The Success of Pixarby Emma Stang

Background Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the

Computer Division of Lucasfilm. It was acquired by Steve Jobs in 1986 and bought by the Walt Disney Company in 2006.

Pixar has produced 12 feature films, eleven of which have received both critical and financial success. The $602 million average gross of their films is higher than that of any other studio in the industry.

Their films have earned 26 Academy Awards, 7 Golden Globes, and 3 Grammy Awards

All Pixar films are among the fifty highest grossing animated films of all time

Creates CGI-animated films; Pixar’s image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images

It is the fusion of technology and art, and has allowed Pixar to tell all the captivating stories that are found in their films

John Lasseter (VP Creative Development of Pixar) said “RenderMan extends our createive options by giving us the ability to create an object that doesn’t exist so believably that it becomes a reality for the audience.”

On the Pixar Corporate website, they state their objective as “to combine proprietary technology and world-class creative talent to develop computer-animated feature films with memorable characters and heartwarming stories that appeal to audiences of all ages.”

Audience

The talented and creative technical teams have created the favorite film characters of all ages of people. These characters and their compelling stories have allowed Pixar to live up to their promise to entertain audiences of all ages.

Quality Over Quantity

They put intent focus on storytelling—from the beginning to the end of each film, extreme attention is put on detail with the script. They perfect everything from the pacing to character development

every one of Pixar's 10 releases has been a box office smash, averaging over $550 million in worldwide grosses per film

DreamWorks has produced two computer-animated films for every one Pixar

release. But, as you will see from the statistics I am about to show you, Pixar's less-ambitious release schedule seems to

have paid off, with Pixar dominating nearly every category.

DreamWorks vs. Pixar

Conclusion

“If you want to be original, you have to accept the uncertainty, even when it’s uncomfortable.” -Ed Catmull“Pixar doesn’t just make films that perform better than standard fare. It also makes its films differently — and, in the process, defies many familiar, and dysfunctional, industry conventions. Pixar has become the envy of Hollywood because it never went Hollywood.”  -NY Times