Research - Pixar

After the recent talk by Chris Sasaki I have decided to look further into Pixar animation studios as a point of research. Pixar is an American computer animation company that was founded in 1979 under the name the 'Graphics Group'. Which was a section of the computer division of Lucas Film at the time. In 1986, Steve Jobs gave funding to the group causing it to spin out. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar for a value of $7.6 billion, which brings us to present day. As of December 2013, the companies feature films have grossed over $8.5 billion worldwide with the average gross per film totalling $616 million. The relationship between Pixar and Disney is an interesting one and the two companies have a lot of history together. They had disagreements over the production of Toy Story 2 which was originally intended to be a straight to video release. However, Pixar wanted it to count toward the three picture agreement but Disney refused.

Speaking about the animation team at Pixar in particular even thought there are multiple roles within the company in terms of the art department, such as character or environment designers or even storyboard artists. The animators at Pixar came from a range of different animation backgrounds.

There were disagreements between Steve Jobs and the Disney CEO at the time Michael Eisner. Jobs being on the board at the time because of his 7 percent share he had in Disney. This consequently made negotiations difficult and agreements that might have been fell through as a result. The two companies resumed efforts to come to an agreement regarding a deal in 2005 after Michael Eisner left Disney. It was around this time that Steven Jobs announced what I believe to be a bold and interesting move regarding the business side of Pixar schedule, stating Pixar films would be released in the early summer months as opposed to the November time that Disney preferred, this would mean that Pixar films would available to purchase around Christmas and the winter months.

Pixar is an incredibly creative studio that gives a lot of freedom to its employees. After watching a lot of interviews with staff members of Pixar, they all ultimately say the same thing in that they get excited by the challenges. I guess that's what PIxar looks for essentially in it's employees because it is always innovating and leading new ideas, as a forerunner for animation amongst other things.