Story about Pixar

In the past two weeks, I had experience several things related to Pixar from a book written by the president of Pixar, a new Pixar film, a documentary about Pixar and the exhibition titled "Science behind Pixar". Thus, I would like this chance to write about what I have learned from this period of learning about Pixar and share my obsession about the company.

Me with Buzz Lightyear at The Science Behing Pixar Exhbition in Museum of Science

A Book written by the president of Pixar

I started this journey when I decided to pick up a book called "Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration" by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace as one of Mark Zuckerberg's recommended books. Ed Catmull is the co-founder and current president of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios. Even though the premise of the book is not solely on the history of Pixar, but instead the management of creative enterprise, it still manages to tell different accounts related to Pixar as an example. Being a co-founder of Pixar, Ed had a first-hand experience with all the ups and downs in Pixar ranging from founding the company with the help from Steve Job, achieving an incredible success after its first movie "Toy Story", to facing different struggles as the company expanded and merged with Disney in 2006.

 One great example of a creative culture at Pixar is "Notes Day," which is a day dedicated to the entire company to get together, reflect on different aspects of the company, and offer ideas for possible solutions. By listening to each person carefully, as they suggest new ideas, the employees felt that they are a part of the company and they also had a chance to meet new people from different departments. Another great thing about this book is the last chapter of the book, dedicated to Steve Job as their first investor. Even though there have been numerous books and movies about Steve Job, Ed wrote this section in such a way that you can feel more connected to Steve and how important he is to people around him. Lastly, the book suggests that what makes Pixar successful in the past two decades is its dedication to creativity and originality in the story in each film. 

The way the films look will never entertain an audience alone. It has to be in the service of a good story with great characters. - John Lasseter

Creativity, Inc. Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

"The Science behind Pixar" Exhibition at Museum of Science, Boston

The second thing that I experience about Pixar is the exhibition about Pixar at Museum of Science. Being an exhibition in a science museum, it mostly showcased the process of making a computer-graphic animation from modeling, sculpting, animating, simulating, lighting to rendering. Unlike the book that focuses on the stories and ideas, this exhibition addresses the technical challenges of making a film. Even though Pixar is a animation studio, it has a whole team of software engineers, helping to create new tools that animators can use to help to make a film.

Drawing for Wall-E in the exhibition

Examples of these challenges are a crowd simulation to create hundreds of ants in A Bug's Life, a human animation in The Incredibles, an underwater background in Finding Nemo, and fur and hair simulation in Brave. Although the story is the most important thing in animated features, the technical progresses helps animators to achieve these stories as John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar, often said, 

The art challenges the technology, and the technology inspires the art. - John Lasseter

A new Pixar film "The Good Dinosaur" (2015):

The third thing that I decided to do about Pixar is watching the newest Pixar film that just came out in theaters recently. After reading the book and went to the exhibition, I watched the film in a completely new way from amazing details in water, trees and environments to different characters. I would not say that The Good Dinosaur is my favorite Pixar film, but there are many things to like about the film. Now I am ready to go back and watch all the previous Pixar films again as I will definitely appreciate them more than I watched it for the first time.

The Good Dinosaur (2015)

A documentary about Pixar "The Pixar Story" (2007):

The last thing that I did about Pixar is to watch the documentary about Pixar, called The Pixar Story. After reading the book, I would like to know more about Pixar and its history as the book only addresses different snippets of the whole story. The documentary tells the story of Pixar from the beginning until the acquisition by Disney in 2006 and interviews different people who involves with the company, including Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton (director of Finding Nemo and Wall-E), Pete Docter (director of Monster Inc, Up and Inside Out), Brad Bird (director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille), George Lucas (filmmaker who created Industrial Light & Magic computer graphics division at Lucasfilm where Ed Catmull and John Lasseter worked together before founding Pixar) and Steve Job (the first investor of Pixar).

The Pixar Story (2007)

After all these, I found myself want more from Pixar. I want to read more books about Pixar and re-watch all previous Pixar films. But this is a good start.