In 1982 The Graphics Group mainly worked on special effects for several years until they were made into a corporation by investments from Steve Jobs. Jobs paid a sum of $5 million to own the technological rights from George Lucas and paid a sum of $5 million towards the capital of the company. The company was headed by Dr. Edwin Capital who was the president while Steve Jobs was the chairman of the board of directors. A short time after this Pixar was a high-end computer hardware company who sold there technology to government agencies and medical communities. They even sold one of their computer hardware's to Walt Disney Studios who were using in for their CAPS project. In a attempt to great good press, John Lasseter premièred his work at the Siggraph which is the worlds largest computer graphics convention in the world.
Pixar was threatened to go out of business due to poor sales so Steve Jobs kept investing his money into the company until mostly all the company was his as he put $50 million into it. Shortly after this Lasseter's team started to create animated commercials for companies such as Tropicana and Lifesavers. Pixar sold its hardware division in April 1990 to a company called Vitcom Systems, this included the technology (imagery software+hardware) and they also transferred 18 of there employees. In the same year, Pixar moved from San Rafeal to there new head of operations Richmond, California. They had a strong relationship with close business partners Walt Disney Animations during this time. In 1991 the company lost over 30 employers including the companies president, Chuck Kolstad. This meant the companies numbers were reduced to nearly the same amount they had in 1986. Shortly after this Pixar made a deal for $26 million with Disney to produce three computer-animated films feature films. The first film they had to produce was Toy story which ended up grossing $361 million worldwide. Before the success of Toy Story in 1995 , Steve jobs was considering selling the company as it was still loosing money. Even through the hard times, Steve Jobs stayed committed to Pixar and even became CEO for the company. With all the money coming into the company, Pixar was able to build another Studio in Emeryville, which opened in 2000.
Pixar has made many different types of animation over the years for example A Bug's Life, Monster, Inc and so on. A Bug's Life is a children's comedy/adventure film which was created in 1998. Personally this was one of my favourite films because it was generally suitable for my age. A Bug's life was nominated for an Oscar (best music) in 2000 and has also been nominated for 11 other awards.
Monster, Inc was another animated film made by Pixar. It came out in 2001 and the genres for the film was adventure and comedy based. Amazingly this film got 15 awards including the Oscar for best music, which A Bug's Life wasn't successful in doing but did get nominated. This shows that the musician chosen to sing and write the songs for Pixar is a success in itself. Monster, Inc has to be one of my favourites as well. Surprisingly Pixar released a prequel to Monster, Inc in 2013 called Monsters University. The 2013 prequel got lower ratings then its predecessor but did pick up a nomination for a BAFTA.
The most successful Pixar film was their first film they ever produced, which was Toy Story. Toy Story was released in 1995 and was nominated for 3 Oscars. Toy Story is an adventure/comedy animation film which now has 2 sequels due to its success. Most Pixar films follow the same genre categories for example Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Monster, Inc are all adventure/comedies.
In 2013 Pixar teamed up with Sky recently to advertise their super fast fibre broadband while also advertising their own TV special, Toy Story of Terror which aired on Sky Movies Disney channel.
Pixar have been responsible for many CG breakthroughs throughout the years due to the astonishing talent they received. Pixar mostly go for 2D animation for example Bugs life. Another way you could possibly do animation is to draw each frame by hand in 2D. Some animation companies do this for example Walt Disney for when they did the first Mickey Mouse Animation. Pixar has been doing 3-D animation for sometime now for example with their film Toy Story 3 2010. Pixar puts a lot of work into their films and deserves every single reward that they get. They work so hard in fact, that they have even founded breakthroughs for animation workers everywhere.
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