A brief history of Pixar

We take a look at Pixar’s incredible history and journey, from 1979 to the present day

1979

• Ed Catmull, one of the founders of Pixar, is hired by George Lucas to head the Lucasfilm Computer Division. The division begins work to deliver a digital video editing system, a digital audio system, and a digital film printer.

• The group that would eventually become Pixar collaborates at Lucasfilm to write REYES (Renders Everything You Ever Saw), an algorithm for rendering a scene. REYES eventually evolves into Renderman, the dominant standard for digital work in Hollywood.

1984

• Disney-trained animator John Lasseter joins the Lucasfilm Computer Division. His first computer-animated work for Pixar, The Adventures of André & Wally B., premieres at SIGGRAPH.

• The Pixar Image Computer, designed to handle all techniques necessary to recreate analog photographic effects in digital form, is introduced. It is of great interest in the medical, graphic arts, and intelligence industries.

1986

• The computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd. is purchased by Steve Jobs and established as an independent company, christened ‘Pixar’. Ed Catmull is named chief technical officer of Pixar. At this time Pixar has 40 employees.

• Pixar develops hardware and software for Disney called CAPS (Computer Animation Production System).

• Luxo Jr. is completed. The short film, John Lasseter’s official directorial debut, will go on to become the first three-dimensional computer-animated film to be nominated for an Oscar.

1987

• Pixar’s short film Red’s Dream is a significant step-up in complexity, featuring rain, different light sources, and multiple set locations.

• Pixar takes its first official company photo in March of 1987.

1988

• Pixar’s new animation system, Menv – short for modelling environment – comes online. The software provides support for procedural and secondary animation – animation that could be done automatically.

• Pixar’s short film Tin Toy, technically the most difficult short made to date, features a human baby and a wind-up one-man band with continually moving parts.

1989

• Pixar launches the Renderman program. Designed by Pat Hanrahan, the software allows digital artists to break down components of a scene into layers of instructions.

• John Lasseter directs and animates Pixar’s first commercial, ‘Wake Up’, for Tropicana orange juice.

• Tin Toy wins the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film – the first computer-animated film in history to do so.

1995

• David Difrancesco receives the Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for Digital Scanning.

• Toy Story, distributed by Disney, is released as the first fully computeranimated feature film. It becomes the highest-grossing film of the year.

• Pixar goes public one week after Toy Story opens.

1994

• Pixar creates a Paramount logo.

• The Listerine commercial ‘Arrows’ wins a Gold Medal Clio Award.

1993

• Pixar creates an IBM logo.

• ‘Conga’, a commercial made for Life Savers, wins John Lasseter a Gold Medal Clio Award – the Oscar of the advertising world.

• Pixar’s Renderman Development Team receives a Scientific and Engineering

Academy Award for Renderman.

• Ed Catmull is awarded SIGGRAPH’S Steven Anson Coons Award for lifetime contribution to computer graphics.

1992

• Pixar’s CAPS Development Team receives a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for their Computer Animation Production System.

1991

• Pete Docter receives his first assignment at Pixar and animates the Listerine commercial, ‘Boxer’.

• Pixar and Walt Disney Studios team up to develop, produce and distribute up to three feature-length animated films, the first of which is to become Toy Story.

1990

• Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter join the company. Pixar creates five new commercials for California Lottery, Life Savers, Pillsbury, Volkswagen and Trident – the first computeranimation project for Andrew Stanton.

• Pixar moves to a onestory office building in Point Richmond, CA. The only luxury they can afford is a screening room, furnished with cast-off couches donated by employees.

1996

• Pixar University is created to inspire and educate everyone at all levels of the company through a wide range of art and film-related educational programming and training.

• John Lasseter receives a Special Achievement Award at the Oscars. Toy Story is also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, the first ever for an animated film.

• Pixar nominees arrive at the Academy Award ceremony, not in a limousine but in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

1997

• The short film Geri’s Game, directed by Jan Pinkava, is released. It is the first Pixar production to have a human as the main character.

• Pixar and Disney enter into a new arrangement to jointly produce five films.

• The company outgrows its Richmond facility and expands to a second building in Point Richmond. The number of employees grows to 375.

1998

• Eben Ostby, Bill Reeves, Tom Duff and Sam Leffler are awarded the Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for the Marionette 3D animation system. Marionette is the ‘public’ name for the Menv animation system.

• A Bug’s Life, Pixar’s second full-length feature film, is released. It breaks all previous Thanksgiving-weekend boxoffice records in the US.

1999

• David Difrancesco receives the Technical Achievement Academy Award for Pixarvision, a laser film recorder able to convert digital computer data to film with unprecedented quality.

• Toy Story 2 is released and is the first in film history to be entirely created, mastered and exhibited digitally. It breaks openingweekend box-office records in the US, United Kingdom and Japan.

2000

• For The Birds, a short film directed by Ralph Eggleston, allows the production team to figure out how to simulate feathers, the precursor to Sulley’s fur in Pixar’s next big film, Monsters, Inc.

• Pixar moves to Emeryville, CA. The new facility is located on the site of the one-time home of the Oakland Oaks baseball team.

2001

• Ed Catmull, who has served as CTO since the incorporation of the company, is named Pixar’s President.

• John Lasseter signs a ten-year contract to provide services exclusively to Pixar.

• Monsters, Inc., directed by Pete Docter, is released. It becomes the third highest-grossing animated film worldwide – ever.

• The number of employees at Pixar grows to 600.

2002

• Monsters, Inc. composer Randy Newman wins an Academy Award for Best Song, ‘If I Didn’t Have You’. It is his first Oscar after 15 nominations.

• For The Birds wins an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

2003

• Finding Nemo, written and directed by Andrew Stanton, is released. Opening weekend breaks all domestic box-office records for an animated feature. It becomes the highest-grossing animated film worldwide and eighth highestgrossing film of all time.

• Mike’s New Car, directed by Pete Docter and Roger Gould, receives an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

• Boundin’, directed by Bud Luckey, is one of Pixar’s first short films to feature characters that talk.

2004

• Finding Nemo becomes the #1 DVD of all time and the movie takes home the Oscar for Best Animated Film.

• Boundin’ receives an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

• The Incredibles is released. Directed by Brad Bird, the movie depicts twice the usual number of sets and more than 2,200 different shots, breaking the previous record achieved in A Bug’s Life.

2005

• Pixar: 20 Years of Animation, Pixar’s first external exhibition of its artwork, debuts at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

• The Incredibles wins two Academy Awards for Best Animated Film and Best Sound Editing.

2006

• Disney announces agreement to purchase Pixar Animation Studios in an all-stock transaction. Ed Catmull is named President of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios and John Lasseter is named Chief Creative Officer of both studios, as well as Principal Creative Advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering.

• Cars premieres at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte.

• Ed Catmull, Tony Derose, Jos Stam (Alias) receive the Technical Achievement Academy Award for Subdivision Surfaces.

• The staff grows to 834.

2007

• Lifted, directed by Gary Rydstrom, receives an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

• Ratatouille, Brad Bird’s second Pixar film, premieres.

2008

• Ratatouille receives five Academy Award nominations and wins the award for Best Animated Film.

• WALL•E, Andrew Stanton’s second Pixar film, premieres.

• Ed Catmull is awarded AMPAS’ Gordon E. Sawyer Award as “an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry.”

2009

• WALL•E wins the Academy Award for Best Animated Film.

• Up, directed by Pete Docter, premieres.

• Up is the first animated film invited to open the Cannes Film Festival.

2010

• Up is nominated for five Academy Awards and wins awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score.

• Toy Story 3, directed by Lee Unkrich, is released in Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3D.

• Toy Story 3 is the highest-grossing feature film of the year as well as the highest-grossing animated film of all time.

• Day & Night, directed by Teddy Newton, receives an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

2011

• Toy Story 3 is nominated for five Academy Awards and wins awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.

• David M. Laur receives the Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for the Alfred render queue management system.

• Cars 2, John Lasseter’s fifth film, premieres.

• Steve Jobs passes away 5 October 2011. A company-wide memorial event is held at Pixar.

2012

• La Luna is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

• Brave, directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, premieres.

• Menv (“men-vee”) is officially retired in favour of a completely new proprietary system named Presto. Brave is the first film animated using this system – which is still referred to internally as ‘menv’.

• Pixar, in partnership with the San Francisco Symphony, launches ‘Pixar in Concert’, a symphonic rendition of the scores of Pixar films.

2013

• Brave wins the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

• Monsters University, directed by Dan Scanlon, premieres.

• Luxo Jr. is deemed “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and is added to their National Film Registry, to be preserved for future generations.

2015

• After premiering at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in May, Inside Out is released on 19 June.

• Pixar makes its Renderman software freely available for non-commercial use.

• The Good Dinosaur, directed by Peter Sohn, premieres.

2016

• Pixar’s external exhibition of its artwork is re-curated as Pixar: 30 Years of Animation and debuts at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

• Inside Out wins Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

• Finding Dory, directed by Andrew Stanton, premieres.

2017

• Cars 3, directed by Brian Fee, premieres.

• Coco premieres on 20 October 2017 during the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico. It goes on to become Mexico’s #1 highest-grossing film of all time. Coco is released in North America on

22 November.

• Online educational program ‘Pixar in a Box’ is released in partnership with Khan Academy.

• The Science Behind Pixar exhibit opens at the Museum of Science, Boston.

2018

• Incredibles 2, directed by Brad Bird, premieres and sets the record for best debut for an animated film of all time, eventually grossing over $1.2 billion dollars worldwide.

• Renderman celebrates its 30th anniversary having been used in, at the time of the anniversary, over 400 animated and effects-driven films.

2019

• Bao, directed by Domee Shi, wins the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

• Toy Story 4, directed by Josh Cooley, premieres.

• Pixar’s first three Sparkshorts films – Purl, Smash & Grab, and Kitbull – are released on Youtube, amassing millions of views in the first few weeks online.

• Disney+ officially launches 12 November, and with it the Forky Asks A Question shorts, written and directed by Bob Peterson.

2020

• Ed Catmull and early Pixarian Pat Hanrahan are awarded the Turing Award, often referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize of Computing’, for fundamental contributions to

3D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computergenerated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications.