CG keyframes and the software will fill in the missing bits.

                                                           http://vimeo.com/64407522