Smith, A. R. (2021, August 4). The Real Story of Pixar. IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-real-story-of-pixar.
The Real Story of Pixar
How a bad hardware company turned itself into a great movie studio
BOOK: TEKLA PERRY; BACKGROUND: ALAMY
My summary of the article:
Alvy Ray Smith, cofounder of Pixar, summarizes his and his company's journey through hard times and how his company became the Pixar we know today, undoubtably the greatest animation film studio in the world. Pixar started off as nothing close to a 'company'. Rather, it was a team of computer graphics researchers imagining the simple idea of creating a fully digital movie. Since then onwards, this future movie that the team set as their ultimate goal was referred to as "The Movie". We all know that this turned out to be "Toy Story," the world's first full 3D animation feature film.
Moore's law, the perception that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years, was a crucial part for them to reach this goal. After all, even with all the animation technology they develop, they needed a computer with enough computing power to make "The Movie" possible. Computers of the mid 1970s just were not powerful enough to handle the immense computing power required.
Pixar's goal of making "The Movie" was more specific than it sounds. Theoretically, "The Movie" should not incorporate any hand drawing, and it must be created entirely by virtual 3D objects. With these goals in mind, Pixar began solidifying their vision in the New York Institute of Technology, where they took the first step towards 3D animation by automating some of the processes of traditional animation making – done by hand drawing each individual frame.
Then, the team got hired by Lucasfilm to form its computer division, and that was where Pixar really began to develop as an animation powerhouse. There, not only did they continue their work in developing graphics software, but also they started making a computer with the specific purpose of running their software more efficiently. This way, they were able to gain a few years boost from the expected computing power given by Moore's law. Ultimately, in Lucasfilm, they were able to be involved in certain short scenes in well-known films like Star Trek and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in the early 1980s.
However, like it does to most people in their good times, Smith and his co-workers including Catmull and Carpenter got fired from Lucasfilm. Again, they were alone, but they chose not to give up and again gathered their original team of 40 to start a new company. Acknowledging the reality that an animation software alone will not grant them enough profit, the company started focusing more heavily on hardware – the Pixar Image Computer. Then, after a long, dark period of desperately finding for funds, they finally got in touch with Steve Jobs, the man who just got ousted from his own company – Apple.
The rest is well-known history. With Jobs holding strong belief and being optimistic about "The Movie" – Pixar's ultimate goal since its birth, Pixar was able to produce short films that showed great potential for succeeding with 3D animation. Although there were some downsides since then as well such as the estimated production cost for "The Movie" being too high and running out of money due to a decline in hardware sales, Pixar was able to hurdle them well and finally achieved the goal they had from the start – producing "Toy Story". Since then, having produced 23 more quality 3D animated feature films, Pixar has become the undeniable best animation studio in the world.
My response to the article:
One thing common in the story of so-called "successful people" is their unbelievable attitude towards failure – their grit to stand up again and continue on. And this rather simple message of "don't give up" is often overused by people as if everyone has the ability to do it with the right mental attitude. It is evident form Smith's story that he encounters some serious hardships, including having his whole team including himself fired and not being able to find one good provider of fund. Evident from the numerous rejections he received by the potential fund providers, the animation industry was not highly anticipated for success, and thus is my doubt about how it was possible for Smith to keep that ultimate goal of producing an animated feature film for all those years when everyone turned their backs on him. It is this unbelievable sense of grit and optimism that he has towards what he does that I deeply respect.
After knowing this story, my perception towards the movie "Toy Story" (literally referred to as "The Movie" in the article) changed drastically. As a kid, it was simply a fun movie that stimulated every kid's imagination towards toys with life. Now, it feels like a masterpiece that is a culmination of everyone's passion, hard work, and a grit towards succeeding.