Machine printed signature of Steve Jobs. Multi-color vignettes of the various Pixar characters, such as Buzz Lightyear and Woody from’Toy Stories. More info courtesy ofWikipedia. Pixar (/pksr/), also referred to as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California that is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Lucasfilm computer division, before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986, with funding by Apple Inc. Co-founder Steve Jobs, who became the majority shareholder. Pixar is best known for CGI-animated feature films created with RenderMan, Pixar’s own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface, used to generate high-quality images. Pixar has produced 17 feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995)which was the first-ever computer-animated feature filmand its most recent being Finding Dory (2016). All 17 of its films have debuted with CinemaScore ratings of at least an “A, ” indicating positive receptions with audiences. [5] The studio has also produced several short films. Fourteen of Pixar’s films are also among the 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time. The studio has earned sixteen Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and eleven Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Many of Pixar’s films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature since its inauguration in 2001, with eight winning; this includes Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3, along with The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), Brave (2012), and Inside Out (2015). (2001) and Cars (2006) are the only two films that were nominated for the award without winning it, while Cars 2 (2011), Monsters University (2013), The Good Dinosaur (2015), and Finding Dory have not been nominated. Up and Toy Story 3 were also the respective second and third animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, the first being Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Beauty and the Beast (1991). A character from the studio’s 1986 short film of the same name, is the studio’s mascot. On September 6, 2009, Pixar executives John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich were presented with the Golden Lion award for Lifetime Achievement by the biennial Venice Film Festival. The award was presented by Lucasfilm’s founder George Lucas. Pixar got its start in 1974 when NYIT’s founder Alexander Schure, who was also the owner of a traditional animation studio, established the Computer Graphics Lab (CGL), recruited computer scientists who shared his ambitions about creating the world’s first computer-animated film. Ed Catmull and Malcolm Blanchard were the first to be hired and were soon joined by Alvy Ray Smith and David DiFrancesco some months later, which were the four original members of the Computer Graphics Lab. [9] But they eventually realized they needed to work in a real film studio in order to reach their goal, and when George Lucas approached them and offered them a job at his studio, six employees decided to move over to Lucasfilm. During the following months, they gradually resigned from CGL, found temporary jobs for about a year to avoid making Schure suspicious, before they joined The Graphics Group at Lucasfilm. The Graphics Group, which was one-third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm, was launched in 1979 with the hiring of Edwin Catmull from the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), [12] where he was in charge of the Computer Graphics Lab. He was then reunited with Alvy Ray Smith, who also made the journey from NYIT to Lucasfilm, and was made director of The Graphics Group. At NYIT, the researchers pioneered many of the CG foundation techniquesin particular the invention of the alpha channel (by Catmull and Smith). [13] Years later, the CGL produced a few frames of an experimental film called The Works. After moving to Lucasfilm, the team worked on creating the precursor to RenderMan, called REYES (for “renders everything you ever saw”) and developed a number of critical technologies for CGincluding “particle effects” and various animation tools. In 1982, the team began working on special effects film sequences with Industrial Light & Magic. [12] In 1983, Nolan Bushnell founded a new computer-guided animation studio called Kadabrascope as a subsidiary of his Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatres company, which was founded in 1977. Only one major project was made out of the new studio, an animated Christmas movie for NBC starring Chuck E. Cheese and other PTT mascots. The animation movement would be made using Tweening instead of traditional cel animation. The Kadabrascope assets s would be combined with the Computer Division of LucasFilm. After years of research, and key milestones such as the Genesis Effect in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and the Stained Glass Knight in Young Sherlock Holmes, [12] the group, which then numbered 40 individuals, [2] was spun out as a corporation in February 1986 by Catmull and Smith. Amongst the 38 remaining employees, there were also Malcolm Blanchard, David DiFrancesco, Ralph Guggenheim and Bill Reeves, who had been part of the team since the days of NYIT. Tom Duff, also an NYIT member, would later join Pixar after its formation. [2] With Lucas’ 1983 divorce, which coincided with the sudden dropoff in revenues from Star Wars licenses following the release of Return of the Jedi, they knew he would most likely sell the whole Graphics Group. Worried that the employees would be lost to them if that happened, which would prevent the creation of the first computer animated movie, they concluded that the best way to keep the team together was to turn the group into an independent company. But Moore’s Law also said that the first film was still some years away, and they needed to focus on a proper product while waiting for the computers to become powerful enough. The newly independent company was headed by Edwin Catmull as President and Alvy Ray Smith as Executive Vice President. While looking for investors, Steve Jobs was interested, but Lucas found his offer too low. Yet he accepted it in the end after it turned out to be impossible to find other investors. Walt Disney Studios used a Pixar Image Computer and custom software written by Pixar as part of their Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) project, to migrate the laborious ink and paint part of the 2D animation process to a more automated method. (1986), to show off the device’s capabilitiespremiered his creations at SIGGRAPH, the computer graphics industry’s largest convention, to great fanfare. [18] Inadequate sales threatened to put the company out of business as financial losses grew. In 1989, Lasseter’s growing animation department, originally composed of just four people (Lasseter, Bill Reeves, Eben Ostby, and Sam Leffler), was turned into a division that produced computer-animated commercials for outside companies. That same year, Pixar moved from San Rafael to Richmond, California to Burbank, California. [21] Pixar released some of its software tools on the open market for Macintosh and Windows systems. RenderMan was one of the leading 3D packages of the early 1990s, and Typestry was a special-purpose 3D text renderer that competed with RayDream addDepth. During this period Pixar continued its successful relationship with Walt Disney Feature Animation, a studio whose corporate parent would ultimately become its most important partner. As 1991 began, however, the layoff of 30 employees in the company’s computer hardware departmentincluding the company’s president, Chuck Kolstad, [22] reduced the total number of employees to just 42, essentially its original number. By then the software programmers, who were doing RenderMan and IceMan, and Lasseter’s animation department, which made television commercials and four Luxo Jr. Shorts for Sesame Street the same year, were all that remained of Pixar. Only after learning from New York critics that Toy Story would probably be a hitand confirming that Disney would distribute it for the 1995 Christmas seasondid he decide to give Pixar another chance. [25][26] For the first time, he also took an active leadership role in the company and made himself CEO. During the 1990s and 2000s, Pixar gradually developed the “Pixar Braintrust, ” the studio’s primary creative development process, in which all directors, writers, and lead storyboard artists at the studio look at each other’s projects on a regular basis and give each other very candid “notes” (the industry term for constructive criticism). [29] The Braintrust operates under a philosophy of a “filmmaker-driven studio, ” in which creatives help each other move their films forward through a process somewhat like peer review, as opposed to the traditional Hollywood approach of an “executive-driven studio” in which directors are micromanaged through “mandatory notes” from development executives ranking above the producers. [30][30][31] According to Catmull, it evolved out of the working relationship between Lasseter, Stanton, Docter, Unkrich, and Joe Ranft on Toy Story. As a result of the success of Toy Story, Pixar built a new studio at the Emeryville campus which was designed by PWP Landscape Architecture and opened in November 2000. Disney subsidiary (2006present)[edit]. Pixar and Disney had disagreements after the production of Toy Story 2 (1999). Originally intended as a straight-to-video release (and thus not part of Pixar’s three-picture deal), the film was eventually upgraded to a theatrical release during production. Pixar demanded that the film then be counted toward the three-picture agreement, but Disney refused. [32] Though profitable for both, Pixar later complained that the arrangement was not equitable. Pixar was responsible for creation and production, while Disney handled marketing and distribution. The lack of story and sequel rights was perhaps the most onerous aspect to Pixar and set the stage for a contentious relationship. The two companies attempted to reach a new agreement for ten months before it fell through in January 2004. The new deal would be only for distribution, as Pixar intended to control production and own the resulting film properties themselves. [34] More importantly, as part of any distribution agreement with Disney, Pixar demanded control over films already in production under their old agreement, including The Incredibles (2004) and Cars (2006). Disney considered these conditions unacceptable, but Pixar would not concede. Disagreements between Steve Jobs and then-Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner made the negotiations more difficult than they otherwise might have been. They broke down completely in mid-2004, with Disney forming Circle 7 Animation and Jobs declaring that Pixar was actively seeking partners other than Disney. [35] Despite this announcement, Pixar did not enter negotiations with other distributors, [36] although a Warner Bros. Spokesperson told CNN, We would love to be in business with Pixar. They are a great company. [34] After a lengthy hiatus, negotiations between the two companies resumed following the departure of Eisner from Disney in September 2005. In preparation for potential fallout between Pixar and Disney, Jobs announced in late 2004 that Pixar would no longer release movies at the Disney-dictated November time frame, but during the more lucrative early summer months. This would also allow Pixar to release DVDs for their major releases during the Christmas shopping season. An added benefit of delaying Cars from November 4, 2005, to June 9, 2006, was to extend the time frame remaining on the Pixar-Disney contract, to see how things would play out between the two companies. Pending the Disney acquisition of Pixar, the two companies created a distribution deal for the intended 2007 release of Ratatouille, if the acquisition fell through, to ensure that this one film would still be released through Disney’s distribution channels. The completion of Disney’s Pixar acquisition, however, nullified this distribution arrangement. [38] Following Pixar shareholder approval, the acquisition was completed May 5, 2006. [39] Jobs’ new Disney holdings exceeded holdings belonging to ex-CEO Michael Eisner, the previous top shareholder, who still held 1.7%; and Disney Director Emeritus Roy E. Disney, who held almost 1% of the corporation’s shares. Pixar shareholders received 2.3 shares of Disney common stock for each share of Pixar common stock redeemed. As part of the deal, John Lasseter, by then Executive Vice President, became Chief Creative Officer reporting to President and CEO Robert Iger and consulting with Disney Director Roy E. Disney of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios (including its division DisneyToon Studios), as well as the Principal Creative Adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering, which designs and builds the company’s theme parks. [39] Catmull retained his position as President of Pixar, while also becoming President of Walt Disney Animation Studios, reporting to Bob Iger and Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. Steve Jobs’ position as Pixar’s chairman and chief executive officer was also removed, and instead, he took a place on the Disney board of directors. [41] Iger noticed that of all the Disney characters in the parade, not one was a character that Disney had created within the last ten years since all the newer ones had been created by Pixar. Lasseter and Catmull’s oversight of both the Disney and Pixar studios did not mean that the two studios were merging, however. In fact, additional conditions were laid out as part of the deal to ensure that Pixar remained a separate entity, a concern that analysts had expressed about the Disney deal. [44] Some of those conditions were that Pixar HR policies would remain intact, including the lack of employment contracts. Also, the Pixar name was guaranteed to continue, and the studio would remain in its current Emeryville, California, location with the “Pixar” sign. Finally, branding of films made post-merger would be “DisneyPixar” (beginning with Cars). Jim Morris, producer of WALL-E (2008), became general manager of Pixar. In this new position, Morris took charge of the day-to-day running of the studio facilities and products. After a few years, Lasseter and Catmull were able to successfully transfer the basic principles of the Pixar Braintrust to Disney, although meetings of the Disney Story Trust are reportedly “more polite” than those of the Pixar Braintrust. [47] Catmull later explained that after the merger, to maintain the studios’ separate identities and cultures (notwithstanding the fact of common ownership and common senior management), he and Lasseter “drew a hard line” that each studio was solely responsible for its own projects and would not be allowed to borrow personnel from or lend tasks out to the other. [48][49] That rule ensures that each studio maintains “local ownership” of projects and can be proud of its own work. [48][49] Thus, for example, when Pixar had issues with Ratatouille and Disney Animation had issues with Bolt (2008), “nobody bailed them out” and each studio was required “to solve the problem on its own” even when they knew there were personnel at the other studio who theoretically could have helped. In November 2014, Morris was promoted to president of Pixar, while his counterpart at Disney Animation, general manager Andrew Millstein, was also promoted to president of that studio. [4] Both continue to report to Catmull, who retains the title of president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. The item “Pixar stock certificate Steve Jobs signature Buzz Lightyear Woody’Toy Stories” is in sale since Saturday, March 18, 2017. This item is in the category “Coins & Paper Money\Stocks & Bonds, Scripophily\Entertainment & Sports”. The seller is “antiquestocks*com” and is located in Concord, California. This item can be shipped worldwide.