Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, and Digital Animation


Book Description

Animated cartoons have long been a part of the entertainment landscape. In the 21st century, however, digital animation has led creators expand in ways they never dreamed about. Inside, read about the companies that are leading the way in using new technologies to tell amazing stories using animation . . . and dreams. This is not your parents' world of entertainment. Almost nothing has changed as much in the past decade as how we engage with creativity. From streaming video and music to amazing new cameras and animation, companies have sprung up to capture our attention using stunning new technologies. In this series, examine some of the key players in this constantly changing market, and find out what they have in store for the future. Each title in TECH 2.0: World-Changing Entertainment Companies includes color photos throughout, and back matter including an index and further reading lists for books and internet resources. Key Icons appear throughout the books in this series in an effort to encourage library readers to build knowledge, gain awareness, explore possibilities, and expand their viewpoints through our content rich nonfiction books. Key Icons in this series are: Words to Understand shown at the front of each chapter with definitions. These words are set in boldfaced color type in that chapter, so that readers are able to reference back to the definitions, building their vocabulary and enhancing their reading comprehension. Sidebars are highlighted graphics with content-rich material within that allows readers to build knowledge and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Text-Dependent Questions are placed at the end of each title. They challenge the reader's comprehension of the material they have just read, while sending the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. Research Projects are provided at the end of each title and give readers suggestions for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Educational Videos are offered in chapters through the use of a QR code, that, when scanned, takes the student to an online video showing a moment in history, a speech, or an instructional video. This gives the readers additional content to supplement the text. A Series Glossary of Key Terms is included in the backmatter containing terminology used throughout the series. Words found here broaden the reader's knowledge and understanding of terms used in this field.




The Men Who Would Be King


Book Description

“The definitive history of the studio” created by the larger-than-life team of Spielberg, Geffen, and Katzenberg (Los Angeles Times). For sixty years, since the birth of United Artists, the studio landscape was unchanged. Then came Hollywood’s Circus Maximus—created by director Steven Spielberg, billionaire David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave the world The Lion King—an entertainment empire called DreamWorks. Now Nicole LaPorte, who covered the company for Variety, goes behind the hype to reveal for the first time the delicious truth of what happened. Readers will feel they are part of the creative calamities of moviemaking as LaPorte’s fly-on-the-wall detail shows us Hollywood’s bizarre rules of business. We see the clashes between the often-otherworldly Spielberg’s troops and Katzenberg’s warriors, the debacles and disasters, but also the Oscar-winning triumphs, including Saving Private Ryan. We watch as the studio burns through billions of dollars, its rich owners get richer, and everybody else suffers. LaPorte displays Geffen, seducing investors like Microsoft’s Paul Allen, showing his steel against CAA’s Michael Ovitz, and staging fireworks during negotiations with Paramount and Disney. Here is a blockbuster behind-the-scenes Hollywood story—up close, glamorous, and gritty.




Moving Innovation


Book Description

A behind-the-scenes history of computer graphics, featuring a cast of math nerds, avant-garde artists, cold warriors, hippies, video game players, and studio executives. Computer graphics (or CG) has changed the way we experience the art of moving images. Computer graphics is the difference between Steamboat Willie and Buzz Lightyear, between ping pong and PONG. It began in 1963 when an MIT graduate student named Ivan Sutherland created Sketchpad, the first true computer animation program. Sutherland noted: “Since motion can be put into Sketchpad drawings, it might be exciting to try making cartoons.” This book, the first full-length history of CG, shows us how Sutherland's seemingly offhand idea grew into a multibillion dollar industry. In Moving Innovation, Tom Sito—himself an animator and industry insider for more than thirty years—describes the evolution of CG. His story features a memorable cast of characters—math nerds, avant-garde artists, cold warriors, hippies, video game enthusiasts, and studio executives: disparate types united by a common vision. Sito shows us how fifty years of work by this motley crew made movies like Toy Story and Avatar possible.




The Pixar Touch


Book Description

A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year The Pixar Touch is a lively chronicle of Pixar Animation Studios' history and evolution, and the “fraternity of geeks” who shaped it. With the help of animating genius John Lasseter and visionary businessman Steve Jobs, Pixar has become the gold standard of animated filmmaking, beginning with a short special effects shot made at Lucasfilm in 1982 all the way up through the landmark films Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and others. David A. Price goes behind the scenes of the corporate feuds between Lasseter and his former champion, Jeffrey Katzenberg, as well as between Jobs and Michael Eisner. And finally he explores Pixar's complex relationship with the Walt Disney Company as it transformed itself into the $7.4 billion jewel in the Disney crown. With an Updated Epilogue




The CG Story


Book Description

The Art of Walt Disney author Christopher Finch tells the story of the pioneers of CG films: producer/directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Ridley Scott; and John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, founders of Pixar. Computer generated imagery, commonly called “CG,” has had as big an impact on the movie industry as the advent of sound or color. Not only has it made possible a new kind of fully animated movie, but it also has revolutionized big-budget, live-action filmmaking. The CG Story is one of determined experimentation and brilliant innovation carried out by a group of gifted, colorful, and competitive young men and women, many of whom would become legendary in the digital world. George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Ridley Scott embraced the computer to create believable fantasy worlds of a richness that had seldom if ever been realized on screen. Their early efforts helped inspire a revolution in animation, enabled by technical wizardry and led by the founders of Pixar, including John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, who would create the entirely computer-produced worlds of Toy Story and subsequent Pixar films. Meanwhile, directors like James Cameron used the new technology to make hybrid live-action and CG films, including the extraordinary Avatar. Finch covers these and more, giving a full account of today’s most significant CG films.




Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children's Films


Book Description

This work is a wide-ranging survey of American children's film that provides detailed analysis of the political implications of these films, as well as a discussion of how movies intended for children have come to be so persistently charged with meaning. Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children's Films provides wide-ranging scrutiny of one of the most lucrative American entertainment genres. Beyond entertaining children—and parents—and ringing up merchandise sales, are these films attempting to shape the political views of young viewers? M. Keith Booker examines this question with a close reading of dozens of films from Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, and other studios, debunking some out-there claims—The Ant Bully communist propaganda?—while seriously considering the political content of each film. Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children's Films recaps the entire history of movies for young viewers—from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to this year's Up—then focuses on the extraordinary output of children's films in the last two decades. What Booker finds is that by and large, their lessons are decidedly, comfortably mainstream and any political subtext more often than not is inadvertent. Booker also offers some advice to parents for helping children read films in a more sophisticated way.




The Art of Sanjay's Super Team


Book Description

In the new short film from Pixar Animation Studios, Sanjay's Super Team, accomplished artist Sanjay Patel uses his own experience to tell the story of a young, 1st generation Indian boy whose love for western pop culture comes into conflict with his father's traditions. This art-filled peek behind the curtain of this groundbreaking film is sure to excite Sanjay's legion of fans, and thrill animation lovers around the world. Copyright ©2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. and Pixar. All rights reserved.




The Art of DreamWorks Animation


Book Description

A visual celebration of DreamWorks Animation's 20th anniversary, featuring concept art, pre-production designs and character sketches from all 30 of the studio's films.




Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)


Book Description

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.




DreamWorks Animation


Book Description

DreamWorks is one of the biggest names in modern computer-animation: a studio whose commercial success and impact on the medium rivals that of Pixar, and yet has received far less critical attention.The book will historicise DreamWorks’ contribution to feature animation, while presenting a critical history of the form in the new millennium. It will look beyond the films’ visual aesthetics to assess DreamWorks’ influence on the narrative and tonal qualities which have come to define contemporary animated features, including their use of comedy, genre, music, stars, and intertextuality. It makes original interventions in the fields of film and animation studies by discussing each of these techniques in a uniquely animated context, with case studies from Shrek, Antz, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Shark Tale, Bee Movie, Trolls and many others. It also looks at the unusual online afterlife of these films, and the ways in which they have been reappropriated and remixed by subversive online communities.