9781422277379

Tech 2.0

World-Changing Entertainment Companies

Pixar ® , Disney ® , DreamWorks ® , and Digital Animation

by Michael Centore

Tech 2.0 World-Changing Entertainment Companies

ESports: A Billion Eyeballs and Growing GoPro ® , Garmin ® , and Camera Drones Netflix ® , Amazon ® , Hulu ® , and Streaming Video Pixar ® , Disney ® , DreamWorks ® , and Digital Animation Spotify ® , Pandora ® , and Streaming Music YouTube ® and Videos of Everything!

Tech 2.0 World-Changing Entertainment Companies

Pixar ® , Disney ® , DreamWorks ® , and Digital Animation

by Michael Centore

Mason Crest

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com © 2019 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4053-3 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-4057-1 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7737-9 First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group LLC Santa Barbara, California Editorial Director: James Buckley Jr. Designer: Patty Kelley www.shorelinepublishing.com Cover photographs by Wavebreakmedia Ltd./Dreamstime.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Centore, Michael, 1980- author. Title: Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, and digital animation / by Michael Centore. Description: Broomall, PA : Mason Crest, 2018. | Series: Tech 2.0 : world changing-entertainment companies | Includes bibli- ographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017053430| ISBN 9781422240571 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422240533 (series) | ISBN 9781422277379 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Pixar (Firm)--History--Juvenile literature. | Dreamworks Pictures--History--Juvenile literature. | Computer animation--History--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC PN1999.P59 C46 2018 | DDC 777/.7--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053430

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CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Chapter 1: The Early Years . 10 Chapter 2: The Growth of Pixar . 22 Chapter 3: Game-Changing Technology . 36 Chapter 4: Into the Future . 51 Find Out More. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Series Glossary of Key Terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis.

Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

Tech 2.0 Introduction

C hances are you’ve seen a Pixar film at some point in your life. With blockbusters such as Toys , Ratatouille , and Cars —not to mention their many sequels—the production company has made some of the most beloved, critically acclaimed and commercially successful animatedmovies of all time. Characters fromBuzz Lightyear toWALL-E have captured the imaginations of moviegoers all over the world, and storylines with uplifting messages and sly, knowing humor have en- tertained a whole generation of kids and their parents. With plans for even more films in development, Pixar shows no signs of slowing down as it enters its fourth decade. Beyond their cultural impact, Pixar’s films have astonished audiences with their bold advances in the field of computer animation. Whether it’s the ground- breaking three-dimensional rendering of Toy Story , the lifelike treatment of water and light in Finding Nemo , or the rich detail of the natural world in The Good Dino- saur , each Pixar project has introduced new technological developments and cre- ative techniques. These innovations have forced other animation studios, such as Disney and DreamWorks, to retool, expand, and modify their methods of production in order to keep up. Together, companies like these have used technology to revolu- tionize moviemaking. And they’re not done yet. Pixar’s innovative approach to moviemaking carries over into its day-to-day business operations. One look at the company’s 20-acre headquarters in Emeryville, California, confirms that it is not a conventional workplace. Employees are encour- aged to decorate their offices however they want; past themes have included a tiki bar and an “Old West”-style saloon. The main building features a vast open space known as “the Atrium,” with restaurants and other amenities (including a 24-hour

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Tech 2.0

cereal bar and a “Pizza Room” with unlimited free slices) that draw people together to exchange ideas. There is even a separate building with a beach volleyball court, swimming pool, yoga studio, and in- house medical staff. All of this goes to foster a climate of collabora- tion, creativity, and fun that feeds into each of Pixar’s productions. Pixar may be on top of the entertainment world today, but its journey there was a long and often uncertain one. The company had to survive periods of financial insecurity, shakeups in leadership, and several moves before realizing its dream of creating the world’s first computer-animated feature film. Many of the themes of Pixar’s mov- ies—from the value of family and friends to the importance of finding your life’s calling—can be traced back to the company’s origin story, where a small team of dedicated believers led the way to creating a new and engaging art form. Pixar was not the only company breaking ground in digital animation. In 1994, DreamWorks Animation was founded by media moguls Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and David Geffen. The studio came onto the scene with 1998’s Antz , but it was 2001’s Shrek that really put it on themap: the filmgrossed $484millionworldwide, won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and launched an entire franchise. Meanwhile, industry standard-bearer Walt Disney Animation Studios was transitioning from old-fashioned hand-drawn animation techniques to computer-generated ones. With projects like the immensely popular Frozen (2013), Disney has continued its tradi- tion of creating memorable, immersive animated films that challenge the other studios to stay on top of their game. And other animation studios like Illumination Entertainment and Sony Pictures Anima- tion have stepped up their output, attracting audiences with movies

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such as Despicable Me Chance of Meatballs . In this book we’ll explore the ways these companies contributed to the growth of computer animation. We’ll take an up-close look at how the Pixar story unfolded, including the studio’s earliest days doing special effects for other movies and a short-lived stint selling computers for medical imaging. We’ll meet charismatic early investor— and later full owner—Steve Jobs, and find out how his unconventional ap- proach to business and technology helped open up new possibilities for animators. We’ll track the company’s rapid rise through the ranks of the film world through the 1990s and early 2000s—a period of tremendous growth that saw the release of such instant classics as The Incredibles but was complicated by business deals with Disney. Throughout it all, we’ll focus on the game-changing technology of digital animation and its relationship to the creative process. As Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter has expressed the company’s phi- losophy, “Art challenges technology, and technology inspires art.” Read on to find out more about the growth and development of that technol- ogy—as well as where it’s headed in the future. With the creative, com- mitted Pixar team at the helm—and other digital animation companies nipping at their heels—you never know what’s in store. and Cloudy with a

Jeffrey Katzenberg was one of the founders of DreamWorks.

Introduction

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1 The Early Years

T oday Pixar is one of the leading entertainment companies in the world. Its films have won numerous awards while grossing billions of dollars worldwide. Its technological advances are widely imitated, and its culture of creativity and collaboration makes it one of the most desirable places to work within the field. But Pixar didn’t always seem destined for greatness. Like a character in one of its movies, the company had to endure all kinds of obstacles before realizing its true calling. Those challenges helped Pixar figure out what worked—and what didn’t—in its approach to both animation and business. Years of trial and error led to the great breakthrough of Toy WORDS TO UNDERSTAND entrepreneurial  describing someone who develops and manages a business genre a specific type of artwork characterized by its form, subject matter, or other qualities gross to earn a total amount of money before taxes or other expenses are deducted render in computer graphics, the process of creating realistic images on

screen using qualities such as lighting, shade, and perspective wunderkind a person who achieves success at something at a very young age

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Story in 1995. As the world’s first full-length computer-animated movie, it created a new genre of film overnight and set the tone for the next two decades of Pixar’s rise. The Origin Story P ixar traces its origins to the Computer Graphics Lab (CGL), a small research laboratory founded at the New York Institute of Technology in 1974. One of CGL’s goals was to produce feature-length computer-animated films. It would take several years for these films to become a reality, but the team at CGL developed many of the basic technologies that wouldmake thempossible. These included a graph- ics application known as alpha compositing, which helps animators

Computer graphics in a Star Trek movie helped kickstart Pixar creations.

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blend the colors of computer-generated objects. In 1979 George Lucas, the famous director of the StarWars fran- chise, invited CGL staff to come work for his Lucasfilm studio. Several members accepted the offer and formed a new research and develop- ment team called the Graphics Group. This was the core group that would later become Pixar. At Lucasfilm, the Graphics Group continued to advance com- puter-animation technology, creating the earliest version of Pixar’s trademark program RenderMan. It was originally called Reyes, which stands for Renders Everything You’ve Ever Seen. The software al- lowed researchers to create realistic three-dimensional computer images. By 1982 the Reyes rendering program was advanced enough to provide images for the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , and again in 1985 for Young Sherlock Holmes . The Graphics Group also worked to create special effects with Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic company. CGI Computer-generated imagery, or CGI, is a catchall term for the use of computer graphics to produce images and special effects. Artists use 3D animation to set their CGI creations in motion. CGI technology is used in films, television, and oth- er media. It allows designers to create scenes they couldn’t in real life, as well as stage complicated visuals without the need for props, additional actors, or other costly equipment.

1: The Early Years

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In 1986 the Graphics Group became its own corporation with about forty employees. George Lucas was facing some financial diffi- culties at the time, and he elected to sell the group. He found a buy- er in the thirty-one-year-old tech wunderkind Steve Jobs, who had founded the Apple Computer company in his garage. Jobs paid $5 mil- lion for the Graphics Group—soon to be renamed Pixar—and invest- ed an additional $5 million of his own money. They were still a long way from Toy Story and the successes to come, but with Jobs at the helm and a dedicated team in place, things were beginning to come together. Steve Jobs and Apple T o many people, Steve Jobs represents the ultimate in American entrepreneurial spirit and “can-do” innovation. He was born

Early days at Apple Inc.

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