1 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:12,680 Speaker 1: Get Technology with text stuff from dot com. Hey there, 2 00:00:12,680 --> 00:00:16,239 Speaker 1: and welcome to text Stuff, and the second part of 3 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:20,119 Speaker 1: the Pixar Story. So when I first started recording this, 4 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:21,599 Speaker 1: I thought it was going to be a two parter, 5 00:00:21,840 --> 00:00:24,840 Speaker 1: but as I started to fill out more and more 6 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,400 Speaker 1: notes about the various things that went on at Pixar 7 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:33,440 Speaker 1: over the last couple of decades, I realized that it 8 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:35,839 Speaker 1: was gonna be bigger than two parts. So this will 9 00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:38,879 Speaker 1: actually be the second part of a three part series, 10 00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:42,280 Speaker 1: and some of these episodes might go a little long. 11 00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:47,680 Speaker 1: So um, I think Pixar is a fascinating company, had 12 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:51,080 Speaker 1: some really interesting people go in and out of it, 13 00:00:51,440 --> 00:00:57,240 Speaker 1: So I apologize for getting rather verbos, but I think 14 00:00:57,240 --> 00:00:59,960 Speaker 1: it's important to really explore some of the cool thing 15 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:05,680 Speaker 1: things going on within Pixar, not just from a technological standpoint, 16 00:01:05,720 --> 00:01:08,240 Speaker 1: but from a creative one and from a business standpoint 17 00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:12,240 Speaker 1: as well, a lot of interesting lessons to learn. So 18 00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:16,600 Speaker 1: with the last episode, I left off just before Pixar 19 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:20,600 Speaker 1: was going to debut its first feature length computer animated film, 20 00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:24,240 Speaker 1: which of course is Toy Story, and I left it 21 00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:29,360 Speaker 1: off as a fake cliffhanger. Would the company succeed? Of 22 00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:32,039 Speaker 1: course they did, But one thing I want to point 23 00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:35,000 Speaker 1: out is that Toy Story itself was partly made possible 24 00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:38,600 Speaker 1: because of another movie, not a Pixar film, but the 25 00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:42,280 Speaker 1: movie A Nightmare Before Christmas. And the reason I say 26 00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:45,640 Speaker 1: this is A Nightmare Before Christmas was a stop motion 27 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:48,840 Speaker 1: animated film produced by Tim Burton, and it was the 28 00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:52,960 Speaker 1: first animated film that Disney agreed to distribute, even though 29 00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:57,520 Speaker 1: the animation itself was not done by Walt Disney Animation Studios, 30 00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:01,400 Speaker 1: and that actually laid the ground own work for Pixar 31 00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:06,120 Speaker 1: to follow along with Toy Story. Also, one other connection 32 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:11,520 Speaker 1: between the two, John Lasseter of Pixar fame and Tim 33 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:15,240 Speaker 1: Burton both attended cal Arts at the same time. So 34 00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:19,079 Speaker 1: that's kind of cool, little little kind of a connection. 35 00:02:20,639 --> 00:02:23,440 Speaker 1: So one thing I gotta get off the bat, this 36 00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:25,600 Speaker 1: is gonna be true for all the different movies that 37 00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,880 Speaker 1: I talked about the Pixar has worked on. Each film 38 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:32,400 Speaker 1: required many years to finish. A team might work on 39 00:02:32,440 --> 00:02:35,200 Speaker 1: a movie for five years at a time. It's not 40 00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:39,880 Speaker 1: that unusual, particularly with these computer animated films, and during 41 00:02:39,919 --> 00:02:43,200 Speaker 1: the development of Toy Story, the characters and script went 42 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:47,600 Speaker 1: through lots and lots of changes. Also, not unusual with Pixar. 43 00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:50,840 Speaker 1: They've always said that story comes first. They have to 44 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:53,720 Speaker 1: get the story right, and if they don't have the 45 00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:58,960 Speaker 1: story just right, people don't care how good your animation is. 46 00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:02,720 Speaker 1: If the story doesn't hold your attention, you eventually just say, well, 47 00:03:02,760 --> 00:03:05,040 Speaker 1: that was pretty and flashy. But I didn't really care 48 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:09,480 Speaker 1: about anything. Back in the original run, when they were 49 00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:13,720 Speaker 1: first drafting out the story for toy story, buzz light 50 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:16,040 Speaker 1: Year had a totally different name. He was called Tempest, 51 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:19,440 Speaker 1: which was a reference to the classic arcade machine and wood. 52 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:22,880 Speaker 1: He originally wasn't a pull string toy. He was a 53 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:28,120 Speaker 1: Ventriloquists dummy, but Michael Eisner, who at the time was 54 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:31,800 Speaker 1: Disney's CEO, stepped in and asked Pixar to change it 55 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:35,400 Speaker 1: because he said dummies are inherently creepy, and it is 56 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:37,920 Speaker 1: difficult for me to disagree with that. I don't agree 57 00:03:37,920 --> 00:03:40,720 Speaker 1: with a lot of things that Michael Eisner did, but 58 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:45,080 Speaker 1: I definitely agree that ventriloquist dummies are are creepy. And 59 00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:49,800 Speaker 1: another major change was Buzzes whole worldview. In those early drafts, 60 00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:52,720 Speaker 1: buzz Lightyear knew that he was a toy, and he 61 00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:55,120 Speaker 1: knew that there was a television show that tied in 62 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:57,920 Speaker 1: with the toy, but then they had Tim Allen come 63 00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:02,480 Speaker 1: in to do the the voiceovers acting, and Tim Allen's 64 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:06,360 Speaker 1: take on Buzz was that the character was completely oblivious. 65 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:10,320 Speaker 1: He lived the role of a space ranger. That is 66 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:13,320 Speaker 1: what Buzz was. He wasn't a toy of a space ranger. 67 00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:16,400 Speaker 1: He was a space ranger. And the writers thought, well, 68 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:19,719 Speaker 1: that's way more interesting. So they actually reworked the story 69 00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:24,440 Speaker 1: based upon Tim Allen's performance and they started to change things. 70 00:04:24,480 --> 00:04:27,720 Speaker 1: So this whole process goes on for a long time, 71 00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:31,200 Speaker 1: and according to people at Pixar, those characters were really 72 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:35,120 Speaker 1: tough to nailed down. Disney executives found the initial characters 73 00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:37,360 Speaker 1: a little too wholesome and boring, which is kind of 74 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:40,960 Speaker 1: interesting to think that Disney exects would say, yeah, you know, 75 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:42,920 Speaker 1: these guys, there's there's not a lot, there's not a 76 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,159 Speaker 1: lot going on here. We need some more conflict, We 77 00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:49,279 Speaker 1: need them to not be these just perfect toys. So 78 00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:51,880 Speaker 1: the next iteration went a little too far in the 79 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:55,080 Speaker 1: other direction, and Pixar says, yeah, we kind of accidentally 80 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:59,440 Speaker 1: turned Woody into a real jerk face. He became just 81 00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:02,400 Speaker 1: likable so they had to figure out where was the 82 00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:05,440 Speaker 1: balance between these two extremes, and fortunately the writers were 83 00:05:05,440 --> 00:05:07,839 Speaker 1: able to come up with that balance. Though for a 84 00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:10,560 Speaker 1: while it actually looked like Disney might pull the plug 85 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:14,279 Speaker 1: on Toy Story. Keep in mind, Disney was providing the 86 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:19,719 Speaker 1: funding here. Disney was giving Pixar twenty well not giving, 87 00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:24,200 Speaker 1: but providing twenty one million dollars for Pixar to produce 88 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:27,840 Speaker 1: three movies, and uh they were. Disney was also going 89 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:31,440 Speaker 1: to provide the distribution for Pixar, and in return, Disney 90 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:35,400 Speaker 1: was taking an enormous share of the revenue should these 91 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:39,960 Speaker 1: movies prove to be successful. The whole project required way 92 00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:43,599 Speaker 1: more resources than Pisar anticipated. They had only been working 93 00:05:43,640 --> 00:05:45,960 Speaker 1: on short films up to that point and did not 94 00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:51,640 Speaker 1: realize what a different creature a feature length film can be. 95 00:05:52,680 --> 00:05:57,040 Speaker 1: It's not just oh, this one short we did required 96 00:05:57,040 --> 00:06:00,200 Speaker 1: ten people, but this movie is four times longer, so 97 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:03,279 Speaker 1: we'll need forty people. It's way more complicated than that. 98 00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:07,440 Speaker 1: They originally thought they could get away with just using 99 00:06:07,560 --> 00:06:11,760 Speaker 1: eight animators for Toy Story, and on top of that, 100 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:15,360 Speaker 1: they would have people in lighting and textures, but eight 101 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:18,720 Speaker 1: animators to actually create the animation. They ended up with 102 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:22,080 Speaker 1: thirty three by the end of the production, and all 103 00:06:22,120 --> 00:06:25,640 Speaker 1: the other departments also needed more people than they originally estimated, 104 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:28,840 Speaker 1: so with each film, Pixar would typically add a few 105 00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:32,480 Speaker 1: more animators. By the time Monsters Inc. Rolls around, for example, 106 00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:37,080 Speaker 1: there were fifty animators working on that movie. So it 107 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:41,039 Speaker 1: became clear that this feature link game was different and 108 00:06:41,480 --> 00:06:43,760 Speaker 1: not a big surprise that Pixar had to learn this. 109 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:48,640 Speaker 1: It was new territory for them. Now. They also had 110 00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:51,800 Speaker 1: to make sure that everyone who was working on animation 111 00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:55,160 Speaker 1: was going to animate the characters in a consistent way. 112 00:06:55,400 --> 00:07:00,480 Speaker 1: You couldn't have different animators manipulate characters so that they 113 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:02,919 Speaker 1: have their own quirks. When one animator is working on 114 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:07,320 Speaker 1: it but not on another, it's inconsistent and disorienting. So 115 00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:10,920 Speaker 1: typically a lead animator would be assigned to every major 116 00:07:11,080 --> 00:07:15,240 Speaker 1: character to create the desired performance, but an individual animator 117 00:07:15,320 --> 00:07:18,200 Speaker 1: might work on every single character in a film at 118 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:21,240 Speaker 1: some point or another. It may just be that the 119 00:07:21,320 --> 00:07:24,360 Speaker 1: characters in the background for that sequence, but they still 120 00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:29,520 Speaker 1: have to act in character. Acting is interesting because normally 121 00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:32,520 Speaker 1: we think of it as a creation between an actor 122 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:35,160 Speaker 1: and maybe a director or perhaps a couple of actors 123 00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:38,600 Speaker 1: and a director, but in this case it's an entire 124 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:42,880 Speaker 1: department of people coming together to determine what acting is 125 00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:47,680 Speaker 1: for each individual character, sometimes multiple departments of of people, 126 00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:52,040 Speaker 1: so much more complicated than a live action sort of production. 127 00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:57,240 Speaker 1: The first bit that they actually animated for Toy Story 128 00:07:57,880 --> 00:08:01,680 Speaker 1: was the sequence in which the toy soldiers deployed to 129 00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:04,800 Speaker 1: see what Andy is getting for his birthday. So to 130 00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:07,560 Speaker 1: get an idea of how those soldiers would actually move around, 131 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:11,080 Speaker 1: the animators ended up strapping their feet to boards, and 132 00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:14,920 Speaker 1: then they tried to move around with their feet connected 133 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:19,960 Speaker 1: to each other on these these solid wooden boards. Supposedly 134 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:22,960 Speaker 1: the first person to try this actually was nailing their 135 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:27,360 Speaker 1: shoes to the boards and did so the wrong way, 136 00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:30,480 Speaker 1: in other words, nailing up from the board through the shoe, 137 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:35,160 Speaker 1: which seems to be a little uh, poorly thought out 138 00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:38,840 Speaker 1: in my mind. But at any rate, you had these 139 00:08:38,880 --> 00:08:42,240 Speaker 1: these animators trying to get around so that they could 140 00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:45,600 Speaker 1: get a good basis for how the character should move 141 00:08:45,679 --> 00:08:48,960 Speaker 1: in the actual film, and apparently was quite the scene 142 00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:54,440 Speaker 1: that Pixar HQ. Now. Computer animation takes several steps to complete, 143 00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:59,000 Speaker 1: just like traditional animation does, so In computer animation, you 144 00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:01,560 Speaker 1: have to build the computer models for the characters, so 145 00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:06,320 Speaker 1: this is the three dimensional representation of your character. You 146 00:09:06,360 --> 00:09:08,480 Speaker 1: have to also do that for sets and props. You 147 00:09:08,520 --> 00:09:11,040 Speaker 1: can't just do it for just the characters, otherwise everything 148 00:09:11,040 --> 00:09:14,760 Speaker 1: else is flat, and you animate the sequences according to 149 00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:19,000 Speaker 1: the storyboard and performances. But at that point, even after 150 00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:22,080 Speaker 1: you've modeled everything and you've figured out the physics and 151 00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:25,160 Speaker 1: you know how different parts move in relation to each other, 152 00:09:25,920 --> 00:09:27,920 Speaker 1: you still end up with kind of a featureless and 153 00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:32,520 Speaker 1: plastic figure. Everything looks kind of like it's just like 154 00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:37,240 Speaker 1: simple solid body plastic. So then you have to overlay 155 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:40,920 Speaker 1: color textures and shading to give more definition to the characters. 156 00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:44,160 Speaker 1: And then you have to add lighting sequences to create 157 00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:46,439 Speaker 1: the mood you want for that scene and the effects 158 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:51,880 Speaker 1: you need, and this gets really complicated. In a physical 159 00:09:52,600 --> 00:09:56,760 Speaker 1: uh space where you're actually shooting live action, you can 160 00:09:56,840 --> 00:09:59,760 Speaker 1: move lights around and see what sort of effects you get. 161 00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:02,000 Speaker 1: You know what happens if you light the scene from 162 00:10:02,040 --> 00:10:04,480 Speaker 1: the back as opposed to from the front. But in 163 00:10:04,520 --> 00:10:07,520 Speaker 1: computer animation you have to actually program all that in. 164 00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:10,520 Speaker 1: At least initially. You might eventually come come up with 165 00:10:10,559 --> 00:10:14,480 Speaker 1: a lighting software suite that does most of this automatically, 166 00:10:15,080 --> 00:10:17,360 Speaker 1: and then you can make minor tweaks at that point. 167 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:22,360 Speaker 1: But when you start out, you have to program how 168 00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:26,840 Speaker 1: the light behaves. The computer doesn't magically know that light 169 00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:29,800 Speaker 1: from one direction is going to create a different effect 170 00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:32,120 Speaker 1: from than light from another direction. You have to actually 171 00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:35,680 Speaker 1: build all that in. So it's incredibly time consuming and 172 00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:39,640 Speaker 1: work intensive. It involves a lot of technical know how 173 00:10:40,679 --> 00:10:43,920 Speaker 1: and artistic know how as well, so it's it's not 174 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,840 Speaker 1: an easy job. Now. Originally Pixar employees thought they could 175 00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:52,760 Speaker 1: render the entire film in twenty months using fifty three processors. 176 00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:56,160 Speaker 1: That's just the rendering stage, mind you, that's not the animation, 177 00:10:56,200 --> 00:10:58,559 Speaker 1: but twenty months just to render the work that they 178 00:10:58,559 --> 00:11:01,600 Speaker 1: had created. But it turned out they needed three hundred 179 00:11:01,640 --> 00:11:04,520 Speaker 1: machines to do the job, not fifty three processors. Three 180 00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:09,040 Speaker 1: D computers, and today Pixar has more than twenty thousand 181 00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:12,480 Speaker 1: processors to work on render jobs, which means they could 182 00:11:12,559 --> 00:11:15,960 Speaker 1: take that raw footage from Toy Story and render it 183 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:19,720 Speaker 1: in real time by the end of if if you 184 00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:23,880 Speaker 1: were to start rendering all that footage and you started 185 00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:26,280 Speaker 1: the DVD of Toy Story at the same time, you 186 00:11:26,320 --> 00:11:29,800 Speaker 1: would be done with both at around the same time. Uh. 187 00:11:29,920 --> 00:11:33,360 Speaker 1: Not necessarily true with later Pixar films, which are more 188 00:11:33,400 --> 00:11:36,120 Speaker 1: complicated than that first Toy Story movie, but it does 189 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:40,400 Speaker 1: illustrate how much more sophisticated things have become since then. 190 00:11:40,559 --> 00:11:43,959 Speaker 1: And once again we see that Moore's law has brought 191 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:46,080 Speaker 1: down the cost of computing to a point where this 192 00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:49,400 Speaker 1: sort of thing is possible. It's not outside the reach 193 00:11:49,640 --> 00:11:52,720 Speaker 1: of a production studio now. At the time that would 194 00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:55,320 Speaker 1: have been impossible. It would have been too expensive to 195 00:11:55,400 --> 00:11:59,120 Speaker 1: have twenty thousand processors, let alone the idea of well 196 00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:00,840 Speaker 1: how do we how do we power them and keep 197 00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:03,320 Speaker 1: them cold enough so that they work, and where do 198 00:12:03,400 --> 00:12:06,480 Speaker 1: we put them and all that kind of stuff. But 199 00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:10,679 Speaker 1: we've seen the chips get smaller, we've seen them we 200 00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:16,440 Speaker 1: get more powerful, we've seen more uh sophisticated processors with 201 00:12:16,520 --> 00:12:21,080 Speaker 1: multiple cores, including graphics processors, and of course we've seen 202 00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:24,240 Speaker 1: that price come down over time, so now it's less 203 00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:30,480 Speaker 1: of a an insurmountable obstacle. Still expensive, just not as 204 00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:33,959 Speaker 1: expensive as it would have been back then. So after 205 00:12:34,040 --> 00:12:37,480 Speaker 1: making Toy Story, John Lasseter realized that a feature link 206 00:12:37,559 --> 00:12:41,120 Speaker 1: computer animated film was way too much work for a 207 00:12:41,200 --> 00:12:43,840 Speaker 1: single director. He was the director for Toy Story, but 208 00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:46,360 Speaker 1: he realized this is too big a job for one 209 00:12:46,440 --> 00:12:49,920 Speaker 1: person to head up. So from that point forward, the 210 00:12:49,960 --> 00:12:53,880 Speaker 1: Pixar films would have multiple directors, with normally one acting 211 00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:55,880 Speaker 1: as kind of the primary director to steer the vision 212 00:12:55,920 --> 00:12:59,840 Speaker 1: of the film, and others to oversee specific aspects of 213 00:13:00,040 --> 00:13:03,520 Speaker 1: the production, like like cinematography and lighting and that sort 214 00:13:03,559 --> 00:13:06,880 Speaker 1: of stuff. The movie came out on November twenty two, 215 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:12,200 Speaker 1: n and it was directed by John Lasseter. Several writers 216 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:16,320 Speaker 1: worked on the story, including Josh Weeden, who is of 217 00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:19,319 Speaker 1: course the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly 218 00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:22,439 Speaker 1: and Angel and things like that. Wheed and by the way, 219 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:25,200 Speaker 1: I wrote a couple of my favorite lines, including You're 220 00:13:25,240 --> 00:13:28,360 Speaker 1: a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity 221 00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:30,600 Speaker 1: and uh one of my favorite lines of all time, 222 00:13:30,920 --> 00:13:35,720 Speaker 1: wind the Frog. This movie also marked the first time 223 00:13:35,760 --> 00:13:39,440 Speaker 1: Pixar worked with the musician Randy Newman, who would go 224 00:13:39,480 --> 00:13:42,600 Speaker 1: on to compose the music for six more Pixar movies. 225 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:45,280 Speaker 1: So he hasn't worked on all of them, but he 226 00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:48,080 Speaker 1: worked on a lot of them, and also on a 227 00:13:48,160 --> 00:13:51,959 Speaker 1: personal note, Toy Story was the first movie I saw 228 00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:55,120 Speaker 1: while dating the woman who would later on become my wife. 229 00:13:56,240 --> 00:13:58,320 Speaker 1: It took some convincing to get her to the theater 230 00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:01,640 Speaker 1: to to go and see a move V called Toy Story, 231 00:14:01,679 --> 00:14:04,360 Speaker 1: but I eventually convinced her to do so, and afterwards 232 00:14:04,360 --> 00:14:08,000 Speaker 1: she became a lifelong Pixar fan. So I did something right. 233 00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:15,120 Speaker 1: Uh nineteen years woo Now, Toy Story was a really 234 00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:19,880 Speaker 1: big hit. According to box office Mojo, Toy Stories global 235 00:14:19,920 --> 00:14:23,360 Speaker 1: box office amounted to three hundred sixty two million dollars, 236 00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:27,960 Speaker 1: but Pixar's deal with Disney meant it only received a 237 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,480 Speaker 1: small percentage of the profits. Between ten and fifteen percent 238 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:34,680 Speaker 1: of the profits. Most of that money went to Disney, 239 00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:37,760 Speaker 1: not to Pixar. Some folks over at Pixar felt that 240 00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:41,800 Speaker 1: this was kind of unfair, that Disney was providing the 241 00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:46,400 Speaker 1: distribution and marketing, and that initial maybe seven million dollars 242 00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:48,760 Speaker 1: you could argue for the budget of the movie, but 243 00:14:48,800 --> 00:14:53,320 Speaker 1: otherwise wasn't responsible for the actual success of the movie. Disney, 244 00:14:53,360 --> 00:14:56,320 Speaker 1: apart from giving some notes, didn't determine the story. They 245 00:14:56,360 --> 00:14:58,880 Speaker 1: didn't do the animation, they didn't do the effects, they 246 00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:03,920 Speaker 1: didn't hire the voice actors, so some folks over Pixar. 247 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:07,640 Speaker 1: We're a little not happy with this arrangement, but that's 248 00:15:07,680 --> 00:15:12,840 Speaker 1: how things were at the time. Shortly after Toy Story premiered, 249 00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:17,000 Speaker 1: like a week after Toy Story came out, Steve Jobs 250 00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:20,120 Speaker 1: made the big move and took Pixar public with an 251 00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:24,000 Speaker 1: initial public offering or i p O. It ended up 252 00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:29,400 Speaker 1: being the biggest technology i p O in which was 253 00:15:29,440 --> 00:15:32,760 Speaker 1: also a year that saw Netscape go public. If you 254 00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:35,960 Speaker 1: don't know what Netscape is, go look it up. Used 255 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:39,600 Speaker 1: to be the name and computer browsers for the Internet 256 00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:42,680 Speaker 1: back in the day. Now, before the i p O, 257 00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:47,040 Speaker 1: the estimated value of a share of Pixar stock was 258 00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:51,000 Speaker 1: between twelve and fourteen dollars. That's what analysts were predicting 259 00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:55,040 Speaker 1: that Pixar shares would be between twelve and fourteen bucks 260 00:15:55,040 --> 00:15:57,960 Speaker 1: per share, but when trading open, the initial share price 261 00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:03,320 Speaker 1: was actually twenty two dollars. Toy stories incredible opening was 262 00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:06,640 Speaker 1: probably part of the reason why it was higher than 263 00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:10,520 Speaker 1: originally estimated. During that first day of trading, the stock 264 00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:13,760 Speaker 1: reached its highest point at forty six dollars per share, 265 00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:18,160 Speaker 1: which means it more than doubled its value from the 266 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:22,360 Speaker 1: opening bell of the stock exchange. Now, granted it, it 267 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:25,040 Speaker 1: didn't end at forty six dollars per year on that 268 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:28,320 Speaker 1: first day. It actually settled to thirty nine dollars per year, 269 00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:32,400 Speaker 1: so still higher than what it opened at. And because 270 00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:36,440 Speaker 1: Steve Jobs owned practically all the shares in the company 271 00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:40,360 Speaker 1: before taking it public, it turned him into a billionaire 272 00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:47,120 Speaker 1: a billion air overnight. He had spent fifty million dollars 273 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:50,400 Speaker 1: on this company over time trying to keep it afloat. 274 00:16:50,880 --> 00:16:55,840 Speaker 1: That gamble paid off big time, and of course it 275 00:16:55,920 --> 00:16:58,320 Speaker 1: gave Pixar a bit more leverage. It was a force 276 00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:02,640 Speaker 1: to be reckoned with a one point for six billion 277 00:17:02,760 --> 00:17:07,880 Speaker 1: dollar market value force. So imagine that. Imagine that you're 278 00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:11,720 Speaker 1: working for a company that, over the course of a 279 00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:15,879 Speaker 1: week has its first feature length film come out and 280 00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:20,080 Speaker 1: then is valued at one point for six billion dollars. 281 00:17:20,760 --> 00:17:26,760 Speaker 1: It must have been incredible. Also in n David Di Francesco, 282 00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:30,320 Speaker 1: whom we talked about in the last episode, received an 283 00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:34,480 Speaker 1: Academy Award for the development of a film input scanning technique, 284 00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:38,959 Speaker 1: and Pixar was continuing to develop new technologies in the 285 00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:43,560 Speaker 1: film industry, and eventually it was also licensing those technologies 286 00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:45,719 Speaker 1: out to other companies. So it wasn't just that they 287 00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:48,600 Speaker 1: were developing tools in house to get their stuff done. 288 00:17:49,119 --> 00:17:52,160 Speaker 1: They were innovating in technology and then making money through 289 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:55,479 Speaker 1: licenses so that other production companies could take advantage of 290 00:17:55,560 --> 00:18:05,719 Speaker 1: those advancements. Moving ahead to nine John Laster received a 291 00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:09,399 Speaker 1: Special Achievement Oscar for directing the first feature length computer 292 00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:14,040 Speaker 1: animated film, and ed Capbell Alvi, Ray Smith, Thomas Porter, 293 00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:17,080 Speaker 1: and Tom Duff received a Technical Academy Award for their 294 00:18:17,119 --> 00:18:22,639 Speaker 1: work in Digital Image compositing. Inn picks Are completed work 295 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:27,240 Speaker 1: on their short animated film Jerry's Game, which would win 296 00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:31,120 Speaker 1: a Best Animated Short Film Oscar for Pixar. That would 297 00:18:31,119 --> 00:18:35,359 Speaker 1: be their second Best Animated Short Film Oscar. They would 298 00:18:35,359 --> 00:18:40,880 Speaker 1: win many many more and also in nine seven, Pixar 299 00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:46,600 Speaker 1: hired Randy S. Nelson, who would become the dean of 300 00:18:46,760 --> 00:18:51,600 Speaker 1: Pixar University. Now this is not like a giant college 301 00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:56,560 Speaker 1: campus somewhere akin to Monsters University. This is Pixar's internal 302 00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:00,879 Speaker 1: skills development department, which gives Pixar employees the opportunity to 303 00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:04,000 Speaker 1: take classes and all sorts of fields and disciplines, from 304 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:09,440 Speaker 1: story development and screenwriting to drawing and sculpting, and this 305 00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:13,400 Speaker 1: Nelson guy, he sounds like someone I'd really get along with. 306 00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:17,360 Speaker 1: He was a founder of the Flying Kara Matzov Brothers, 307 00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:20,840 Speaker 1: so he's a juggler, and as a juggler, if you 308 00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:24,359 Speaker 1: didn't know, I'm also a juggler, I really respect that. 309 00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:27,600 Speaker 1: He had also worked with Steve Jobs both at Apple 310 00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:32,520 Speaker 1: and at Next. Remember Jobs had been essentially forced out 311 00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:35,840 Speaker 1: of Apple and had founded a new company called Next Computers, 312 00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:40,880 Speaker 1: eventually abandoning the hardware side of Next Computers and developing 313 00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:44,560 Speaker 1: software instead. Now, according to Nelson, if you were to 314 00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:47,640 Speaker 1: take all the courses, or or to take a full 315 00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:51,960 Speaker 1: suite of courses at Pixar University, you would have the 316 00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:57,160 Speaker 1: equivalent of a bachelor's degree education in fine arts. That's 317 00:19:57,200 --> 00:20:02,760 Speaker 1: how comprehensive there in Nal Development department was. They were 318 00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:07,800 Speaker 1: dedicated to making certain that employees had the opportunity to 319 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:11,280 Speaker 1: learn new skills and develop ones that they had already 320 00:20:11,320 --> 00:20:17,239 Speaker 1: started to to create or to build on previously. And 321 00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,959 Speaker 1: this included all sorts of different types of of activities, 322 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:25,199 Speaker 1: including improvisational acting. So you might end up finding yourself 323 00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:28,440 Speaker 1: sitting next to the head of the company, but you're 324 00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:32,399 Speaker 1: both classmates at that at that class, so it also 325 00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:37,840 Speaker 1: helped break down the hierarchical barriers between bosses and employees. 326 00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:45,040 Speaker 1: The motto of Pixar University is alienis non deus, which 327 00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:49,480 Speaker 1: I know I'm terribly mispronouncing because I have little Latin 328 00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:52,879 Speaker 1: and less Greek, just like a Mr. Shakespeare Shakespeare, but 329 00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:57,399 Speaker 1: the Latin phrase actually means alone no longer. And it 330 00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:01,560 Speaker 1: also has a secondary Latin inscription on a Pixar University 331 00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:07,720 Speaker 1: crest which says tempest pecunia sumnum, which means time, money, sleep. 332 00:21:09,359 --> 00:21:11,160 Speaker 1: The three of those, I think sleep is the one 333 00:21:11,240 --> 00:21:16,040 Speaker 1: that the typical Pixar employee has the least of. Maybe time, 334 00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:20,639 Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to say. Moving on over to 335 00:21:20,760 --> 00:21:24,919 Speaker 1: uh talk about a bit, Pixar and Disney renegotiated their 336 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:29,280 Speaker 1: agreement at that time. So if you remember, they originally 337 00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:31,520 Speaker 1: had come up with a night uh this deal that 338 00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:34,680 Speaker 1: there that Pixar was going to make three movies for Disney, 339 00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:38,639 Speaker 1: after which there would be time to negotiate a new 340 00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:45,240 Speaker 1: a new relationship instead, and in return, Disney was going 341 00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:49,600 Speaker 1: to get the massive majority of the profits from those movies. 342 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:54,000 Speaker 1: But the renegotiation went a little better for Pixar. They 343 00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:58,920 Speaker 1: agreed to do a ten year five film deal uh 344 00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:02,199 Speaker 1: and in that deal, Pixar would receive fifty of the 345 00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:05,600 Speaker 1: profits from the films. The New York Times reported on 346 00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,040 Speaker 1: the change in agreements and revealed that the new Pixar 347 00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:12,199 Speaker 1: film was going to be called Bugs. So this was 348 00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:15,000 Speaker 1: before the movie had come out. Obviously, they were still 349 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:16,679 Speaker 1: working on it. It was still in development, so the 350 00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:21,480 Speaker 1: title had not been finalized. Now that arrangement, with the 351 00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:25,000 Speaker 1: new deal of being a ten year five film contract, 352 00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:28,639 Speaker 1: answered some of the criticisms industry analysts had about the 353 00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:32,040 Speaker 1: Pixar I p O. Because when Pixar went public, some 354 00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:37,040 Speaker 1: analysts were saying, this seems really like investors are pushing 355 00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:41,119 Speaker 1: this company beyond its actual value, because keep in mind, 356 00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:43,919 Speaker 1: while they're doing great work, and while their movies are 357 00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,639 Speaker 1: making huge amounts of money in the box office, that 358 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:48,800 Speaker 1: most of that money is not going to Pixar, it's 359 00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:53,440 Speaker 1: going to Disney. So maybe you shouldn't drive the value 360 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:56,159 Speaker 1: of this company up so high since it's really not 361 00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:00,119 Speaker 1: earning money for itself. Once this new arrangement came and 362 00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,679 Speaker 1: that took some of that criticism away, Bugs, of course, 363 00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:06,160 Speaker 1: ended up being a Bug's Life, which would come out 364 00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:10,440 Speaker 1: in and it broke the record for a Thanksgiving weekend 365 00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:14,480 Speaker 1: film opening in the United States. The movie combines a 366 00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:18,119 Speaker 1: couple of famous stories You've got ESOPs, the ant and 367 00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:21,560 Speaker 1: the Grasshopper as part of it, and a very healthy 368 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:26,680 Speaker 1: dose of the Seven Samurai uh As as the various 369 00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:31,760 Speaker 1: core story elements, and the Pixar team said that A 370 00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:36,439 Speaker 1: Bug's Life was particularly challenging and rewarding. The movie called 371 00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,159 Speaker 1: for a lot of characters on screen at once, I 372 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:42,840 Speaker 1: mean hundreds and hundreds of insects all on screen at 373 00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:45,800 Speaker 1: the same time, which requires a lot of processing power. 374 00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:48,359 Speaker 1: You're talking about a ton of animation. You don't want 375 00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:52,560 Speaker 1: your characters all just standing still, and that requires a 376 00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:55,560 Speaker 1: lot of computer power. Also, on top of that, the 377 00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:59,320 Speaker 1: characters had lots of limbs. I mean, insects have lots 378 00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:02,920 Speaker 1: of legs, so most of these creatures had six legs. 379 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:06,359 Speaker 1: Some of them also had wings or also antenna. On 380 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,679 Speaker 1: top of that, these settings were on uneven surfaces, and 381 00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,240 Speaker 1: those surfaces had to have an organic look to them. 382 00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:15,920 Speaker 1: There was also fire and smoke in the movie, which 383 00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:20,280 Speaker 1: is notoriously difficult to get just right with computer animation 384 00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:23,440 Speaker 1: or at least it was at that time, and so 385 00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,960 Speaker 1: it was very resource heavy. It was a very ambitious 386 00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:31,560 Speaker 1: project to take on after toy story. Now, one of 387 00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,680 Speaker 1: the defining looks of the film is the translucent nature 388 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:38,000 Speaker 1: of the various leaves and flowers. So John Laster said 389 00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,320 Speaker 1: it was like characters were living in a world of 390 00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:44,719 Speaker 1: stained glass, and that the animators had to create ways 391 00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:48,720 Speaker 1: for light to behave properly to shine through these surfaces. 392 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,960 Speaker 1: And again it meant creating new rules, making up new 393 00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:57,520 Speaker 1: rules so that things looked right, didn't just look pretty, 394 00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,479 Speaker 1: but they looked natural. And the story of Bug's life 395 00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:03,080 Speaker 1: changed a lot too over the course of its production. Originally, 396 00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:05,920 Speaker 1: the main character was the head of the circus bugs, 397 00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:10,200 Speaker 1: and that was an ant named Red. But the film 398 00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,840 Speaker 1: didn't find a voice with that main character in place. 399 00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,920 Speaker 1: They couldn't They couldn't figure out, well, what's the story here? 400 00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:19,040 Speaker 1: Where where's the character arc? Why would this character stick 401 00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:23,760 Speaker 1: with this plan of pretending to be a group of 402 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:27,879 Speaker 1: warriors to fight off grasshoppers. He has no steak, he 403 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:32,000 Speaker 1: could just leave. And that's when they realized that perhaps 404 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,919 Speaker 1: a couple of the ants that would be asking the 405 00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:39,119 Speaker 1: circus performers for help are the real main characters, and 406 00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:43,920 Speaker 1: eventually those ants were reduced to a single ant flick uh, 407 00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:46,879 Speaker 1: and that became the main character. So it's interesting to 408 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:52,680 Speaker 1: see that that story remained the chief concern these other 409 00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:58,639 Speaker 1: technical issues while while really fascinating, uh, they were secondary. 410 00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,439 Speaker 1: It wouldn't matter how pretty the screen was. Again, if 411 00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:06,480 Speaker 1: you went and saw it, you didn't care about the characters. Now, 412 00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:08,960 Speaker 1: while A Bug's Life was in production, a team led 413 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,440 Speaker 1: by David Di Francesco created a new way to transfer 414 00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,720 Speaker 1: computer animation onto film stock. Now, remember this is before 415 00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:21,239 Speaker 1: most theaters were able to have digital projectors. There are 416 00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,919 Speaker 1: only a few digital projectors in place in a couple 417 00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,480 Speaker 1: of theaters around North America. So we're still talking about 418 00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:32,840 Speaker 1: an era in which physical reels of film are produced 419 00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:37,200 Speaker 1: and projected onto screens. So De Francesco's method was using 420 00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,200 Speaker 1: a laser recording system that became known as Pixar Vision, 421 00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:46,520 Speaker 1: and it used solid state lasers to record images onto film. 422 00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,320 Speaker 1: So film is photoreactive, meaning that when light hits it, 423 00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,359 Speaker 1: there's a chemical change, and that's where we're able to 424 00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:59,080 Speaker 1: capture images on film. Lasers are really really precise way 425 00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:02,240 Speaker 1: more precise than cathode ray tubes, which was the typical 426 00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,920 Speaker 1: way to transfer a computer animation over to film. So 427 00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:09,840 Speaker 1: using lasers allowed for a much higher quality color reproduction 428 00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:14,720 Speaker 1: and sharper images on film than the earlier versions did. Plus, 429 00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:19,280 Speaker 1: De Francesco's invention was faster than the catholic ray tube method. 430 00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,320 Speaker 1: If you wanted to use a CRT method, it would 431 00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:27,000 Speaker 1: take thirty five seconds to record a single frame of 432 00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:31,160 Speaker 1: computer animation onto film. With the laser method it took 433 00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:37,400 Speaker 1: eight seconds, so much much faster, four times faster than 434 00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:41,680 Speaker 1: the traditional method. So De Francisco would receive a Technical 435 00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,600 Speaker 1: Academy Award for this invention he started he was starting 436 00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,920 Speaker 1: to rack up those those Academy awards for his tech 437 00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:52,360 Speaker 1: technological contributions to the film industry. Now, the big advantage 438 00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,240 Speaker 1: of using that laser recording system is that allowed for 439 00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:58,920 Speaker 1: that much higher quality transfer of an image onto film, 440 00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,720 Speaker 1: and the first time it was used was on a 441 00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,320 Speaker 1: Bug's Life, So the transfers that were made for a 442 00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:08,320 Speaker 1: Bug's Life relied upon this system and it would be 443 00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,720 Speaker 1: used on lots of future films. Though by the time 444 00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,959 Speaker 1: we get around two Monsters Incorporated, Pixar was really starting 445 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,560 Speaker 1: to push for digital projectors in more movie theaters, saying 446 00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:22,280 Speaker 1: that the digital projection is just superior. You get more 447 00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:25,560 Speaker 1: vibrant colors and sharper images than you ever will with film. 448 00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,360 Speaker 1: You don't have the jitter that you would have with film, 449 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:33,320 Speaker 1: you don't have other other physical limitations of film. There 450 00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:37,200 Speaker 1: you would have pure digital experience, which for computer animated 451 00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,920 Speaker 1: film makes perfect sense. If you're talking about other types 452 00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,480 Speaker 1: of movies, you can have a legitimate argument that film 453 00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:47,480 Speaker 1: creates a certain sensibility that you cannot easily replicate using 454 00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,920 Speaker 1: digital projection. Quentin Tarantino would would go bonkers if you 455 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,120 Speaker 1: told him from now on you can only do movies 456 00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:59,160 Speaker 1: and digital, you cannot do them in film, And uh, 457 00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,680 Speaker 1: it does have a a different effect. But in computer 458 00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,959 Speaker 1: animated movies that's less of a problem because the whole 459 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:10,120 Speaker 1: the whole film is digital. It's only when you put 460 00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:13,440 Speaker 1: it onto film that it becomes analog. There was never 461 00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,920 Speaker 1: a physical object for you to shoot on film in 462 00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:22,600 Speaker 1: the first place. Now, in n Toy Story two comes out, 463 00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:24,960 Speaker 1: that would end up being a bit of a point 464 00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,920 Speaker 1: of contention A little bit later between Disney and Pixar 465 00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,040 Speaker 1: and this development process was uneasy from the beginning, actually 466 00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,440 Speaker 1: because Disney. Disney originally wanted this to be a direct 467 00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:39,000 Speaker 1: to video sequel. If you remember the nineties. In the 468 00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:44,360 Speaker 1: early two thousand's, Disney was really into creating direct to 469 00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:48,200 Speaker 1: video sequels of a lot of its very popular feature 470 00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:52,760 Speaker 1: length films, so much so that it became a bit 471 00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:56,480 Speaker 1: of a joke in the industry. But John Laster and 472 00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,960 Speaker 1: his team fought for a cinematic release, and eventually Disney agree. 473 00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,640 Speaker 1: They said, all right, fine, we will make this a 474 00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:07,480 Speaker 1: theatrical release film, not a directive video sequel. Now, during 475 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:11,480 Speaker 1: the making of the movie, there were some really huge setbacks. 476 00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:15,600 Speaker 1: A terrible sequence of events happened. So first, the files 477 00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:18,400 Speaker 1: for the film We're all saved on a Linux system, 478 00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:23,760 Speaker 1: and someone ran the function r M star on the 479 00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:27,240 Speaker 1: hard drive holding all the Toy Story two files. R 480 00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:31,880 Speaker 1: M stands for remove essentially, it's it's to delete stuff 481 00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:36,000 Speaker 1: and start pretty much means everything you find. So someone 482 00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:41,240 Speaker 1: was essentially deleting all the material off of a hard drive, 483 00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,200 Speaker 1: and that hard drive happened to have all of Toy 484 00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:50,440 Speaker 1: Story two's assets on it, including reference files, animation, you know, 485 00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:53,280 Speaker 1: the completed movie. Up to that point, all of it 486 00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:58,040 Speaker 1: was on this hard drive. So when this was detected, 487 00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:02,480 Speaker 1: people saw that various assets we're starting to disappear, including 488 00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:07,400 Speaker 1: entire sequences and even characters. They began to get deleted. 489 00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,160 Speaker 1: And to make matters worse, the official backup for the film. 490 00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,800 Speaker 1: They found out it hadn't been backing up for a 491 00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,240 Speaker 1: couple of months. There had been a failure that had 492 00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:20,320 Speaker 1: not been corrected or addressed. Instead, the team, which was 493 00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:23,200 Speaker 1: working furiously to try and get this movie done on time, 494 00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:28,360 Speaker 1: was relying on the primary copy of the movie, and 495 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:32,800 Speaker 1: the backup was outdated. Now, if this is where that 496 00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,720 Speaker 1: story ended, things would have turned out very differently. The 497 00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:37,920 Speaker 1: whole film would have been set back a huge amount. 498 00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,960 Speaker 1: But the technical director for the movie happened to have 499 00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,920 Speaker 1: a copy of all the files on her work computer, 500 00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,960 Speaker 1: her computer that she used to work from home. She 501 00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,760 Speaker 1: had requested that computer so that she could occasionally spend 502 00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,280 Speaker 1: time at home with her family and not just live 503 00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:03,160 Speaker 1: at the office, and so the team actually sent people 504 00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:09,440 Speaker 1: to her house to physically take her computer, secure it 505 00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:14,000 Speaker 1: in the backseat of her car, and then very gently 506 00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:18,240 Speaker 1: transported back to Pixar so that they could recapture all 507 00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:23,040 Speaker 1: the assets that had been lost in the Great file deletion, 508 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:25,960 Speaker 1: and they were able to do it and the movie 509 00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,920 Speaker 1: was able to continue in development and not suffer this 510 00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:33,280 Speaker 1: terrible setback. But then they had another major challenge when 511 00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,400 Speaker 1: Disney executive, seeing an early cut, said they didn't like 512 00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:40,200 Speaker 1: where it was headed, so the team had to rework 513 00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:44,800 Speaker 1: the film, but Disney said, we are not going to 514 00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:49,880 Speaker 1: change the release date. You still have the same deadline 515 00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,480 Speaker 1: to get the movie finished, even though you have to 516 00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,400 Speaker 1: go back and rework a lot of the stuff. So 517 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,000 Speaker 1: teams would start putting in as many as thirty six 518 00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,160 Speaker 1: to forty eight hours in a row of work, so 519 00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:06,080 Speaker 1: just working for two days non stop, like not even 520 00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,360 Speaker 1: to take a real night's sleep, just working on sequences 521 00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:14,080 Speaker 1: to get this movie finished in time for the deadline. 522 00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:19,280 Speaker 1: Leon Rich, who oversaw cinematography for the film, said that 523 00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:24,440 Speaker 1: while they were technically capable of putting a camera anywhere 524 00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,080 Speaker 1: within a scene and have it do anything that could 525 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,120 Speaker 1: disobey the laws of physics, because it's a virtual camera, 526 00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,280 Speaker 1: you can place the virtual camera anywhere you want. It 527 00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,719 Speaker 1: doesn't have to follow the rules of a real world camera. 528 00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:39,920 Speaker 1: He said that if you did that, they found that 529 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:45,400 Speaker 1: audiences responded as if things weren't right, if it didn't 530 00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,920 Speaker 1: behave the way an actual camera did, you lost the audience. 531 00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:53,000 Speaker 1: So you actually had to restrict the virtual camera, give 532 00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:56,040 Speaker 1: it the same limitations of physical camera would have, which 533 00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:58,200 Speaker 1: is pretty interesting that despite the fact you have the 534 00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:01,880 Speaker 1: technical capability, you couldn't really take advantage of it in 535 00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:05,800 Speaker 1: that way and still managed to keep your audience. Now, 536 00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:08,360 Speaker 1: Toy Story two was the first sequel to earn more 537 00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:12,920 Speaker 1: money than the original film. It broke opening weekend records 538 00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:16,040 Speaker 1: in the UK and the US and in Japan, and 539 00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,520 Speaker 1: it was the first film to be created, mastered, and 540 00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:25,520 Speaker 1: exhibited digitally. Now not exclusively digitally, because again at this time, 541 00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,520 Speaker 1: not that many theaters had digital protectors, but the ones 542 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:33,719 Speaker 1: that did showed Toy Story two in digital format. In 543 00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,320 Speaker 1: two thousand, Pixar would premier the short for The Birds, 544 00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:40,280 Speaker 1: which would of course go on to win an Oscar 545 00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:45,080 Speaker 1: for Best Short Animated Film UH and Pixar would relocate 546 00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:50,279 Speaker 1: to a new headquarters in Emeryville, California. In two thousand one, 547 00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:54,960 Speaker 1: they debuted Monsters Inc. Now, this was the first Pixar 548 00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:58,319 Speaker 1: film not directed by John Lasseter. He had worked on 549 00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:00,880 Speaker 1: Toy Story, A Bug's Life and to Story Too, but 550 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,680 Speaker 1: Pete Doctor came in as the main director and David 551 00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:10,319 Speaker 1: Silverman and Lee Unkrich co directed it. Billy Crystal, who 552 00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:13,759 Speaker 1: voiced the part of Mike Wazowski, was originally offered the 553 00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:16,000 Speaker 1: role of Buzz Lightyear for Toy Story, but he turned 554 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,960 Speaker 1: it down, and he said that this was such a 555 00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,600 Speaker 1: huge mistake that he leapt at the opportunity to voice 556 00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,960 Speaker 1: a character in a new Pixar movie. One of the 557 00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,239 Speaker 1: big advancements they made in computer animation for Monsters Inc. 558 00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:33,359 Speaker 1: Was building realistic looking for and when you think about it, 559 00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:37,680 Speaker 1: you realize how important it was for them to develop this, 560 00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:41,520 Speaker 1: considering the types of furry creatures they had in Monsters, Inc. 561 00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:45,680 Speaker 1: If you don't create a system to animate the fur automatically, 562 00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,280 Speaker 1: it means that you would have to animate every strand 563 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:53,400 Speaker 1: of for by hand. And if you didn't even allow it, 564 00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,439 Speaker 1: like maybe maybe you say, all right, let's not let's 565 00:35:55,440 --> 00:36:00,239 Speaker 1: not animate every individual hair. That's ridiculous. Sully has more 566 00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:05,360 Speaker 1: than a million hairs over his entire body, and animating 567 00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:09,560 Speaker 1: every single one of those individually by hand is not possible. 568 00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:12,759 Speaker 1: Let's group them together. Well, if you did that, then 569 00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,600 Speaker 1: you would end up with this weird, matted look where 570 00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:18,359 Speaker 1: hair still wouldn't seem to move naturally. So they had 571 00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,080 Speaker 1: to find a way to solve that, and they did 572 00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,920 Speaker 1: that by building a simulator so each hair behaves according 573 00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:27,839 Speaker 1: to the rules set in this simulator. It took him 574 00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,040 Speaker 1: a long time to get the simulator just right so 575 00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:33,840 Speaker 1: that hairs would behave properly, so the team had to 576 00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,880 Speaker 1: test the program to make sure that the fur and 577 00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:39,440 Speaker 1: hair is moving in the right way. They had to 578 00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,239 Speaker 1: make tweaks whenever it didn't look right, and they had 579 00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:44,920 Speaker 1: to work very hard to solve collision problems with the 580 00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:48,799 Speaker 1: fur and uh. Some of the other issues were that 581 00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:52,200 Speaker 1: if a character moved too quickly, the fur would sometimes 582 00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:56,240 Speaker 1: go crazy and stretch too far, like it suddenly would 583 00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:59,400 Speaker 1: It would act like a rubber band and stretch across 584 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:01,800 Speaker 1: the screen, and it wasn't until later that they figured 585 00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,160 Speaker 1: out where that problem was coming from. Also, they went 586 00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,759 Speaker 1: ahead and made a decision that certain fur, like the 587 00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:12,799 Speaker 1: fur around Sully's face, wouldn't be animated by this dynamic 588 00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:18,400 Speaker 1: computer simulation because they wanted to have really tight control 589 00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:24,000 Speaker 1: for the purposes of performance and expression. They didn't want 590 00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:27,960 Speaker 1: the fur to be distracting, so for those cases the 591 00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,439 Speaker 1: fur was not dynamic. It was actually static and and 592 00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,440 Speaker 1: and could be animated by hand if necessary. But the 593 00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,760 Speaker 1: rest of the fur, the stuff that was over Sully's 594 00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,239 Speaker 1: body in general, that followed the rules of the simulation. 595 00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:43,760 Speaker 1: They also went ahead and created a program to simulate 596 00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,080 Speaker 1: the natural movements of clothing and toy Story two, they 597 00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:50,440 Speaker 1: had to animate all of owl of Al's toy barn. 598 00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:52,720 Speaker 1: They had an animate all of his clothing by hand, 599 00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:55,520 Speaker 1: and according to the animators, this was a real pain 600 00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,960 Speaker 1: in the butt because not only did it take a 601 00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:02,359 Speaker 1: lot of time to get closed to animating the way 602 00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:06,640 Speaker 1: that they looked right and they behaved according to the 603 00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:10,680 Speaker 1: contours of the person wearing the clothing. Is that the 604 00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:12,560 Speaker 1: worst part is if you do your job right, no 605 00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,480 Speaker 1: one notices. They only notice if you don't do your 606 00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:20,520 Speaker 1: job right because it doesn't look right. So it's a 607 00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:22,600 Speaker 1: frustrating thing to think you spend a lot of time 608 00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:24,760 Speaker 1: to get something to work just right so that people 609 00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:28,480 Speaker 1: do not notice it. And so as a result, they 610 00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,560 Speaker 1: created this automated program that would save time and frustration 611 00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,440 Speaker 1: and the animators could work on other stuff that was 612 00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:39,640 Speaker 1: more important from a performance standpoint. Glenn McQueen, who was 613 00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:43,680 Speaker 1: a supervising animator for Monsters, Inc. Spoken an interview about 614 00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:47,600 Speaker 1: how the increase in computer power was both good and bad. 615 00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:50,520 Speaker 1: It was good and that it gave animators more power 616 00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:54,440 Speaker 1: to create visual complexity, but with that complexity comes the 617 00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:57,280 Speaker 1: challenge of making sure all the details in the frame 618 00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,880 Speaker 1: are working properly. And, as we've seen in all realms 619 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:04,880 Speaker 1: of computers, not just an animation, if you add more power, 620 00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:09,719 Speaker 1: programmers or animators or directors will find ways to make 621 00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,200 Speaker 1: use of that power, so you're never actually ahead of 622 00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:17,799 Speaker 1: the game. You know. This is why when we get 623 00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:21,560 Speaker 1: a new computer with an even more powerful processor, you 624 00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:25,520 Speaker 1: start to think, well, this thing isn't isn't faster than 625 00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:28,560 Speaker 1: what my old computer was Like, Well, that that's not 626 00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:32,400 Speaker 1: because the processor isn't more powerful. It is the problem 627 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:36,120 Speaker 1: is that software developers are building software to take advantage 628 00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:39,200 Speaker 1: of that power, and they may not be taking the 629 00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:45,680 Speaker 1: most efficient path to doing that. So you have this 630 00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:48,759 Speaker 1: constant issue with the fact that software is taking up 631 00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:53,320 Speaker 1: all the power that the new shiny processors can generate, 632 00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:56,640 Speaker 1: and it feels like we're kind of treading water. Same 633 00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:58,880 Speaker 1: thing is true with animation. You can do more stuff, 634 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:01,840 Speaker 1: but once again you just start pushing up against the 635 00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,239 Speaker 1: boundaries of what the technology is capable of doing. Now, 636 00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,400 Speaker 1: the most difficult sequence for the team to nail down, 637 00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,440 Speaker 1: both from a story perspective and technical challenges, was the 638 00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:17,239 Speaker 1: sequence inside the Yeti's Cave, and it was so hard 639 00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:20,160 Speaker 1: for them to get that scene right that they started 640 00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:24,240 Speaker 1: using the phrase yet He's Cave as code for any 641 00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:28,880 Speaker 1: scene in any Pixar film that is near impossible to 642 00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,520 Speaker 1: get right. They would say, oh, this is turning into 643 00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:36,440 Speaker 1: another Yetis Cave, just to explain, like we we know 644 00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:39,960 Speaker 1: this isn't where it needs to be yet and we 645 00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,960 Speaker 1: need to fix it. Monsters, Inc. Did really well. It 646 00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:46,719 Speaker 1: hit a hundred million dollars in domestic box office in 647 00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,400 Speaker 1: just nine days, which was faster than any other animated 648 00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:53,920 Speaker 1: film in history up to that point. Edwin cat Bill 649 00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,640 Speaker 1: officially became the president of Pixar again, and the company 650 00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:02,760 Speaker 1: had six hundred employees at that point. Now two thousand 651 00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:06,600 Speaker 1: one would see ed Edwin kettmil Lauren Carpenter, and Rob 652 00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:10,160 Speaker 1: Cook receive an Academy Award of Merit for the pixar 653 00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:15,879 Speaker 1: in house rendering software package known as Pixars RenderMan, which 654 00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,080 Speaker 1: had been used in many other films to render c 655 00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:20,760 Speaker 1: g I effects, not just Pixars movies. They had licensed 656 00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,680 Speaker 1: it out to other production companies, and this would represent 657 00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:29,440 Speaker 1: the first OSCAR ever awarded specifically for the development of software. 658 00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:34,000 Speaker 1: In two thousand two, Pixar would debut a new short 659 00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,719 Speaker 1: film called Mike's New Car, and this was the first 660 00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,640 Speaker 1: time Pixar had ever released a short film starring characters 661 00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:43,000 Speaker 1: from one of their feature length films. It was nominated 662 00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:46,080 Speaker 1: for an Academy Award but did not win one. But 663 00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:49,000 Speaker 1: that same year, the first Disney Park attraction based off 664 00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:52,080 Speaker 1: a Pixar property opens. That would be a bugs Land 665 00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:56,720 Speaker 1: at disney California Adventure Park. Of course, Disney's California Adventure 666 00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:01,200 Speaker 1: would eventually become home for the Cars right, which if 667 00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,200 Speaker 1: you've not had the chance to go on it, If 668 00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,600 Speaker 1: you ever do go to Disneyland, I would say that 669 00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,160 Speaker 1: a trip over to California Adventure is completely worth it 670 00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:13,000 Speaker 1: just for the car's right. It is really really well done. 671 00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:17,840 Speaker 1: In two thousand three, Finding Nemo premieres with a remastered 672 00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,680 Speaker 1: version of the classic Pixar short Knickknack that was one 673 00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:23,759 Speaker 1: of the ones that they had made back when they 674 00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:27,040 Speaker 1: were trying to sell hardware. Knick Knack was kind of 675 00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:29,800 Speaker 1: their demo for saying, hey, look at the kind of 676 00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:33,279 Speaker 1: stuff we can do. So this time a remastered version 677 00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,120 Speaker 1: comes out with Finding Nemo, and Finding Nemo would break 678 00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:39,560 Speaker 1: more opening weekend box office records for an animated film 679 00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:43,239 Speaker 1: and would win an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. And 680 00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:45,960 Speaker 1: back in Monsters, Inc. Where the fur effects were the 681 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,239 Speaker 1: big challenge with Finding Nemo, obviously, the big challenge was 682 00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:54,320 Speaker 1: getting those underwater effects just right. All sorts of stuff 683 00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,000 Speaker 1: need to be right. The way that particulates floated in 684 00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,920 Speaker 1: the water had to be modeled correctly. The light had 685 00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,800 Speaker 1: to be just right for each of the different water 686 00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:09,120 Speaker 1: environments they were in, the colors, how those colors in 687 00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:12,640 Speaker 1: light would affect the way characters appear on screen. All 688 00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:16,600 Speaker 1: of that had to be researched and developed, and it 689 00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:22,040 Speaker 1: was pretty incredible. They were eventually able to create underwater 690 00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,759 Speaker 1: scenes so convincingly. They would take some reference material, some 691 00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:30,080 Speaker 1: actual film shot underwater an attempt to recreate that film 692 00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,680 Speaker 1: using computer generated imagery. They got so good at it 693 00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:36,920 Speaker 1: that you couldn't tell the difference between the two if 694 00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:39,239 Speaker 1: you showed them side by side, it would be very 695 00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:43,480 Speaker 1: difficult to say, this one's the real footage and this 696 00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:47,080 Speaker 1: one's the computer animated footage. At that point, they then 697 00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:51,000 Speaker 1: had to dial back the realism because in the world 698 00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:54,680 Speaker 1: of Finding Nemo, they wanted it to be somewhat like 699 00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:59,600 Speaker 1: a make believe world, but based in the underwater world 700 00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,480 Speaker 1: we know off. So it had to be it couldn't 701 00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,080 Speaker 1: be too realistic or it would lose the audience, and 702 00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:07,840 Speaker 1: it couldn't be too cartoony or wouldn't be what they wanted. 703 00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:11,640 Speaker 1: And they also had to study how fish move through 704 00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:15,239 Speaker 1: water to make sure that the animation made sense. Uh, 705 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,200 Speaker 1: they had to research aquatic life to understand their anatomy, 706 00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:23,000 Speaker 1: and every animator was required by John Lasseter to get 707 00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:26,200 Speaker 1: certified in scuba and to take several dives to have 708 00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:31,239 Speaker 1: firsthand experience underwater around these environments. They also had to 709 00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:35,240 Speaker 1: develop the color palette that particulate movement all of that stuff, 710 00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,919 Speaker 1: and this was a huge undertaking. Oh and they also 711 00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:42,400 Speaker 1: had to figure out how can you make a compelling 712 00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:47,320 Speaker 1: character out of a fish because traditionally fish have very 713 00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,880 Speaker 1: limited abilities to emote. They don't do a lot of emoting, 714 00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:54,080 Speaker 1: so they had to cheat a bit on that one. 715 00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:57,160 Speaker 1: They had to give fish things like eyelids, which fish 716 00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:00,840 Speaker 1: do not have, and to give them more preastive faces 717 00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:03,440 Speaker 1: and be able to move their their brows and things 718 00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:07,240 Speaker 1: like that so that they could have characters have expressions 719 00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,000 Speaker 1: on screen. Uh, that was a bit of a challenge 720 00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,000 Speaker 1: to to get that just right. And of course developing 721 00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:15,960 Speaker 1: the story was a big tough thing to do. It's 722 00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:19,000 Speaker 1: a story that begins with a character losing his wife 723 00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:22,080 Speaker 1: and most of his children. Of course, that's not the 724 00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:24,520 Speaker 1: only time that happens in picks Are, and it's not 725 00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:26,680 Speaker 1: the only time you see it in Disney. But you 726 00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:28,480 Speaker 1: have to be able to treat that just right so 727 00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:31,759 Speaker 1: that it has an emotional impact but doesn't become so 728 00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:35,560 Speaker 1: overpowering that people you lose everybody at the very opening 729 00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:39,840 Speaker 1: of your movie. It's it's a it's a delicate thing. Also, 730 00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:42,640 Speaker 1: in two thousand three, Pisar debut the short bound In 731 00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:48,080 Speaker 1: and in two thousand four, Pixar would release The Incredibles, 732 00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:52,279 Speaker 1: which I would say is arguably why the best superhero 733 00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:58,000 Speaker 1: films ever made. I'm including all the live action films, 734 00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,960 Speaker 1: and The Incredibles broke all of pick Stars box office 735 00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,239 Speaker 1: records for opening weekend up to that point. It also 736 00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:08,440 Speaker 1: would eventually win the Best Animated Film Oscar. Now, this 737 00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,000 Speaker 1: movie was a little bit different from earlier ones Pixar 738 00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:15,280 Speaker 1: brought on brad Bird. He actually ended up joining Bixar 739 00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:18,319 Speaker 1: becoming part of the company, But when brad Bird came 740 00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,759 Speaker 1: on board, he also brought some folks that he had 741 00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:25,440 Speaker 1: been working with in previous UH productions, and so at 742 00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:28,520 Speaker 1: first there was kind of a Pixar versus brad Bird 743 00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:31,200 Speaker 1: and his guys sort of feeling. It took a while 744 00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,560 Speaker 1: for the two groups to meld together and work together effectively, 745 00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:41,320 Speaker 1: and brad Bird UH was apparently something of a UH 746 00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,319 Speaker 1: and a brace. It is probably the wrong word, but 747 00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,600 Speaker 1: he definitely seemed to come across as a bit aggressive 748 00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:52,879 Speaker 1: because in various drawings of bread Bird that were made 749 00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:55,399 Speaker 1: at around around the time, it always looks like he's 750 00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:59,760 Speaker 1: screaming at everybody, which in the behind the scenes footage 751 00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:02,040 Speaker 1: where the Incredibles, Bred Bird seems to take a little 752 00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,640 Speaker 1: bit of an exception to He's mostly amused by it, 753 00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:08,720 Speaker 1: but he's like, come on, guys. Uh. Eisner reportedly didn't 754 00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:12,239 Speaker 1: like the pitch for The Incredibles at all and thought 755 00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:14,560 Speaker 1: the film would have to be a live action picture. 756 00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:17,640 Speaker 1: He would just essentially dismiss the idea that this should 757 00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,719 Speaker 1: be animated, but Lasted was able to change Eisner's mind 758 00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:24,960 Speaker 1: and get the film greenlit. Now early ideas had a 759 00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:28,200 Speaker 1: slightly different take on a story than what we saw 760 00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:31,319 Speaker 1: in the finished film. For example, originally everyone in the 761 00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:35,680 Speaker 1: family could fly except for the dad Bob, which meant 762 00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,560 Speaker 1: that he would end up behind the wheel of the 763 00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:41,279 Speaker 1: family station wagon trying to keep up with all the 764 00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:45,600 Speaker 1: rest of his members who are flying away. Um Brad 765 00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,120 Speaker 1: Bird decided that that didn't make a whole lot of sense, 766 00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:50,520 Speaker 1: and he didn't want any of his characters to have 767 00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,480 Speaker 1: unlimited superpowers. He didn't want any character to be like 768 00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:57,160 Speaker 1: Superman because he wanted those characters to get into situations 769 00:47:57,160 --> 00:47:58,840 Speaker 1: that were difficult to get out of. And if you 770 00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:03,279 Speaker 1: make a character's too powerful, it's really really tricky to 771 00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:10,719 Speaker 1: come up with complications that that character can't just immediately fix, right. 772 00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:13,040 Speaker 1: I Mean, that's the problem with a lot of Superman 773 00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,520 Speaker 1: stories is how do you create a situation for Superman 774 00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:21,600 Speaker 1: that he can't just fix right away, and it tends 775 00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,080 Speaker 1: to mean you have to escalate everything. So instead of 776 00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,560 Speaker 1: escalating everything to a ridiculous level, Brad Bird said, let's 777 00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:32,359 Speaker 1: make certain that the powers, while cool and and and 778 00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:36,000 Speaker 1: beyond the capabilities of your typical human, don't get to 779 00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:42,040 Speaker 1: the point where any one character is invincible. Now, the 780 00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:46,000 Speaker 1: animators have the challenge of making unrealistically proportioned characters move 781 00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:48,520 Speaker 1: in a believable way. If you've seen the Incredibles, you know, 782 00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:54,600 Speaker 1: while they're unmistakably human, they don't have the proportions of humans. Bob, 783 00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,080 Speaker 1: for example, has these tiny little feet and legs compared 784 00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:02,759 Speaker 1: to a massive, massive tour So, uh, it's not realistic. 785 00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,480 Speaker 1: It's it's a stylized version of a human being. So 786 00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:09,640 Speaker 1: animating a character like that so that the character appears 787 00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:12,120 Speaker 1: to move in a natural way when the character itself 788 00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:16,680 Speaker 1: is an unnatural shape is a pretty tough problem. And 789 00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:20,120 Speaker 1: also they had to create a look to the character 790 00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:22,719 Speaker 1: so that they didn't look like toys. You know, that 791 00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:24,640 Speaker 1: was that was the issue with Toy Story. In fact, 792 00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:28,880 Speaker 1: some people pointed out that Andy in Toy Story and 793 00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:31,320 Speaker 1: Toy Story to look kind of toy like himself. He 794 00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:34,359 Speaker 1: didn't look very much like a human, So they had 795 00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:36,359 Speaker 1: those challenges ahead of them. They needed to get that 796 00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,879 Speaker 1: just right. But you could argue that maybe by going 797 00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:44,759 Speaker 1: the stylized route they didn't really nail it. I think 798 00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:48,600 Speaker 1: it's perfect for the way the movie is. Two thousand four, 799 00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:51,200 Speaker 1: Finding Nemo would go on to become the best selling 800 00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:56,040 Speaker 1: DVD of all time, with twenty four million copies in 801 00:49:56,080 --> 00:49:59,840 Speaker 1: North America alone. Also in two thousand four, over it 802 00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:03,600 Speaker 1: Epcot Walt disney World, there was a new attraction that 803 00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:07,360 Speaker 1: opened called Turtle Talk with Crush, which was part of 804 00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,920 Speaker 1: the Living Seas Pavilion. So Turtle Talk with Crush is 805 00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:14,040 Speaker 1: really cool. The basic premise is you go into a 806 00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:18,200 Speaker 1: little theater and Crush from Finding Nemo, that's the sea turtle, 807 00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:21,320 Speaker 1: shows up and he has a conversation with the audience 808 00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:25,400 Speaker 1: and actual conversation. He can talk to specific people in 809 00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:30,120 Speaker 1: the audience, ask them questions and tell jokes and that 810 00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:35,440 Speaker 1: sort of stuff. So it's an incredible thing to see, 811 00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:38,440 Speaker 1: and it's it can at least be It can be 812 00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:40,080 Speaker 1: a little mind blowing at first because it looks like 813 00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:44,640 Speaker 1: they're doing three D computer animation in real time that's 814 00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,760 Speaker 1: not exactly what's happening. It's more like a video game. 815 00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:49,840 Speaker 1: Like think of a video game where you're able to 816 00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:53,680 Speaker 1: control the characters, make the move around, and it's similar 817 00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,000 Speaker 1: to that. So there's a performer who's behind the scenes 818 00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:01,240 Speaker 1: who can control Crush. They can make the turtle move around, 819 00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:05,440 Speaker 1: do tricks and move his mouth, and then the performer 820 00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,719 Speaker 1: actually provides the voice. So they always have to have 821 00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:12,439 Speaker 1: someone on staff, usually a couple of people who could 822 00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:16,080 Speaker 1: do the Crush voice really really well. Uh, you need 823 00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:18,600 Speaker 1: to have a couple because sometimes the person's voice isn't 824 00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:21,000 Speaker 1: up to snuff and you have to call in the backup. 825 00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:25,359 Speaker 1: So it's kind of interesting that that's become an actual job. 826 00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:27,480 Speaker 1: Like if you can do a good Crush voice and 827 00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:30,680 Speaker 1: you can learn this system, you've got a good You've 828 00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:33,839 Speaker 1: got some good job security there. So this is really 829 00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:36,680 Speaker 1: kind of a type of machinima. That's machinima with a 830 00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:40,000 Speaker 1: lower case M, and that's machine animation, the idea of 831 00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:45,279 Speaker 1: using a pre existing three D virtual environment in order 832 00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:48,839 Speaker 1: to render animation in real time. Uh. In this case, 833 00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:54,520 Speaker 1: this was a custom built system meant just for this uh, 834 00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:57,760 Speaker 1: this this attraction. It's not like they bought a video 835 00:51:57,800 --> 00:51:59,960 Speaker 1: game off the shelf and they're using it for that purpose. 836 00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:02,120 Speaker 1: Us they developed it from the ground up. But it's 837 00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:05,600 Speaker 1: the same basic principle, and the performer can hear audio 838 00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:08,640 Speaker 1: thanks to a handheld mic uh and possibly some other 839 00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:11,680 Speaker 1: mics that might be positioned around the room, and also 840 00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:14,919 Speaker 1: can see through people through a camera system, so that's 841 00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:18,719 Speaker 1: where that interactivity can come in. In two thousand five, 842 00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:21,600 Speaker 1: another Pixar short film debuts. This one is called One 843 00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,920 Speaker 1: Man Band, and the New York Museum of Modern Art 844 00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,600 Speaker 1: would host an exhibition called Pixar Twenty Years of Animation 845 00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:31,520 Speaker 1: in December of two thousand five, though to be fair, 846 00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:35,480 Speaker 1: the actual twentieth anniversary happens in two thousand six, so 847 00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:39,360 Speaker 1: the exhibition opened a little early. But yeah, Pixar was 848 00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:43,400 Speaker 1: coming up on twenty years as an entity, although it 849 00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:46,759 Speaker 1: only have been making feature link films for about ten years. 850 00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:50,279 Speaker 1: In a sad piece of news from two thousand five, 851 00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:54,279 Speaker 1: Joe Rant, who had worked both with Disney Animation and 852 00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:58,840 Speaker 1: with Pixar, died in a car accident. Raft had worked 853 00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:02,560 Speaker 1: on dis Any films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The 854 00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:07,120 Speaker 1: Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, Aladdin, The Nightmare Before Christmas, 855 00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:11,680 Speaker 1: and The Lion King as a story artist, storyboard supervisor, 856 00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:16,919 Speaker 1: and occasionally as a voice actor, his specialty being cartoons screams. 857 00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:19,759 Speaker 1: He would go on to work on Toy Story as 858 00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:23,000 Speaker 1: a story supervisor. He provided the voice of Heimlich in 859 00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:26,279 Speaker 1: A Bug's Life and he also served as story supervisor 860 00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:29,399 Speaker 1: for that movie. He voiced Wheezy the Penguin. And Toy 861 00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:32,600 Speaker 1: Story two. He worked on Monsters, Inc. And he voiced 862 00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:36,480 Speaker 1: Jacques the Shrimp in Finding Nemo. Andy co directed Cars. 863 00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:41,760 Speaker 1: So it's very tragic Pixar was lost a a real 864 00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:47,520 Speaker 1: superstar in Joe Raft when he passed away. Now, that 865 00:53:47,600 --> 00:53:51,279 Speaker 1: same year, Disney did something pretty controversial, at least in 866 00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:54,759 Speaker 1: the eyes of some Pixar employees. So in two thousand five, 867 00:53:55,120 --> 00:53:59,880 Speaker 1: Disney created a new division of Walt Disney Animation called 868 00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:05,320 Speaker 1: Circle seven Animation. The entire purpose for Circle seven Animation 869 00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:10,040 Speaker 1: was to focus exclusively on developing computer animation for Disney, 870 00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:14,040 Speaker 1: with a primary goal of creating sequels to Disney owned 871 00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:18,880 Speaker 1: Pixar films. Now, that led some folks to dismiss Circle seven, 872 00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:22,880 Speaker 1: calling it picks aren't instead of Pixar it's Picks aren't. 873 00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,799 Speaker 1: But the studio never actually produced a single film, nor 874 00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:30,040 Speaker 1: were any of the scripts that they wrote at while 875 00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:33,360 Speaker 1: they were still a thing, ever used by Pixar in 876 00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:36,759 Speaker 1: any of their movies. This was really Disney's move to 877 00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:40,160 Speaker 1: try and leverage the intellectual property that Pixar had created 878 00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:45,319 Speaker 1: under that agreement for those five films, and specifically they 879 00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,360 Speaker 1: wanted it so that if Picks are left Disney, Disney 880 00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:51,920 Speaker 1: could continue to make money off of those properties by 881 00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,680 Speaker 1: creating sequels, even though those sequels would be made by 882 00:54:54,719 --> 00:54:59,800 Speaker 1: people not connected to the original film. Now, there wasn't 883 00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:03,560 Speaker 1: really any hard feelings between or there weren't I guess 884 00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:08,279 Speaker 1: any hard feelings between Pixar executives and the folks who 885 00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:13,920 Speaker 1: were working for Circles seven Animation. Uh they I'm guessing 886 00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:17,240 Speaker 1: that John Lasseter wasn't thrilled that Circle seven Animation became 887 00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:19,920 Speaker 1: a thing. He was probably very torn up about it, 888 00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:22,359 Speaker 1: but he didn't hold it against the people who had 889 00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:25,520 Speaker 1: been hired by Disney. It was more of a problem 890 00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:27,919 Speaker 1: with Disney's move in the first place, and in fact, 891 00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:33,919 Speaker 1: when Circle seven ended up dissolving later on, Lasseter would 892 00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:37,600 Speaker 1: actually bring on a lot of that staff and bring 893 00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:42,600 Speaker 1: them into Walt Disney Animation Studios. In fact, Andrew Millstein, 894 00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:45,640 Speaker 1: who had been the head of Circle seven, became the 895 00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:49,600 Speaker 1: general manager of Walt Disney Animation Studios. So there weren't 896 00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:54,640 Speaker 1: any hard feelings, but it definitely was a tense move, 897 00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:57,319 Speaker 1: and there were some battles going on at the top 898 00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:01,840 Speaker 1: levels of Disney and Pixar. At this time. Steve Jobs 899 00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:06,560 Speaker 1: and Michael Eisner were having some pretty nasty fights over 900 00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:10,000 Speaker 1: which movies were counting towards the deal that they had made. 901 00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:15,280 Speaker 1: Eisner was arguing that Toy Story Too should not count. 902 00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:17,840 Speaker 1: That is not one of those five movies that we 903 00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:21,000 Speaker 1: agreed on because it's a sequel and sequels don't count. 904 00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:25,760 Speaker 1: Jobs said, what are you talking about. Of course it counts. 905 00:56:25,840 --> 00:56:30,040 Speaker 1: It's a full length feature film, and I are saying, well, 906 00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:32,120 Speaker 1: it was meant to be a direct to video sequel, 907 00:56:32,320 --> 00:56:35,680 Speaker 1: so it doesn't count. And there was this back and 908 00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:42,520 Speaker 1: forth arguing, and Jobs was very visibly looking at other 909 00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:46,560 Speaker 1: potential partners for Pixar once the Disney deal was done. 910 00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:51,720 Speaker 1: So tension was high at this point between Disney and Pixar. 911 00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:55,279 Speaker 1: Now two thousand six rolls around and cars It's a 912 00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:57,160 Speaker 1: film that a lot of kids love, but I think 913 00:56:57,160 --> 00:56:59,880 Speaker 1: it's really just okay. It's not at the top of 914 00:56:59,880 --> 00:57:02,600 Speaker 1: my list for my favorites among Pixar's films. It comes 915 00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:05,040 Speaker 1: out in two thousands six it does really well. It 916 00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:08,880 Speaker 1: actually does very well at the box office. But the 917 00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:10,840 Speaker 1: reason that the movie exists in the first place is 918 00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:14,959 Speaker 1: because John Lasseterer loves cars. And maybe I'm not into 919 00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,440 Speaker 1: the movie so much because I don't like driving. So 920 00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:21,440 Speaker 1: that's perhaps the problem. The whole romanticism of driving doesn't 921 00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:24,000 Speaker 1: do anything for me, and that's on me. That's not 922 00:57:24,080 --> 00:57:27,360 Speaker 1: the fall of the movie. So Bug's Life was a 923 00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:31,960 Speaker 1: new take on Esop's Fables, and The Seven Samurai Cars 924 00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:35,080 Speaker 1: is kind of a new take on Doc Hollywood. It's 925 00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:39,960 Speaker 1: really very similar story. So while finding Nemo made it 926 00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:43,560 Speaker 1: challenging to create characters from fish, Cars presented a new challenge. 927 00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:47,960 Speaker 1: How do you create a character that's a believable entity 928 00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:51,960 Speaker 1: and still recognizably a car like You can't change it 929 00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:54,640 Speaker 1: so much that doesn't like a car anymore, but you 930 00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:56,280 Speaker 1: have to change it enough so that you can have 931 00:57:56,440 --> 00:58:00,240 Speaker 1: a character there whether can express him or herself, that 932 00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:04,400 Speaker 1: can move around in his or her environment and manipulate it. 933 00:58:04,840 --> 00:58:07,840 Speaker 1: How do they carry and hold things? This was actually 934 00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:12,360 Speaker 1: a really big deal. The animators were saying, well, how 935 00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:16,840 Speaker 1: does a car pick something up? Like? How do they 936 00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:21,320 Speaker 1: how do they carry things around? Apart from Mater who 937 00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:24,560 Speaker 1: could tew things by using his uh the hook on 938 00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:27,200 Speaker 1: the end of his cable, how do you have these 939 00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:30,240 Speaker 1: characters move things around? And they experimented with that a lot, 940 00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:38,000 Speaker 1: with things like prehensile antenna or windshield wipers, or the 941 00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:41,200 Speaker 1: ability to hold onto things with a card door, and 942 00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:44,000 Speaker 1: eventually they just decided it wasn't important and they dropped 943 00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:48,240 Speaker 1: all that. So, like finding Nemo, the acting had to 944 00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:51,960 Speaker 1: be focused in the face, even more so since with 945 00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:53,880 Speaker 1: a few exceptions, most of the characters didn't have a 946 00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:57,480 Speaker 1: lot of ways to communicate. They couldn't do big gestures 947 00:58:57,480 --> 00:58:59,920 Speaker 1: with their tires. They could do little ones, you know. 948 00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:02,880 Speaker 1: They took a lot of liberties with the way stuff moves, 949 00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:05,760 Speaker 1: but mostly it had to be the acting had to 950 00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:09,640 Speaker 1: be uh concentrated in the face, and the team had 951 00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:13,280 Speaker 1: to figure out how to make Chrome look realistic. It 952 00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:17,120 Speaker 1: Chrome's very shiny, which means it's reflective, so that means 953 00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:19,440 Speaker 1: you should be able to see reflections in the chrome, 954 00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:22,120 Speaker 1: and that actually was a big technical challenge for the crew, 955 00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:24,480 Speaker 1: but they were able to figure that all all of 956 00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:26,600 Speaker 1: that out and they were able to get the movie 957 00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:30,200 Speaker 1: together and release it. And two thousand six, when the 958 00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:33,000 Speaker 1: movie came out, ended up being a huge year for 959 00:59:33,040 --> 00:59:36,120 Speaker 1: a Pixar. It wasn't just when Cars debuted, it was 960 00:59:36,200 --> 00:59:39,920 Speaker 1: also when Pixar and Disney were able to come to 961 00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:44,520 Speaker 1: an agreement. Disney announced that it intended to purchase Pixar, 962 00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:48,640 Speaker 1: and under this new arrangement, Edwin Katmol would become the 963 00:59:48,680 --> 00:59:51,800 Speaker 1: president of Pixar and John Lasseter would become the chief 964 00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:56,720 Speaker 1: creative officer of Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. So a 965 00:59:56,840 --> 01:00:00,880 Speaker 1: huge change here where Lasseter, the man who had been 966 01:00:00,880 --> 01:00:06,760 Speaker 1: fired from Disney because he had been too enthusiastic about 967 01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:11,400 Speaker 1: computer animation, was going to become the chief creative officer 968 01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:17,280 Speaker 1: of that animation department. A huge turnaround, crazy story. And 969 01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:20,800 Speaker 1: in September of two thousand six, Pixar debuted the short 970 01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:24,440 Speaker 1: film Lifted, just one of my favorite short films Pixar 971 01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:29,040 Speaker 1: has ever done, and Pixar employee and story artist Joe 972 01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:33,040 Speaker 1: Raft would be named a Disney legend, which is an 973 01:00:33,080 --> 01:00:37,160 Speaker 1: actual designation within Disney. It's not just it's not just 974 01:00:37,600 --> 01:00:40,600 Speaker 1: a term. It actually really means something. It's like a 975 01:00:40,640 --> 01:00:43,840 Speaker 1: hall of Fame within Disney, and they induct only a 976 01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:48,360 Speaker 1: few people every year, and uh, he joined that list 977 01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:50,960 Speaker 1: that year. Well, guys have got a lot more to 978 01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,040 Speaker 1: talk about with Pixar, but I fingured this is a 979 01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:56,360 Speaker 1: good place to end in two thousand six. End of 980 01:00:56,360 --> 01:01:00,320 Speaker 1: two thousand six, when Disney and Pixar joined Force Is 981 01:01:00,680 --> 01:01:05,640 Speaker 1: and Pixar becomes an integrated part of Disney, still largely 982 01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:09,800 Speaker 1: independent in the sense that it can develop its own 983 01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:14,200 Speaker 1: movies internally, but now officially part of this company and 984 01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:18,040 Speaker 1: no longer a separate thing. So we'll pick up in 985 01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:22,240 Speaker 1: two thousand seven for our next episode. Guys, if you 986 01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:25,320 Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future episodes of text Stuff, You've 987 01:01:25,360 --> 01:01:29,640 Speaker 1: got any questions or comments, you've got some suggestions for 988 01:01:29,640 --> 01:01:32,400 Speaker 1: someone I should have on as either a guest to 989 01:01:32,560 --> 01:01:37,280 Speaker 1: interview or perhaps a guest host to chime in. Let 990 01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:40,880 Speaker 1: me know. The email address is tech Stuff at how 991 01:01:40,960 --> 01:01:43,680 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or you can drop me a 992 01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:46,800 Speaker 1: line on Facebook or Twitter to handle it. Both of 993 01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:49,920 Speaker 1: those is tech Stuff hs W and I'll talk to 994 01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:59,280 Speaker 1: you again about Pixar. Releasa for more on this and 995 01:01:59,360 --> 01:02:01,880 Speaker 1: bathos of my topics, is it? How stuff works? Dot 996 01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:11,920 Speaker 1: com