Pixar Animation Studios
From a lamp to Toy Story. Pixar grew from a computer graphics lab into the studio that made Toy Story, the first fully computer-animated feature. Its history, tools and films.
Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull, 2015: Web Summit, CC BY 2.0
A lab for computer pictures
Pixar began as part of Lucasfilm's Computer Division, where scientists led by Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith developed new ways to make images with computers. Animator John Lasseter joined them. In 1986 Steve Jobs bought the group and it became an independent company named Pixar, after the expensive Pixar Image Computer it originally sold.
Short films and software
To show off its technology, Pixar made short films. Luxo Jr. (1986), starring two desk lamps, proved that computer characters could have personality and earned an Oscar nomination. Tin Toy (1988) won the Academy Award for best animated short, the first computer-animated film to do so. Pixar also built RenderMan, software for creating realistic images that has been used on a vast number of films and earned technical Oscars.
Toy Story
After years of making commercials, Pixar made a feature with Disney. Toy Story, released on 22 November 1995, was the first feature film made entirely with computer animation. Its story of rival toys Woody and Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, was funny and touching, and it changed the animation industry almost overnight.
A run of hits
Pixar followed with A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Inside Out, Coco and Soul, among others. Its films have won many Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature. The studio is known for its story process, in which directors show early versions to a group of senior filmmakers for honest notes.
Inside the studio
Disney bought Pixar in 2006. The Emeryville campus, opened in 2000, was designed so that people from different departments would meet in a central atrium. Pixar still makes short films and offers free online lessons, Pixar in a Box, created with Khan Academy, explaining the maths and science behind animation. Read our rise of CGI page for the wider story.
Did you know?
Pixar films are made by large teams: story artists, modellers, riggers, animators, lighting artists, effects artists and engineers. A single feature typically takes about four years from first idea to release. Each film's story goes through many rounds of storyboards called reels, which are rewritten again and again before animation begins.
- Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull, 2015: Web Summit, CC BY 2.0
Text written by Fantastic Cartoon.
