In 1986, a young man named John Lasseter stared at a computer and lamp on his desk in a daze. For now, he had to make a 3D animated short film out of this slow computer. What to do? John thought hard, patted his head at the end, and simply made this table lamp on the table. In order to rush the schedule, young John Lasseter lived in the studio, staying up all night, day after day. At this time, John must not have thought that at this moment, he was opening the curtain on the drama of PIXAR animation. In the coming decades, every 3D animated film produced by Pixar will be popular all over the world. The short film, called Luxo Jr., will spawn a Pixar opening animation that will become the most striking symbol of animated films around the world.
Pixar's 1986 short film Naughty Jumping Lights, and the title of a later Pixar animated film
Part I: John Ed Jobs, three people co-created Pixar
Pixar's three elders, from left to right, are Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, john Lasseter, screenshot from the documentary Pixar's Death
Pixar was founded by these three classmates, namely John Lasseter, an art-loving art-loving science student, Ed Catmull, and their Bole, the famous Steve Jobs.
1) Disney doesn't understand John
This is a precious group photo, the person on the right is the "father of rockets" von Braun, who is the person on the left?
The two people in the photo above, on the right is the "father of rockets" von Braun, who has a legendary experience, both the German Nazi V2 rocket and the US government's moon landing rocket; and the one on the left is the founder of the Disney company, Walt Disney, who made "Disney" into probably the most famous surname in the world.
Walt Disney and John Lasseter
Walt Disney passed away in 1966, the year John Lasseter was just nine years old. The John loved animation since childhood, and when he was in high school, he stumbled upon a book called The Art of Animation, which introduced Disney Studios and their approach to animation. For the first time, young John knew that there were people in this world who could make money by doing animation! So in this moment, John found his own direction in life. In 1975, John was admitted to the University of the Arts of California, joined the Disney Company after graduation, and his first job was to work on the animation film "The Fox and the Hound" (1981).
John Lasseter came across a book about animation production when he was in high school; the direction of a person's life is likely to be decided at some point
In 1982, Disney's Electronic World Battle (TRON) stunned many animators. Many masters who have drawn animation by hand for a lifetime have seen the magic of computer animation for the first time. Faced with the new thing of computer animation, many disney animators have a sense of fear, thinking that this thing will rob them of their jobs in the future. The young John Lasseter was so excited that he already saw the future potential of computer animation.
Computer animation in Electronic World Wars (TRON).
Dare to try something new, which is a step ahead of John Lasseter at Disney. With the approval of the company, John became a director for the first time, making an animation called "Brave Bread Machine", trying to combine computer animation with traditional animation.
John Lasseter, who is a director for the first time (right)
Eight months later, John Lasseter reported to a Disney executive on the progress of "Brave Bread Machine," which resulted in not only a nose of ash, but also a sweep by Disney — a story about which neither mentioned the executive's name nor detailed the process in the documentary "Pixar's Story" (2007). Perhaps it was the Disney executive's stupid arrogance that led to the future Pixar legend.
John Lasseter recounts his experience of being fired by Disney
2. Lucas misses Ed
One thing that can make Disney feel a little relieved is that it was not only Disney that looked at computer animation in the first place, but also the famous George Lucas. The story begins with Ad-Carter, another founder of Pixar.
Pixar's founder, computer engineer-turned-Ed Caramour
Before John Lasseter officially began studying animation, Ed Caramoul had already begun to study computer graphics. In 1973, Ed did a hand 3D animation, a new thing that was ahead of its time, and appeared in the science fiction film Futurama (1976) a few years later. The film thus became the first film in history to feature three-dimensional CG animation. In addition, this "Future World" is the first American science fiction film introduced by China after the reform and opening up, which directly enlightened the domestic science fiction film "Dead Light on Coral Island" (1980).
A 3D animation of a hand by Ed Caramour in 1973 later appeared in the science fiction film Epcot (1976).
In 1979, George Lucas hired Ed Caramour to join the computer division of Lucas Film. The computer team led by Ed not only developed new computer animation software, but also mapped out high-end computers that can be used for animation, which raised computer animation to a new level. One of the most notable works is a one-minute CG animation from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). This CG image, which was made entirely of computers, shocked many people in the industry at the time, and it directly heralded the coming of a new era.
CG footage from Star Trek 2 Wrath of the Khan (1982).
However, Ed felt that it was not enough to just make CG clips from these films, so he introduced John Lasseter, who had just lost his job, to Join Lucas's company. Together, the two collaborated to create Pixar's seminal 3D animated short film, The Adventures of André and Wally B (1984). One is a computer engineer who loves the art of animation, and the other is an artistic youth who loves computer animation, and the two of them have achieved this immature but significant work together. It was a perfect encounter between technology and art.
The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1).
Unfortunately, for the development of computer animation, even George Lucas has lost his eyes this time. Both Ed and John were aiming to make a movie-length computer-animated feature film, and George Lucas said, "I don't have that much money."
Through negotiations, Lucas allowed Ed Karamul to bring his own computer animation technology and patents to his own portal. Pixar's marriage to George Lucas also ended here. Years later, George Lucas recalls releasing Ed Caramour, mainly because he could not come up with three or four million dollars in production funds.
George Lucas said that year, and after saying it, he smiled both helplessly and meaningfully
3, Jobs wise eyes to see gold
Ed and John, who left Lucasfilm, went around looking for the gold lord with the short film "Andrea and Willie's Adventure", and finally, they met Jobs. Interestingly, Jobs at this time had also just been fired. The difference is that the Disney company that fired John Squid was founded by Walt Disney, while the Apple Company that fired Jobs squid was founded by Jobs himself. About this interesting history, you can go to Jobs's biographical works to understand.
In 1986, Jobs spent $10 million to acquire LucasFilm's Computer Animation Effects Studios from Lucasfilm and set up an independent company, Pixar Animation Studios. "He [Ed Caramur] shared with me his dream of making the world's first computer-animated film, and in the end I bought that dream both mentally and financially."
Jobs recalled the acquisition of Pixar that year
The three assemble and the drama begins. Following the short film Andrea and Willie's Adventures, Pixar produced four more 3D animated short films, Luxo Jr. (1986), Red's Dream (1987), Tin Toy (1988) and Operation Snowman (Knick Knack, 1989). "Naughty Jumping Lights" later became Pixar's opening animation, "Red Dream" was nominated for an Academy Award, and "Tin Iron Soldier" gave John Lasseter the 1989 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. This "Tin Iron Soldier" tells the story of a toy soldier and a baby, which can be seen as the prototype of "Toy Story".
Pixar animated short films Red's Dream (1987) and Tin Toy (198).
4. "Toy Story" turned out to be a success
With the accumulation of these animated short films, Pixar began to recruit talent, produce advertising animations to make money, and contacted several executives of Disney's new class to open new collaborations. In Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), a new computer animation system developed by Pixar was actually used. Even so, it costs more money to develop new technologies than it does. In the first five years of Pixar's existence, Jobs had to put more than a million dollars a year in it. At this time, Disney invited John Lasseter to return to Disney as a director several times, but John refused one by one, insisting on staying in Pixar, a money-losing company.
Eventually, Disney and Pixar signed a contract to invest in A 3D animated feature film for Pixar. In the years that followed, the young Pixar band, led by John and Ed, went through all sorts of painstaking efforts and whims with Disney financiers to finally complete the animated feature film, the first 3D animated film in history, Toy Story, released in 1995. Not only did the film gross more than $350 million worldwide, but it also spawned a new industry like CG computer animation.
The original design draft and final finished version of Toy Story
Because of the previous contract, most of the money earned by Toy Story went to Disney. Under the leadership of business elites such as Jobs, Pixar chose to go public, and signed a new contract with Disney, and the animated films produced by Pixar and Disney in the future will be equally divided in profits. In 1998, Pixar's second animated feature film, A Bug's Life, was released and once again made a lot of money. This year, Disney decided to release "Toy Story 2" in theaters, which was originally planned for videotape release, and Ed and John were not satisfied with the effect of this film, rejected this lying money method, and insisted on re-making the new "Toy Story 2". In 1999, "Toy Story 2" was officially released, becoming one of the few animated films with the same wonderful sequel as the first one.
Pixar's second animated feature film, Bugs Crisis, and third animated feature film, Toy Story 2
Next: Enter the skill and be proficient in the art, through the feeling and please the heart
The gate to Pixar's headquarters
After the success of "Toy Story 2", Pixar bought land to build buildings and recruited soldiers. Subsequently, Pixar, led by John Lasseter, boldly adopted newcomers as the general director, launching Pixar's fourth animated feature film Monsters, Inc. (2001) and fifth animated feature film Finding Nemo (2003).
1. Enable new people to innovate
Disney's innovative approach is to adapt classic themes from all over the world into the story of the princess prince under the Disney template. For example, "Beauty and the Beast" (1991), adapted from the French fairy tale "Aladdin" (1992), adapted from the Arab "Heavenly Nights", adapted from Hamlet's "The Lion King" (1994) and so on. In contrast, Pixar is much bolder on the road to innovation.
Before monster power, the young Pete Docter hadn't even directed any independent work, not even assistant director or assistant director. And all the ideas came from only one of the pits of director Peter, that is, children are afraid of monsters behind the door.
Pixar's fourth animated feature film, Monster Power Corp. and its director Pete Docter
The core challenge of Monster Power Company is the swaying fluffy hair on the monster. At the beginning of the design, the director came up with the idea of "wanting to make a character that people want to hug at a glance." This romantic sentence is not romantic at all when implemented by technicians. Doubling the number of hairs not only increases the amount of rendering, but the greater difficulty is that the fur of the fur monster is not short, and it is difficult to avoid moving with the movement of the hair monster. In order to achieve a very realistic plush effect, you must make great efforts to control the movement of hair. In the end, the technical team developed a tool called "Fitz" specifically for the fur monster, and established a fully simulated dynamic simulation system, which treated each hair as a curve and particle chain, coupled with the simulation of the particle dynamic principle, and finally successfully simulated the effect of the hair, and could perfectly match the various actions and expressions of the hair monster. With the bold idea of the director and the joint efforts of the production staff, the CG character of Mao Wei was born, and it alone has 2320413 hairs on its body.
The detailed all-over plush effect on the hairy monster in Monster Power Company
In 2013, Pixar launched Monsters University, a prequel to Monster Power, which took hair technology to a new level. In this work, it is no longer the plush image of the hair monster that stands out, but the entire streets of Animal City are covered with various plush cartoons.
Various plush cartoons in Monsters University
The director of Finding Nemo is also a newcomer, Andrew Stanton.
Pixar's fifth animated feature film, Finding Nemo and its director Andrew Stanton
This Andrew Stanton has inherited John Lasseter's meticulous and refined creative attitude. The entire film took two and a half years to produce. According to Pixar's production conventions, every little sample made by every animator, even a small shot, is observed and discussed by the director and others at the company's viewing meeting. From the screenshot below, you can intuitively feel the creation process of an animated film.
On this day, an animator showed a clip of Nemo's conversation with his father, and in a cheerful atmosphere, director Andrew Stanton proposed very specific changes. As you can see, the original good-looking cartoon is actually like a marble sculpture behind it, and it is carefully polished little by little.
At the company's internal viewing meeting, Andrew Stanton, director of "Finding Nemo", proposed changes
Finding Nemo became the nation's highest-grossing animated film, surpassing the record set by The Lion King (1994).
2. Disney's favors and grievances
Following the success of Finding Nemo, John Lasseter brought in his college classmate Brad Bird to direct Pixar's sixth animated feature film, The Incredibles (2004).
Pixar's sixth animated feature film, The Incredibles, and its director Brad Bird
By this time, Pixar's contract with Disney had expired. Following Toy Story, Pixar produced a total of five animated feature films under contract, namely Bugs Crisis, Toy Story 2, Monster Power Company, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, all of which were distributed by Disney, and the profits of both sides were divided equally. In the two years since The Incredibles, Pixar and Disney have another argument. At this time, Disney started the "Toy Story" video sequel, and Pixar firmly disagreed. Disney sought to buy Pixar, and Jobs was dissatisfied with Disney's top management at this time, fearing that Pixar would lose his own style and his unique company culture after being acquired.
During this time, John Lasseter directed Pixar's seventh animated feature film, Cars (2006). The turning point in the story between Pixar and Disney came after Disney's new CEO took office. Disney took the initiative to throw an olive branch, and in the end, Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion. Since then, Pixar has officially become a subsidiary of Disney, and Jobs has become the largest shareholder of Disney' company. Pixar, the company Jobs bought in 1986 for $10 million, grew into a $7.4 billion behemoth in just two decades, and this kind of profiteering growth should not be ranked first in the entire history of human business.
Pixar was acquired by Disney after the LOGO
3. How hard is it to make a hair?
After being acquired by Disney, Pixar continued to maintain an upward momentum in creation. Although several sequel films "Toy Story 3" (2010), "Cars 2" (2011), "Finding Dory" (2016), "Cars 3 - The Amazing Challenge" (2017), "The Incredibles 2" (2018) seem to be a little unenterprising, but there is no delay in innovation. Films like Brave (2012), Inside Out (2015), and Coco (2017) can be said to have created a form that animated films have never had.
"Brave Legend" can be said to be the first princess animated film launched by Pixar, and it can also be said to be the first costume drama. In Disney's "Ralph Breaks the Internet: 2018," Disney's fourteen princesses starred in the same frame, including a princess who spoke English that no one else understood, and someone next to her whispered that she came from the studio next door. This princess is the heroine Melida in "Brave Legend", only she is from Pixar Studios.
Disney's fourteen princesses made a collective cameo in Invincible Destruction King 2: The Internet, and the fourth from the left in the upper row was in Pixar's Brave Legends
At this time, Pixar has entered the realm of technological maniacs. Hair has always been the most headache in the CG industry, and it is extremely difficult to show the realism of its fluttering. Many animated films deliberately design the character's hair to be fixed, or simply bald. Pixar's choice in "Brave Legends" is to face the difficulties. In order to set off the hot personality of the heroine Melida, the director designed the heroine's hairstyle as a long, fiery red hair. This is the first attempt at long curly hair styling in the history of CG hair. For this curly hair technician can be said to be racking their brains. According to the creators, "The heroine, Princess Merida, has more than 1,500 bunches of curly, unkempt red hair, for a total of about 111,700 hairs. We have never done curly hair before, if you use a conventional simulator to calculate the hair, it will become a straightening effect because of gravity, so we specially designed a set of simulators to present her curls, we made nine levels of hair for Melida, each layer has a different volume, each roll will do a different direction with her movements, so it looks very real. ”
The heroine mellitary red curls of mellitus in "Legend of Brave"
4, emotional experience is based
3D animated films are a combination of technology and art. In the process of integration, which is more important, technology or art? For an animated film, of course, artistry is more important. Technology serves the arts, allows animation works to touch the audience's emotional world, and brings the audience spiritual touch and spiritual pleasure, which is the magic weapon that Pixar has understood from the beginning and has insisted on to this day.
After many years, we re-watch the short film "Naughty Jumping Lights" created by John Lasseter twenty years ago, and no one cares how primitive the computer animation technology is at this time, and what you see is still two anthropomorphic desk lamps. The every move of the large table lamp exudes the breath of maternal love, while the live jumping of the small table lamp reveals the naughty nature of children. It is precisely because this short film is emotionally connected with the audience that it can be exchanged for the audience's love and recognition.
The success of "Naughty Jumping Lights" focuses on the anthropomorphism of the two table lamps
From "Toy Story" that year to "Toy Story 4" released in 2019, Pixar has created a total of 21 animated feature films. Among them, the highest rated and highest-grossing films are all emotional people. "Finding Nemo" is about a father's love for his child, "Robot Story" (Wall-E, 2008) is about the pure love between boys and girls, "Up" (2009) is about the love between the elderly and children, and "Coco" (2017) is the most ingenious, standing on the other side of the yin and yang world, telling the love of the deceased for the living.
Robot Story (Wall-E, 2008), Flying House (Up, 2009), Coc
Finally, I would like to conclude this article with a quote made by Disney Company founder Walt Disney in 1938, "When we plan a new movie, we don't think about adults, we don't think about children." We only think of the pure, unspoiled place in everyone's heart. Maybe the world has forgotten it. Maybe our movie can remind people of it. This is also the charm of Pixar's work, and it is also the root of your and my love for Pixar's works.
Attached: Chronology of Pixar's works (as of June 2019)
Animated feature films (21 films)
1995 Toy Story
1998 A Bug's Life
1999 Toy Story 2
2001 Monsters, Inc.
2003 Finding Nemo
2004 The Incredibles
2006 Cars
2007 Ratatouille
2008 Robot Story (Wall-E)
2009 Flying House Tour (Up)
2010 Toy Story 3
2011 Cars 2
2012 Brave
2013 Monster University
2015 The Good Dinosaur
2015 Inside Out
Finding Dory 2016
2017 Cars 3
2017 Coco
2018 The Incredibles 2
2019 Toy Story 4
Original short film
The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1984)
Naughty Jumping Lights (Luxo Jr., 1986)
Red Dream (aka Unicycle Dream, 1987)
Tin Toy (1988)
Operation Snowman (Knick Knack, 1989)
《棋局》（Geri's Game，1997）
《鸟！鸟！鸟！》（For the Birds，2000）
Jumping Sheep (Boundin', 2004)
One Man Band (2006)
Kidnapping Lesson (Lifted, 2007)
The Magician and the Rabbit (Presto, 2008)
The Cloud of Violence and the Stork (Partly Cloudy, 2009)
Day & Night (2010)
Luna (2012)
The Blue Umbrella (2013)
The Sandpiper (piper, 2016)
Lost & Found (Lou, 2017)
Bao Bao (2018)
Feature film with short films attached
Mike's New Car (2002, Monster Power Company)
Jack-Jack Attack (2005, The Incredibles)
Mater and the Ghost Light (2006)
Your Friend The Rat (2007)
Welder Wave Force (BURN-E, 2008, WALL · E" Additional Short Film)
Dug's Special Mission (2009, Flying House Tour)
Air Mater (2011, Racing Story 2 additional short)
Small (2011, Toy Story 3, additional short film 1)
Hawaiian Vacation (2011, Toy Story 3)
Time Travel Mater (2012, Racing Story 2)
The Legend of Mor'du (2012) (Brave Tales additional short)
Riley's First Date (2015)
Dante's Lunch (2017, Dream Quest)
Note: The original article was first published in the surging news drama column