Pixar: “Protecting and Nurturing the Story”
Our world has been driven by stories for centuries, with creative models for storytelling developing from literature to stage performances, to the modern day industry of filmmaking. Everyday, thousands flock to movie theaters to be wowed, frightened, uplifted, and motivated by all kinds of stories. In the mid-twentieth century Disney enraptured their audiences with timeless stories featuring unforgettable characters in animated films. As proven by the recent re-release of the film Lady and the Tramp, Disney owns the field of pipeline storytelling, shelling out one blockbuster hit after another. The plots and characters of these popular animated feature films have become part of our modern mythology, enjoyed generation after generation. Traditionally, these films have been created using a time-consuming and labor-intensive process of two-dimensional, hand-drawn cel animation. That is until Pixar disrupted the animation field by taking on what many saw as impossible: creating computer-generated films that focused on communicating narratives through remarkable images and creative storylines. In so doing, Pixar has left the competition playing catch-up, seeking to match both their image quality and timeless narrative.
After getting ousted by Apple in 1986, Steve Jobs quickly made one of the greatest business decisions of his life, buying Lucasfilms's computer graphics division from George Lucas for $10 million. He named his new company Pixar. Initially Pixar was a high-end hardware company whose core product was the Pixar Image Computers, a system which was primarily sold to government agencies and medical communities. One of the leading buyers of Pixar Image Computers was Disney studios, who were using the device as part of their secretive CAPS project, migrating the laborious Ink and Paint part of the 2D animation process to a more automated and efficient method. However, the Image Computer never sold well, leading Steve Jobs to pursue other areas for generating revenue.
Jobs and Pixar put everything on the line when they decided to become more than a computer outsourcer. They fashioned themselves into an assembly line of timeless stories, rolling out one memorable character after another. Pixar contracted five films with Disney, a decision that has proven to be extremely profitable for both companies. With Pixar making the stories and Disney distributing the films, a new fleet of animated characters joined the world's timeless storybook of inspiring and creative anecdotes. Pixar's release of Toy Story marked the breakthrough of a truly innovative movie-making method. "The film received tremendous critical acclaim and became the highest grossing film of 1995, generating $362 million in worldwide box office receipts." Toy Story's director and Pixar's executive vice president of production, John Lasseter, received a Special Achievement Academy Award for his "inspired leadership" of the Pixar Toy Story team that resulted in the first feature-length computer animated film. Pixar's six feature films Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), and The Incredibles (2004) have grossed more than $3 billion in worldwide box office receipts, and rank among the top grossing animated films of all time.
What's made Pixar so successful in the midst of so many films and productions? Their objective to combine technology and world-class creative talent in order to develop computer-animated feature films with memorable characters and heartwarming stories that appeal to audiences of all ages. It helps that their films are largely focused on the humor that exists in friendly communities and families-core values that speak to a highly diverse audience base. With the inception of Toy Story, Pixar produced a film that was primed to create an entire system of revenue including toys from the movie, t-shirts, and other products families would want after being endeared to the timeless characters in the film.
Pixar's innovation hasn't just turned them into the new Disney, it has taken them "to the end of the earth and beyond." They've "out-Disneyed Disney," becoming the apprentice that schooled the master. Chris Wedge, the director of 20th Century Fox's Ice Age and Robots explains that, "What Pixar is so great at is developing wholly original ideas . . . and it's not just the idea-it's the story, beat by beat, and the characters and relationships. That's the real hard part." Pixar captures themes that relate to audiences, like in The Incredibles. Almost any family can relate to the relationships occurring in the film: a frustrated has-been father with an exhausted mother just trying to catch a break, finally discovering that there's a little "incredible" in everyone. In Finding Nemo the story is based on a paranoid, heartbroken father who works to overcome his fears in order to find his son. Pixar's success comes from stories that build upon relationships and community, combining an innovative plot with an incredible picture.
The Creation Process
The final on-screen product is the result of a team-oriented creation process in the studio. Pixar practices a unique method of creation, seeking to make their environment "open-source" friendly. With so much talent packed into the company, Pixar's greatest problem is bringing out all that creativity in an open way. This is why Pixar has regular "classes" that answer the question of how can art be turned from a solitary creation process to a team sport? Here's how it works: people take their lunch hour (two, actually) to risk looking amateur in front of each other and the boss. This freedom encourages the creation and development of ideas, harboring the talents of the artists while simultaneously releasing them. Pixar understands the art-creation process, and it shows.
Pixar recognizes that through collaboration they can truly establish themselves as a disruptive force in the filmmaking industry. From their inception through their unparalleled growth, Pixar continues to do things differently. For this reason they hire people like Brad Bird, the creator of The Simpsons and The Incredibles. The only fear Pixar has in their creative process is complacency. Brad Bird states that Pixar needs "to bring in outside people so we (can) keep throwing ourselves off balance . . . so I was brought here to cause a certain amount of disruption. I've been fired for being disruptive several times, but this is first time I've been hired for it." Yet Bird's disruption paid off, keeping Pixar on the cutting edge of storytelling.
One of the key visionaries for Pixar's great success has been director John Lasseter. Lasseter had long envisioned the future of computer graphics animation, working on Disney's first major foray into computer-aided production, Tron (1981). Tron required nearly 30 minutes of film-quality computer graphics and was a daunting task for computer graphics studios at the time. The computer-generated imagery of Tron was technologically dazzling, but the underlying story was an unappealing cyber-adventure. Disney sunk about $20 million into the picture, but it bombed at the box office. The financial loss alone served to all but kill Disney's interest in the computer graphics medium.
Despite the commercial failure of Tron, the film was an epiphany for Lasseter. Watching what fellow animators were doing with computer graphics imagery, he started to see the possibilities of full-scale computer animation. "The minute I saw the light-cycle sequence, which had such dimensionality and solidity," Lasseter recalls, "it was like a little door in my head opening to a whole new world." Lasseter and fellow animator Glen Keane (who went on to make Beauty and the Beast) tried to interest Disney in the medium by animating 30 seconds of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, using standard animation drawings in computer-generated settings. But Disney, which was struggling to rebuild after years of lackluster box office performances, was not interested in further experimentation with untried computer animation. In 1984, a disappointed Lasseter left Disney after the studio passed on his proposed animation project for The Brave Little Toaster, a film based on a Thomas Disch children's book. Ed Catmull, a friend of Lasseter, convinced him to come to Lucasfilms to experiment for just a month, and John liked what he found so much that he never left. Lasseter would go on to direct Toy Story, the first full-length computer animated film about a story told from the point of view of toys.
Technological Breakthroughs
Pixar's technical and creative teams have collaborated since 1986 to develop three core proprietary software systems: Marionette, an animation software system for modeling, animating and lighting; Ringmaster, a production management software system for scheduling, coordinating, and tracking a computer animation project; and RenderMan, a rendering software system for high-quality, photo-realistic image synthesis that Pixar uses internally and licenses to third parties.
Pixar's technology, which enables animators to precisely control the motion of characters and sets in each frame, represents a breakthrough in the art of animation. The result is a new "look and feel," with images of unsurpassed quality, richness, and vibrancy that are completely unique in the filmmaking industry. Pixar has had incredible success with this technology, outsourcing to blockbuster productions such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Besides creating unforgettable images, Pixar's technology also has its practical side: facilitating the manipulation, editing, and reuse of animated images, which helps to reduce person-hours and film production expenses.
Business Model: Simple to Success
Because of the fantastic pictures produced by their innovative technology, Pixar is capable of developing timeless characters that generate billions of dollars. Before and after the actual film, Pixar markets through toys and home entertainment, directing their investment to all audiences. Everything Pixar does is in an effort to make things more simple and cost-effective, while promoting their name on a large-scale basis. Their success has lead to a new traveling art exhibit entitled, Pixar: 20 Years of Animation. The exhibit "is a tribute to a company of artists whose work has reinvented the genre of animation through a technology unique to the late 20th century and whose possibilities in the 21st century can only be imagined." http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2005/pixar.html. Pixar's success in pioneering a new genre that blows away the competition is undeniable.
Educational Implementation
Pixar is taking their talent beyond the big screen by furthering their cause in the classroom. Teamed with Disney, they created innovative children's software that motivates kids to learn with reward-based game play, engaging tutorials, and entertaining Disney and Pixar characters. Through educational programs, Pixar can use the relationships their characters build to further a system of values that will improve kids' outlook on education.
Disney Learning Adventure: Search for the Secret Keys and Disney/Pixar's 2nd & 3rd Grade are brand new titles specifically designed to keep kids engaged in the learning process. Disney/Pixar's 1st Grade provides fresh and updated activities not seen in the original title, which launched in 2000. Produced with assistance from leading educators, all three products are comprehensive, multi-subject educational tools that incorporate games and activities which are just as much fun to play as they are to solve. Each title provides different difficulty levels that automatically adjust via dynamic leveling and offers positive reinforcement from beloved Disney and Pixar characters.
In one game, kids can play Buzz Lightyear or Mira Nova as boys and girls strive to save a nearby planet from the powerful forces of the Evil Emperor Zurg. They traverse a galaxy filled with arcade-style games in a spaceship that requires four different color fuels to keep running. The fuel supply will eventually run low as kids navigate the universe. When it runs out, additional energy must be produced to continue game play. Players refuel by competing in knowledge-building activities that develop math, reading, language and logic skills. This uniquely different and endless learn-to-play loop ensures that children are exposed to all curriculum activities and compels kids to play more frequently than with other traditional learning software. Providing extra entertainment value are the aliens who assign fun missions and supply information on the whereabouts of Zurg through mini-movies featuring Buzz Lightyear and Mira Nova. Players can also discover game secrets online that enable ship upgrades and reveal fun audio clips. Pixar's creative use of technology sparks the interest of kids who have already fallen in love with the characters they've seen in the movies. Pixar is investing wisely in social capital, ensuring that their creations continue to develop the values they portray in their films.
The Future of Pixar
After several years of negotiations Pixar and Disney have finally merged, marrying the dynamic storyteller of the past with the creative, tech-savvy creators of the future. With Steve Jobs still at the helm (and also reinstated at Apple), Pixar is sure to continue their innovative work values and methods onto the big screen and into the hearts and homes of the world.
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