Pixar

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Pixar

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1979 as Graphics Group, February 3, 1986 as Pixar
Seat Emeryville (California), United States
management Ed Catmull , President
Pete Docter , CCO
Branch Computer animation
Website www.pixar.com

The Pixar Animation Studios are on computer animation and CGI company specializing in Emeryville , California . Pixar has been part of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group of the Walt Disney Company since 2006 . The official abbreviation since 2006 is Disney · Pixar , until 2006 and colloquially still just Pixar . It owes its success to its animated films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo .

Pixar has received a total of twelve Oscars . The company's name "Pixar" is believed to be a made-up word from computer language and a combination of the terms "Pixer" (a freely invented, Spanish-sounding word of co-founder Alvy Ray Smith ) and "Radar" (a technical-associated word ).

history

The beginnings

Pixar headquarters
The Pixar Image Computer

The origins of Pixar Animation Studios go back to a part of the Lucasfilm Graphics Groups founded in 1979 . In 1984 animator John Lasseter joined the team, which until then consisted only of computer specialists. In the same year, the first short film was presented at SIGGRAPH : André and Wally B.

After working on special effects for some films produced by Lucasfilm or Industrial Light and Magic , the division was bought by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs for $ 5 million in 1986 shortly after he left his company (Apple) and renamed Pixar. Jobs invested another $ 5 million in the now independent company and took on the position of CEO (managing director), while Edwin Catmull (who was previously also vice president of the department within Lucasfilm) became vice president. In the same year, the short film Luxo Jr. was presented as the first Pixar production at SIGGRAPH . A year later, the film was awarded the Prix ​​Ars Electronica and received an Oscar nomination.

Pixar's original core business was the Pixar Image Computer , a high-end calculator for computer design. It was mainly used by state institutions and the medical industry. The short films were created primarily for advertising purposes. Accordingly, John Lasseter's department had an outsider role within the company. However, due to the rather moderate success of their own hardware and the good future prospects for computer animation, the core business was dissolved and the Pixar Animation Studios was founded from the animation department .

From 1989, developed by Pixar was rendering - Software RenderMan offered as a product. Today it is considered the industry standard in 3D computer graphics . In the same year, the company made a promotional film for the first time.

The company logo adorns a desk lamp that had its notable success in 1986 in one of Pixar's first award-winning short films ( The Little Lamp ) and has since been part of the Pixar film leader .

Pixar and Walt Disney

In the following years Pixar produced many advertising films for various companies. They also designed logos for Paramount and IBM . In 1991, Pixar Animation signed a contract with Walt Disney Studios for $ 26 million to produce three animated feature films.

In 1995, Toy Story was the first co-production with Disney. The film was a resounding success and grossed around 360 million US dollars worldwide. A week after Toy Story launched, Pixar went public. The stock doubled in value and Steve Jobs became a billionaire.

In 1997 the contract with Disney was expanded to five films. A year later, Pixar landed another success with The Great Crawling , and Toy Story 2 followed in 1999 . The quality of the animation increased from film to film, with Die Monster AG released in 2001 and Finding Nemo in 2003 , the film was Pixar's most financially successful film up to Toy Story 3 . The first five films grossed a combined $ 2.5 billion. However, due to the unequal distribution of rights, a dispute arose between Pixar and Disney. Pixar was responsible for ideas and production, while Disney was responsible for distribution and marketing . The costs for films were split in half. However, Disney Pictures held the rights to the stories and sequels. Pixar's sixth film was made in 2004 with The Incredibles , but in January 2004 Pixar announced that it would not renew its contracts with Disney. So it looked like that with the end of the last jointly announced project Cars, the collaboration should end. The change in the leadership of the Disney Company in October 2005, when Michael Eisner , the previous head of Disney, was replaced by Robert A. Iger , changed the situation.

On January 24, 2006, the media and entertainment group Walt Disney Company announced after the US market closed that it would take over Pixar Inc. for 7.4 billion US dollars. As part of the acquisition, Pixar CEO Steve Jobs was added to Disney's board of directors. In addition, Jobs became the largest single shareholder in Disney. Cars was released in the fall of that year .

The eighth film by Pixar is Ratatouille , which was released on June 29, 2007 in the USA and on October 3, 2007 in Germany. Directed by Brad Bird , director of the Pixar film The Incredibles , along with newcomer Jan Pinkava . The ninth Pixar film WALL · E was released on June 27, 2008 . The film directed by Andrew Stanton was released on September 25, 2008 in German-speaking countries .

On May 29, 2009, Pixar released the animated film Up in America, which is about a pensioner who goes on adventures with a little boy. The German publication followed on September 17, 2009.

So far, all of Pixar's films have hit the box office and received good reviews from critics too. Toy Story 3 is the most successful Pixar film and became the world's most financially successful animated film of all time, until Frozen in March 2014.

The third part of Toy Story was released in Germany on July 29, 2010 in 3D, after the film opened in the USA on June 18, 2010 and achieved the best weekend grossing of all Pixar films. Before that, the two previous Toy Story films were shown again in a new 3D version. Another project by the animation studio is the sequel to Cars called Cars 2 . The film, which was directed by John Lasseter, was released in German cinemas on June 28, 2011. On June 20, 2013 Die Monster Uni (Monsters University) started as a prequel to Die Monster AG in German cinemas.

In November 2015, the film Arlo & Spot (original title The Good Dinosaur) was released, which takes up the topic of how mankind would live if the dinosaurs were never extinct. Furthermore, everything is upside down appeared in the same year (original title Inside Out ). Here the viewer is led inside the human being. With Coco , an animated film was released in 2017 that deals with the day of the dead , one of the biggest Mexican holidays.

Back dating of stock options

In the meantime, the options scandal surrounding Apple's CEO Steve Jobs' backdated shares seems to have spread to the animation studio Pixar and the creative officer of the Disney animation studios John Lasseter as well as the former president of Pixar Edwin Catmull . John Lasseter had produced and co-financed numerous films and was named creative director of the studios after the Disney takeover. He is said to have received a stock option package from Pixar in 2001 as part of an employment contract, which is said to have been priced at the lowest price of the previous year. The contract is said to have been signed by Steve Jobs three months later. Lasseter reportedly received an option to purchase one million shares of Pixar at $ 26.50 each. In 2007, an in-house investigation at Pixar concluded that stock options were backdated. Steve Jobs was exonerated by the report.

Movies and video games

Feature films

Short films (selection)

TV specials

Series

Video games

  • 1996: Toy Story Activity Center
  • 1998: The big crawl
  • 1999: Disney Pixar Toy Story 2- Buzz Lightyear comes to the rescue!
  • 2002: Disney Pixar Learning: 2nd & 3rd Grade
  • 2002: Disney Pixar The Monster AG - Dread Island
  • 2003: Finding Nemo
  • 2004: The Incredibles
  • 2006: Cars
  • 2007: Ratatouille
  • 2008: Wall: E
  • 2009: above
  • 2010: Toy Story 3
  • 2011: Cars 2
  • 2012: Merida

Documentation

  • 2007: The Pixar Story

Hidden allusions

At Pixar, the tradition has developed to incorporate running gags into their productions. In every animated film so far, a “Pizza Planet” truck appears that originally had a role in Toy Story . The truck can be seen in the background again and again in subsequent films. The only exception so far: The Incredibles do not include the truck. The number A113 also appears in each of the films. This is a nod to the number of Brad Bird and John Lasseter's former CalArts classroom. Pixar's " lucky charm ", John Ratzenberger , has also still got a small supporting role. Some characters from films play supporting roles in others, for example Bomb Voyage from The Incredibles in Ratatouille can be seen as a pantomime in a small scene. Another recurring motif is a cue ball with a red star on a yellow background, as seen in the first Pixar film The Little Lamp . In Finding Nemo , a Buzz Lightyear character lies in the dentist's waiting room. At Monster AG, there is a Nemo toy figure in one of the children's rooms. In the short film Your friend, the rat , WALL · E drives a Mars bus.

Exhibition in Germany

Awards

Films in the top 250 of the IMDb
space Movie
61 WALL E
67 Everything is upside down
79 Toy Story 3
97 Toy story
114 Above
161 Find Nemo
213 the monster Inc

Oscar

Pixar has received several Oscar awards for its animated films . Since the introduction of the Best Animated Feature Film category in 2002, all Pixar films released since 2001 with the exception of Cars 2 , Die Monster Uni , Arlo & Spot and Finding Dorie have been nominated for the award and nine have received awards ( Monster AG lost to Shrek in 2002 - Der daredevil hero , Cars 2006 versus Happy Feet and The Incredibles 2 2019 versus Spider-Man: A New Universe ).

Won

1989: Tin Toy

1996: Toy Story

1998: Geri's Game

2002: Monster AG

2002: The bird fright

2004: Finding Nemo

2005: The Incredibles

2008: Ratatouille

2009: WALL E

2010: above

2011: Toy Story 3

2013: Merida - Legend of the Highlands

2016: Everything is upside down

2017: Piper

2018: Coco

2019: Bao

Nominated

1987: Luxo Jr.

1996: Toy Story

1999: The big crawl

2000: Toy Story 2

2002: Monster AG

2003: Mike's new car

2004: Finding Nemo

2004: A sheep is from the wool

2005: The Incredibles

2006: The one-man band

2006: Lifted

2007: Cars

2008: Ratatouille

2009: WALL E

2010: above

2011: Toy Story 3

2011: Day & Night

Other important awards

Nominations

2008: WALL · E - The last one cleans up the earth

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Disney • Pixar on Twitter . In: Twitter . ( twitter.com [accessed September 12, 2018]).
  2. ^ Amy Wallace and Edwin Catmull: Creativity, Inc .: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration . Ed .: Transworld Publishers Limited. ISBN 978-0-552-16726-0 .
  3. ^ Pixar History ( Memento from June 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ The Pixar Story
  5. ↑ Pixar and the Paramount logo ( memento of October 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Pixar and the IBM logo ( Memento from November 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Toy Story on Box Office Mojo
  8. ↑ Box office report: 'Toy Story' breaks records; 'Jonah Hex' lands in eighth place ( Memento from June 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Pixar puts Cars 2 back six months , BBC News. February 10, 2010. 
  10. ↑ Visit THE MONSTER UNI in summer 2013! (No longer available online.) Digitalvd.de, archived from the original on August 28, 2012 ; Retrieved August 14, 2012 .
  11. ^ Yahoo Finance " WSJ: Steve Jobs May Have Helped Pixar Director With Suspect Options Grant " (February 9, 2007)
  12. ^ San Francisco Chronicle " Prosecutors eye Jobs role in Pixar stock options " (February 10, 2007)
  13. ↑ PCWELT " Steve Jobs: Optionsschmu also at Pixar? "(February 9, 2007)
  14. ↑ Macnotes.de " Notes from February 12, 2007 " (February 12, 2007)
  15. ↑ Pixar stock options were backdated - Steve Jobs exonerated. In: Spiegel Online from March 18, 2007
  16. ↑ Comment by Lee Unkrich on Twitter
  17. ↑ Comingsoon.net
  18. ↑ The Top 250 of the IMDb (as of October 23, 2015)

Coordinates: 37 ° 49 ′ 55.4 "  N , 122 ° 16 ′ 57.4"  W.