Computers Make Movies
Pixar holiday card
Pixar’s computer-animated films won numerous awards, including Oscars for Best Animated Short and Best Animated Feature Film.
Computers Make Movies
Feature length computer-animated movies didn’t exist before Pixar made history with its release of Toy Story in 1995. Each subsequent Pixar film improved animation techniques.
Pixar initially produced medical imaging hardware, creating short films only for demonstration. But hardware sales faltered, and Pixar saw that profits lay in making movies.
Monsters, Inc. movie poster
Monsters, Inc was the fourth Pixar computer animated feature film and featured the voice talents of Billy Crystal and John Goodman.
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Pixar executives Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs and John Lasseter
Catmull and Jobs both came to Pixar from the computer industry, but Lasseter was a Hollywood-born animator whose first job was with Walt Disney.
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Pixar image computer
In addition to movies generated entirely by computer, Pixar and Disney also jointly developed software allowing Pixar’s Image Computer to color hand-drawn images for traditionally animated Disney cartoons. The computer originally cost $135,000 and required an expensive workstation to operate it.
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