WEBVTT - Pixar 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.520 Welcome to Business on the Brink, a production from I 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:14.880 Heart Radio and How Stuff Works. Pixar's origin story plays 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.920 out like, well, like a Pixar movie, full of ups 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.360 and downs, drama, and a few unexpected allies. This company 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.280 has overcome more than a few brink moments, from lamps 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:30.200 to apples to infinity and beyond. We're going to tell 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:33.600 you all the animated details of this company's evolution. This 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:55.200 is Pixar on Business on the Brink. Hey everybody, I'm 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.040 Jonathan Strickland and I'm Ariel Casting. And this is a 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.360 suggestion from Nathan in St. Louis. Thank you Nathan for 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:03.120 writing in. It was great to hear from you, and 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:09.360 it's a great suggestion. St. Louis. St. Louis fair enough St. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:14.160 Louise from good old St. Lou So, Yeah, we're gonna 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:19.720 talk about Pixar, which is I love this topic. It's uh, 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:25.000 it's one of those studios that has produced a remarkable 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:29.080 number of amazing films when you look at like the 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.880 percentage of all the films made and plus some other 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:37.840 films that aren't so amazing. Dinosaur, Oh my gosh, we 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.399 didn't even plan that guy. But I've I've seen it. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.480 I have not. It's that's why I haven't seen it. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.520 So it's not it's not bad, it's just it's just 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:50.880 not remarkable. That's see. That's the thing is that Pixar 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.640 set the bar very high with some of their movies, 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.480 and so when things are just good instead of great, 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.200 you're like, well, that's a disappointment when it when for 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.040 any other studio it would be considered a hit. So 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.800 but we're gonna talk more about the founding of Pixar 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.000 and how it was never a sure thing that it 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.600 was going to become the movie studio that it is. Say, 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.320 it didn't even really start as a well, it kind 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.760 of started as a studio and it became not a studio, 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.679 and then it became a studio again. So yeah, let's 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.400 get into that. So the story starts not with John Lassen, 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.040 who I think a lot of people associated with picks. 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:33.200 It doesn't start with Steve Jobs or even George Lucas, 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.440 who would become one of the key members of Pixar. 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.639 It actually really starts with a guy named Edwin E. 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.040 Cat Mill, and cat Mill had dreams of working for 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.720 Disney as an animator, but he had one major issue, 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.920 which is that he really just couldn't get down the 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.359 artistic talent for hand drawn animation. Yeah, that's that's kind 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.200 of a necessity when you want to be an hand 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.120 drawn animator. Yeah. So, and he went into computer science. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.480 He really threw himself into it. He got like advanced degrees, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:11.040 not just a bachelor's, he got a master's and a PhD. Smart, yeah, 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.200 super smart. And he went to grad school and in 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.079 grad school in nineteen seventy two he would actually get 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:22.079 the nod to designing a computer animated graphic for a 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.960 feature film. And it's a film of a of a 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:29.519 movie you've seen. You've seen West World, right, Yeah, and 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.520 I've seen the movie that you're talking about, Future World. Yeah. 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.440 Future World is the sequel to a film called Westworld. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.320 The film, Yeah, there was a film before the TV 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.840 show guys. Yes, this is the film that inspired the 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.400 HBO series. So back in the seventies, we may do 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.200 with you, ol Brenner as a robot writing around and 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.680 being terrified. I don't know if make do is the 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:53.640 right word to put with you, old Brunner, but it 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.040 depends on the movie. I guess he was great in 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.520 West World. So Future World was the sequel to West World, 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.720 and it had this computer and animation sequence in it. 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:06.119 It actually was Captain Moll's hand. He animated his own 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.360 hand into it, and this was the first time that 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.080 computer animation would be used in a feature film. Then 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.400 he graduated with his PhD and he got contacted by 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.039 the New York Institute of Technology to go over there 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.280 and to serve as the director of a computer graphics 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:25.679 lab brand New. Yeah, and and that's where he met 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.560 his cohorts for the eventual Pixar. Yes, the alv Ray 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.480 Smith is one of those, in fact the probably the 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.239 most important of the ones, who also had a PhD 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.160 in computer science. He had uh was he's a little 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.920 bit older than Catmill, but he had also worked at 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.719 xerox is Park Research Center. Park is the p A 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.760 r C. That's the same research center where stuff like 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.560 the first graphic user interface, the first computer mouse, like 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:54.279 all that kind of stuff grew out of there. Although 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.360 to be fair, the computer mouse actually came from somewhere 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.440 outside of Park but got adopted. You get where I'm going. 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.839 That's funny because Steve Jobs will them into our story 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.479 later here, and Steve Jobs in Park have a tenuous history, yes, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.640 because Steve Jobs got to tour Park and then stole everything. Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:10.080 I think we talked about that a little bit in 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.760 our Zerox episode. I think he also met David Di 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.240 Francesco and Ralph Guggenheim there. Yes, both of them would 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.039 become founding members of Pixar as well. So they all 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:26.479 are working at this this computer graphics lab together when 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:32.120 a a certain independent filmmaker came knocking at the door. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:37.080 That independent filmmaker was George Lucas. Yes, he said, I 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:42.840 am your employer, Yeah he was. He was putting together 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.320 a little, little little special effects studio called Industrial Light 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.560 and Magic. Just a little studio, yeah, right right up 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:51.880 there with Wetta. You know, there's one of the big 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.400 ones out there. And so George Lucas being George Lucas, 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.200 he wanted to get the best people in the world 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:03.240 to work on this. And computer effects were like new, Yeah, 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.440 they were like unheard of. So he was going for 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.640 the cutting edge, the bleeding edge of that technology. And 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.360 he recruited Cat Moll to come in and head up 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.360 the computer division of Industrial Light and Magic. And Cat 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.680 will being you know, familiar with the work of his 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.640 colleagues reached out and essentially plucked them all up to 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.160 be part of this group, thus gutting the computer graphics 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.719 division over it. Yeah yeah, no, but smart move on 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.240 on George Lucas's part, and smart move on Cat Moll's part. Yep. 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:40.000 So their original work was mostly to make computer animation 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.599 not like computer animation, which is understandable, like you're trying 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:45.839 to make it. We see that today too, to say 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.039 it's something that we still struggle with. You know, I 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.760 think when you said he originally animated his hand, Yeah, 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.720 like I've dabbled in drawing hands of the hardest part 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.080 for me on two D animation. So, but I think 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:03.000 on three D animation to actually melts away and hair 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.880 and hare's another big one. Yeah, it's and eyes too, right, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.479 like you look at something like Polar Express, which is 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.760 not a Pixar film and who you can just get 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.400 those dead eyes. Okay. So they're trying to make their 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.600 computer animation not look like what it was, yeah, which 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.760 is again like you see action movies that have like 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.720 the the c g I blood spray if someone gets 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.480 shot and it's always incredibly obvious. They wanted to try 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.720 and create new stuff, and so they also had to 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:33.560 do things like figure out, well, how do we work 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:37.760 around the fact that computer animation is super clean, right, 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.880 Like it's all virtual. It's not a real camera you're using, 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.240 but real cameras when you're shooting on film, if you 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.640 move the camera, you get blur, right, because cameras are 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.720 just taking a series of photographs super fast. So they 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:52.160 actually one of the things I had to figure out 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.240 was how do we make blur in the computer graphics 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:57.960 effects so that it looks like it's actually they're on 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.600 film as opposed to an effect you just eat a 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.560 greasy burrito and then you wipe your finger across the screen. That's, 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:08.160 oddly enough, exactly not what they did. So they're working 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.040 on this stuff and there really isn't much for us 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.760 to comment on other than they were they had steady 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.480 work in industrial line, okay, so let's get ahead to then. Sure, 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.600 that's when cat Moll would hire on a contract worker, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.880 so not full time yet. This guy was named John Lastener, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.600 still his name, John Lsener, who had previously worked as 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.640 an animator for Disney, so exactly what kat Moll wanted 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.960 to do. Yep. And the thing that Lastener had encountered, 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.880 at least according to most stories, is that he wanted 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:45.520 to introduce computer animation to Disney features but just encountered 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:50.200 a lot of resistance. So he was eager to try 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.280 those skills somewhere else, and he thought the Industrial line 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.240 Magic would be the place to do it. Yeah, and 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.319 he did by he was a full time employee, and 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.400 he had the title of interface designer. Yeah, because they 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.560 didn't technically have an animator position, so that was the 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.600 closest that they could come up with. They would work 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:13.080 on several big motion pictures, including one called Young Sherlock Holmes, 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.520 which have you seen. I haven't seen, but I did 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.320 look up the scene that you're about to talk about, 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.160 where uh they took a two dimensional night I think 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.360 from a stained glass window and made him like pop 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.440 into the scene and and interact with somebody. And it's 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.160 it's interesting because they definitely got the look of like 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.240 going through stained glass. But it's pretty row. Yeah, it's 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.800 it's a rough one. It also makes me think of 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:41.160 the animated the c g I intro to Steven Spielberg's 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.480 television series Amazing Stories. It was very similar. But yeah, 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.120 this was the idea and Young Sherlock Holmes is that 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.760 it's a hallucination. The bad guys have these hallucinogenic darts, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:53.920 and when they shoot you with one, you have these 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:59.000 nightmarish hallucinations that then compel you to commit suicide. Spoiler 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.360 alert if you haven't seen Young Jill movies, like four 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.160 years old, I think we're outside of the spoiler alert rules. 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:07.760 But anyway, this was the first time they had a 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.880 scene where live action actors and a c g I 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.400 character would be interacting in the same frame. So that 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.440 was that was a new benchmark. Yeah, and to do that, 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.440 they needed special hardware to do it. Yeah, they didn't 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:25.080 have like, yeah, no one had built a computer system 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.000 for that. So they're like, well, I guess we'll build 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.160 our own dan dang darn computer system. And they called 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:35.480 it the Pixar Image Computer. Yes, now this is a Yeah, 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.920 this is before they had given a name to the division. 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.439 They were still just part of Industrial Line Magic and um, yeah. 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:43.280 The funny thing is, I'm not going to go into specs. 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:45.600 Anyone who knows me from texting you knows I could. 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.520 But technically, if you have a smartphone, then you have 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.320 a you have a computer more powerful than this thing 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.360 was back in its day. But for its time, it 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.280 was an incredibly sophisticated computer. Yeah. But then they used 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.719 it for more than just entertainment special effects. Yeah. Well, 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.720 they figured that in order to get the best return 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.880 on investment, they could actually market this computer system for 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.560 lots of other stuff, including like medical imaging. So the 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:16.080 idea was, why should we build this computer system, which 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.640 will be very expensive, and just use it in house 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.360 if we could also market it as its own product 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.280 and make more money by selling it to other, you know, organizations. 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.319 So they started. It's almost like they were side hustling 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.720 as a hardware company, not just as an effects division 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:38.840 within Industrial Line Magic. They're they're kind of making extra bets. 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.000 They're hedging their bets. Yeah. And one of their big 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:46.920 early customers for the Pixar Image computer was Disney. Yep, 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.679 they are looking at use such a thing, not to 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.040 create three D c g I films, No, No, to 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.360 digitize their cell animation. And I'm trying so hard not 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.440 to go into this tirade about Disney three D animation 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.680 versus two because I like the Pixar Disney movies, but 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.640 I really missed the Tudi animation. Well, and there was, Yeah, 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:10.679 there was a thing time at Disney. This is outside 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.200 the realm of our discussion, really, but there was a 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:17.960 time at Disney where the prevailing wisdom early on in 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:22.440 the Pixar years was that, oh, the audiences love these 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.120 movies because they are computer animated movies. And even lasseter 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.640 as As, the man who was really heading up that 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:34.000 effort at the time, said, knew, what's most important is story. Story, 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.480 and then you know, you determine how you're going to 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.360 tell that story. But story is way more important than 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.280 whether it's hand drawn or computer animated. Yeah, okay, tie 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.679 right off. The system they made for Disney was called 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:52.480 the Computer Animation Production System, nicknamed CAPS, and uh they 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:56.200 actually would still be working on that when the division 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:01.800 would split off from Lucas Film. So why did this 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:06.480 division of Industrial Light and Magic get spun off, Well, 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:14.000 it's because Lucas was having some issues. So but but 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.560 I mean, he just did Star Wars. Star Wars was 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.280 super successful. He did Return of the Jedi and eighty three, 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.720 so he had just had three blockbuster films he had made. 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.240 I think I think the right term is a metric 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.080 crap ton of money, very scientific, Jonathan, not just not 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.199 just off the films, but through merchandizing. That was I mean, 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.720 that was one of the biggest money makers that Lucas 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.199 stumbled on. That really wasn't as big a thing until 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.760 the Star Wars franchise came around. And so this is 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.199 a point where you know, you would think everything's going 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:52.480 on great, but Lucas also was kind of looking for 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.840 the next next project. Yeah, he didn't have another Star 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.319 Wars film. No, so he made an amazing movie called 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.240 Howard The I knew you would. I knew you would. 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.400 I knew this. Look, it's not a good movie. It's 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.440 a horrible movie, but it's an amazing movie. I saw 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:11.600 it in the theater when it came out. It's so 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:18.160 bad it's good disturbing, which is frequent from that film. 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:22.080 Um Leah Thompson's in it, though she's very cute in 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.560 that movie. But no, the it's a it's a terrible movie. 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:30.000 And then it bombed. It absolutely bombs. So Lucas had 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.440 just had a flop of a film come out. He 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.920 was also going through a an acrimonious divorce that was 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.440 incredibly expensive. In fact, there's talk about the reason why 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:43.760 Indian and Jones in the Temple of Doom was so dark. 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.840 It was partly because Lucas was working out his feelings 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.560 about his divorce. Yeah, but it made a really good movie. 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.600 Okay movie. And then he so he's he was in 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.240 a bad place and he was thinking, well, I don't 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.360 have another Star Wars lined up. Howard the Duck was 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.680 a total ust. I think I'm going to focus on independent, 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.680 smaller films. Uh. And so he decided he was going 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.960 to sell off this computer division of Industrial Light and Magic. 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.400 So this was a possible point where this whole thing 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.600 could have just gone away. Yeah, but thankfully capt Moll 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.120 was kind of already preparing for this spinoff. Yes, he 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.400 knew that this was coming, and so he had already 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:28.520 started to kind of set the foundation. And Uh, they 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:33.680 decided that they were going to create their own standalone company, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.440 Computer Animation and Effects Company. Uh. They did have one 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.880 little problem, which is that no one was really keen 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.040 on what to name it. Like, there were a lot 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.800 of no one No one had the one idea that 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.160 everyone immediately glommed onto. So there was a lot of 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:53.280 disagreement on that. Yeah, apparently one of the names was 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:56.400 gif fix, yeah, g f X for graphics. Yeah, it 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:58.400 was just this. It was just a temporary name. Is 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:00.320 literally something that they had to put in to a 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.520 field on a forum. They forgot the R to they 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.000 were well and there are a lot of issues with 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:12.160 that particular acronym doesn't make any sense. So they ultimately 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.880 obviously decided that they would name their company after the 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.720 computer system they had designed. That's why they called it Pixar. 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.880 And then they just needed to get somebody to help 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.080 fund this because they couldn't they didn't have any money 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.080 when they're just getting spun off. They had to find 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.120 some sort of angel investor, and they knew just the 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:37.680 guy who could get the jobs done. I don't know 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.040 whether they're grown or do you like at Dune done done? 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:41.640 Tell you what, how about we take a break and 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:52.840 you can figure it out. So obviously I was referring 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:54.960 to a very specific person with that angel investor, and 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.760 that would be Steve Jobs. And he paid five million 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:03.560 dollars to George A Kiss four Pixar. Yeah, and then 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.639 he spent another five million dollars to help fund the 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:11.560 company to get it really situated. Uh. At this time, 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.119 Jobs was actually going through his own transition. This was 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.000 during the period where he had been effectively forced out 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.440 of Apple or he had quit, depending on who you ask. Yeah, 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.959 and uh. And so he had gone on to found 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:28.560 a different company called Next and he decided to to 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:33.359 swoop in and generally he was going to be hands off. 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.879 He was going to leave the running of the company 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.320 to cat Moll and to Smith. They were going to 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.960 keep going. But he did have majority steak in the company. Yeah, absolutely, 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:47.520 he owned seventy percent of the shares is a private company, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.639 not publicly traded, but seventy of the shares of the company, 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.399 and then the Pixar employees owned the other thirty percent. 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.040 That will be important later in our episode. Yeah. He 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.520 also decided that he wanted to really that Picks are 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.040 up to be a computer hardware company, so all of 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:07.240 that imaging stuff they were looking at unless the animation 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.960 studio side, and we all know how that went eventually. Yeah. 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:17.360 So this was this was largely a practical kind of determination, 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.879 the idea that computer animation was not quite at the 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.840 level of sophistication where you could make, say a feature 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.800 link film that you had people like Lasseter who wanted 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:28.399 to do it. There were a lot of people at 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:30.280 Pixar who wanted to do it, but they had all 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.560 determined that as the technology stood at that moment, it 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.920 just wasn't really possible. Yeah, but I mean they didn't 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.920 give up animation entirely. Lester still made shorts which were 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:46.680 then used as um kind of just like a sales pitch. Yeah, 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.240 like a sales pitch system exactly. They said, well, yeah, 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.200 you want to know what's possible with this computer, here's 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:57.640 some animation that we designed using this computer. So it's 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.240 kind of like a demo. But you know, obviously Laster 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.560 being Laster, he wasn't gonna just do you know, a 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.760 bouncing ball or something that would play a part of it, 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.880 especially in the first one, and that would be uh 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.320 Luxo Jr. Where we got the little lampy guy that 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:17.159 you see jump on the eye on the Pixar and 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.640 it smushes the eye and it's now the eye exactly. 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.600 I said, I wait, I I but yeah, Alexo Jr. 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:29.159 That's They would later go back and sort of remaster that, 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.960 but that became one of the early pitch films that 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.840 they would use. And it also really kind of helped 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:40.840 set Pixar's kind of aesthetic and tone, like there's this 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.400 sort of cheeky humor that tends to be in Pixar films, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.440 and that was that was evident even as early as 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:53.280 six when they designed this short. Yeah, it also got 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.760 nominated for an Academy Award. Yes, it did not win 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:59.879 that Academy Award, but it was nominated. And then in 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.280 nineteen eight, just two years later, uh, they got another 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:08.000 Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film, and that 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.520 film was called Tin Toy t I N Yeah not 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.760 t E N Yeah t I N toy and a 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.960 little It's a Little Tin Soldier and that one did 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.119 win the Academy Award. It's also another adorable film that 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.800 got remastered later on, and it would become the inspiration 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:30.840 for a future Pixar mega blockbuster hit. Yes. Uh, In nine, 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.840 we got another short from Pixar. Yeah, knick Knack. This 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.400 is another one that got remastered and re released actually 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:39.480 as one of the shorts that would come before a 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.040 Pixar feature linked film. I don't think I've actually seen. 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.520 This was a little snow globe with the snowman in it, 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.560 and he's desperately trying to get over to a It's 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.200 like a it's like a little a little souvenir choch 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.200 key that you would buy at you know, Hawaii or something. 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:59.320 Oh yeah, I do remember that. Yeah, And so the 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.320 whole thing is the snow man's just desperately trying to 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.320 get over to this hula girl y. Yeah. So that 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:09.680 was another super adorable short. And that was when some 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.920 other very important people to the future of Pixar would 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.639 join the company. This was nine. That's when Peter Doctor 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.000 and or Pete Doctor I should say, and Andrew Stanton 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:25.000 joined the company. So they're making all these animated shorts, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.240 are getting lots of praise for them, Yeah, but the 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:32.320 business side of things is still struggling. Yeah. They were 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.879 not selling enough Pixar Image computers to pay off the 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:40.720 costs of running business. And according to a lot of 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:45.320 different stories, over the years, Steve Jobs collectively poured in 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.000 about fifty million dollars of his own money to keep 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.520 the company up float. And I would say, like, the 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:53.840 average person doesn't even know that Steve Jobs was involved 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:56.520 in Pixars. I mean, if you if you followed it 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:58.600 early on, you would have heard about him being on 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:01.440 the board of directors and things like that. But yeah, 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:04.880 he was very much the reason why the company was still. 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.440 If it had not been for Steve Jobs pouring money 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.879 into Pixar, it would not have survived. Yeah, well it 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.560 looked like they may not have at that point because 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:17.760 they started getting layoffs and downsizing and uh, you know, 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.159 at the same time, Steve Jobs is also struggling with 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:25.120 his company Next. Yeah, Next was not doing well either. 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.560 Next had created a very high end educational computer. It 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.199 ran for like five thousand dollars a computer, so very 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.159 expensive and no big surprise here. That meant that there 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:40.120 weren't that many customers because not a lot of people 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:42.359 are ready to drop five g s on a computer. 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.200 And uh, even though people thought that, I think the 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:50.320 elements of the operating system were really really innovative. So 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:54.760 Jobs was having this issue where he's got one failing 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:59.080 business and then another one. That is he's just constantly 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:02.320 pouring money into He sees the potential there, but the 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:04.800 question is can you ride it out long enough for 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:08.720 that potential to pay off? Well, he kind of didn't. 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:10.960 He kind of didn't, So he sold off the computer 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:13.320 hardware division of Pixar that everything that he had set 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:15.359 them up to do with the imaging and and such, 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:17.480 he decided to get rid of it. Yeah, that was 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:19.800 the part where he said, all right, we're gonna focus 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.520 on the computer animation side, but we're going to not 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:27.720 worry about producing actual computers anymore. And a company called 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.159 Vicom Systems purchased the computer hardware business unit of Pixar 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:34.240 for just two million dollars. That's not a huge turn 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:37.840 on investment there, and Vicom in turn would end up 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:41.320 going into bankruptcy just a year later. So it was 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:46.159 not it was not the the the shot in the 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.000 arm the Vicom needed to succeed. Not to be confused 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.000