Template:Realworld Pixar Animation Studios is a computer animation studio, which was founded by George Lucas in 1979 as the Graphics Group, one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm Ltd. Lucas, according to the company's homepage, had set up the organization in order to develop a digital (nonlinear) film editing system, a digital sound editing system, a digital film printer, and further exploration of computer graphics. Some of the founding core staff, like Ed Catmull, were handpicked by Lucas himself. In 1982, the Graphics Group created the "Project Genesis" demonstration sequence seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and re-used in the subsequent two Star Trek films. It has the distinction of being the very first fully textured CGI effect featured in the motion picture industry, seen by the general public.
It became an independent company in 1986 with its purchase by former Apple Computers executive Steve Jobs. On this occasion the company was rechristened "Pixar". After aligning with Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar became a prolific producer of computer-animated feature films, with such films as the Toy Story series, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles (featuring music by Michael Giacchino), Ratatouille (also composed by Giacchino), and WALL-E amongst them. During its years working with Disney, Pixar also provided software support for the production of Star Trek: Insurrection. In 2006, Disney acquired Pixar but continues to treat it as a separate company.
The name "Pixar" was derived from the name given to a piece of equipment to speed up computing time, the Graphics Group was developing at the time of The Wrath of Khan. (American Cinematographer, October 1982, p. 1050)
Genesis demonstration team
The following staffers were responsible for the final visualization of the "Genesis Demo", as it was known internally (American Cinematographer, October 1982, pp. 1038),
- Loren Carpenter - fractal mountains, atmosphere and shock wave
- Ed Catmull - concept, motion blurring and supervising
- Pat Cole - projectile and retina sequences
- Rob Cook - texture-mapped sphere
- Tom Duff - cratered sphere
- Chris Evans - pull-away planet surface painting (using one of the very first paint computer software programs, developed in-house at Industrial Light & Magic)
- Dr. Robert Langridge (subcontractor from Computer Graphics Laboratory, University of California, San Francisco) - initial molecular sequence
- Robert D. Poor
- Thomas Porter - stars, compositing and paint
- William Reeves - fires
- Alvy Ray Smith - concept and direction
- Jim Veilleux - concept, visual effects supervisor
Further reading
- "The Genesis Demo", Alvy Ray Smith, American Cinematographer, October 1982, pp. 1038-1039, 1048-1050
- "New Worlds Aborning", David Hutchinson and Jim Veilleux, Starlog photo guidebook Special Effects, Vol. 4, 1984, pp. 62-71.
- "Behind the Scenes: The Genesis Demo", Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 3, Issue 5, September 2002, pp. 50-53
External links
- Pixar - official website
- Pixar at Wikipedia
- Template:IMDb-link
- The Pixar Blog (unofficial news source)
- PixarPlanet/Upcoming Pixar fan forums and news