OUAN05 - Understanding - Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar animation studios is an American computer animation company that was founded in 1979 as the 'Graphics Group', a section of the computer division of Lucas Film. In 1986, Steve Jobs gave funding to the group causing it to spin out and consequently, Jobs became their largest shareholder at the time. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar for a value of $7.6 billion, which brings us to the present day. Pixar as a company has produced fourteen feature films with the first being Toy Story in 1995 and the most recent being Monsters University, which was released in 2013, for a total of fourteen releases across eighteen years. Quite impressive given the scale and work that it takes to produce each feature. As of December 2013, the companies feature films have grossed over $8.5 billion worldwide with the average gross per film totalling $616 million. All of Pixar's fourteen features are amongst the highest fifty grossing animated features of all time, which Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 which were released in 2003 and 2010 respectively being in the top 50 highest grossing films of all time. In total the studio has earned 27 Academy Awards, 7 Golden Globe awards and 11 Grammy awards amongst many other acknowledgments. Most of Pixar's films have been nominated for best animated feature since the award began in 2001 with seven films winning the award. These include; Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up and Brave.

The animators at Pixar came from a range of different animation backgrounds. Some were cel animators such as John Lasseter, there was also animators that came from stop motion and even computer animation, although they were much fewer. Pixar often employs people straight from University or College in order to in a way, adopt new talent in the world of animation.

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. Although profits for this film were split 50/50, Disney held the rights to the story and sequel rights, despite Pixar being responsible for the production and creation of the feature. The firms tried to reach a new agreement in 2004 regarding distribution. The proposed deal included Pixar having complete creative control, financing their own film and receiving 100 percent of the profit, but giving Disney a 10 to 15 percent distribution fee. In addition to this, they wanted the rights to films that were in production under their initial agreement, which was the Incredibles and Cars. Disney considered these conditions extreme, and unacceptable, but Pixar wouldn't concede.

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.

In May of 2006 Disney ultimately agreed to buy PIxar for a total of $7.4 billion. The deal catapulted Steven Jobs into the position of Disney's largest stock holder with around 7 percent of the company. As part of the deal, John Lasseter became the Chief Creative Officer, after previously being the Executive Vice President. Also, instead of being the Chief Executive Officer of Pixar, Steven Jobs took a place on the Disney board of directors. After a few years in this format, Lasseter and Catmull were able to transfer the basic principles of the Pixar braintrust to Disney.