Pixar, doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a division of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company.
The studio started in 1979 as part of the Lucasfilm computer division. It was known as the Graphics Group before its spin-off as a corporation in 1986, with funding from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder.[4] The studio's mascot is Luxo Jr., a desk lamp from the studio's 1986 short film of the same name. Disney announced its acquisition of Pixar in January 2006, and completed it in May 2006.[5][6] Pixar is best known for its feature films, technologically powered by its RenderMan software. RenderMan began as Pixar's implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan Interface Specification (RISpec) image-rendering API, which came out in 1988; support for RISpec was dropped in 2016. RenderMan became fully path-traced and physically based (PBR).
In addition to producing short films, Pixar has produced 30 feature films, with its first film being Toy Story (1995), which is also the first fully computer-animated feature film, and its most recent film was Hoppers (2026). As of July 2023, its feature films have earned over $17 billion at the worldwide box office with an average gross of $589 million per film.[7] Toy Story 3 (2010), Finding Dory (2016), Incredibles 2 (2018), Toy Story 4 (2019) and Inside Out 2 (2024) all grossed over $1 billion and are among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time. Moreover, 13 of Pixar's films are in the 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time. As of, Inside Out 2 was the second highest-grossing animated film of all time.[8]
Pixar has earned 23 Academy Awards, 10 Golden Globe Awards, and 11 Grammy Awards, along with numerous other awards and acknowledgments. Since its inauguration in 2001, eleven Pixar films have won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, including Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4, Brave (2012), Inside Out (2015), Coco (2017), and Soul (2020). Toy Story 3 and Up were also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In February 2009, Pixar executives John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich were presented with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the Venice Film Festival. The physical award was ceremonially handed to Lucasfilm's founder, George Lucas.
History
Early history
Pixar got its start in 1974, when New York Institute of Technology's founder, Alexander Schure, who was also the owner of a traditional animation studio, established the Computer Graphics Lab (CGL) and recruited computer scientists who shared his ambitions about creating the world's first computer-animated film.[9] Edwin Catmull and Malcolm Blanchard were the first to be hired and were soon joined by Alvy Ray Smith and David DiFrancesco some months later, who were the four original members of the Computer Graphics Lab, located in a converted two-story garage acquired from the former Vanderbilt-Whitney estate.[10][11] Schure invested significant funds into the computer graphics lab, approximately $15 million, providing the resources the group needed but contributing to NYIT's financial difficulties.[12]
Campus
When Steve Jobs, chief executive officer of Apple Inc. and Pixar, and John Lasseter, executive vice president of Pixar, decided to move their studios from a leased space in Point Richmond, California, to larger quarters of their own, they chose a 20-acre site in Emeryville, California,[117] formerly occupied by Del Monte Foods, Inc. The first of several buildings, the high-tech structure designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson[118] has special foundations and electricity generators to ensure continued film production, even through major earthquakes. The character of the building is intended to abstractly recall Emeryville's industrial past. The two-story steel-and-masonry building is a collaborative space with many pathways.[119]
The digital revolution in filmmaking was driven by applied mathematics, including computational physics and geometry
Filmography
Traditions
Some of Pixar's first animators were former cel animators including John Lasseter, and others came from computer animation or were fresh college graduates.[16] A large number of animators that make up its animation department had been hired around the releases of A Bug's Life (1998), Monsters, Inc. (2001), and Finding Nemo (2003). The success of Toy Story (1995) made Pixar the first major computer-animation studio to successfully produce theatrical feature films. The majority of the animation industry was (and still is) located in Los Angeles, and Pixar is located 350 mi north in the San Francisco Bay Area. Traditional hand-drawn animation was still the dominant medium for feature animated films.
With the scarcity of Los Angeles-based animators willing to move their families so far north to give up traditional animation and try computer animation, Pixar's new hires at this time either came directly from college or had worked outside feature animation. For traditional animators, the Pixar animation software Marionette was designed to require minimal training before becoming productive.[16]
Co-op Program
The Pixar Co-op Program, a part of the Pixar University professional development program, allows their animators to use Pixar resources to produce independent films.[173][174] The first 3D project accepted to the program was Borrowed Time (2016); all previously accepted films were live-action.[175]
See also
- The Walt Disney Company
- Disney's Nine Old Men
- 12 basic principles of animation
- Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life
- Modern animation in the United States: Disney
- Animation studios owned by the Walt Disney Company
- Walt Disney Animation Studios
- Disneytoon Studios
- Circle Seven Animation
- Blue Sky Studios
External links
References
- Alvy Ray Smith. Proof of Pixar Cofounders retrieved December 23, 2015^
- Pixar. Statement of Information - Corporation bizfile online, California Secretary of State, March 5, 2025^
- See Harold Marsh, Jr., R. Roy Finkle, Larry W. Sonsini, and Ann Yvonne Walker, Marsh's California Corporation Law