Pixar Animation

Almost every fall, Disney and Pixar would team up and create a family friendly film that would have “anthropomorphic creatures or objects rendered with state-of-the-art computer graphics.”(Babich 235) Then later on in the summer Disney would come out with one of its more classic movies ,a 2D animated film

Animated films are one of the most entertaining forms of media out there. When it comes to animated films, two major film companies may come to mind: DreamWorks and Disney. For the past couple of years, people have been asking which company is better, and the answer is quite simply Disney. They have better stories, they maintain a certain theme, they are consistent, and extremely successful which is what makes them stand out from other studios and film companies. Of course, DreamWorks has some of these qualities as well, but they are far and few in between.

Disney used the character of Mickey Mouse and others to create movies that customers enjoyed like “Beauty and the Beast” while Pixar was producing made up animated characters to create films like “Cars” and “Wall-E”. Disney was creating animated movies but struggling to generate the amount of money Pixar was making on producing only one movie a year. Disney wanted to grow in creating more animated movies and decided to buy out Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 million dollars. (Barnes, 2008) According to Disney’s CEO Robert

A long time ago Disney company turned into some kind of Hollywood «machine» of making animation hits with the same parttern and also they missed the moment when computer animation has become much more interesting in the audience of animated cartoons. Pixar is representing some kind of new wave (especially, on the technological side) in the cartoon field . Also, they are succesful. Teir «Toy Story» and «Finding Nemo» were real hits:

Its large size gives Disney several advantages, such as a large budget and a large human resource base. Internally, Disney follows a top-down approach, where managers tend to impose the culture, and bureaucracy is considered large with 185,000 employees in 2016 (Forbes, 2016). The decision making lies at top management level, giving the company a hierarchical structure. In the creative world Disney is known to make movies based on profitability, rather than quality of animation and image. Pixar’s core competence is their technological 3D success in computer animation. When looking at the staff at Pixar , it can be seen that they are very technically educated and have a lot of in-house creativity. This is the reason for their high level of innovation. Furthermore, they focus on quality instead of sales figures. Internally, Pixar uses the bottom-up approach, where input of employees is highly valued, and Pixar offers a very communicative and open working environment.

Walt Disney was one of the most important animators in the history of animation. His influence on the animation industry is huge and had created the most famous animation studio of all time. Unlike other studios at that time, Disney acknowledged the importance of having an emotional connection in between the characters and his audience. He paid lots of attention to his characters and was the first animator to have a department dedicated to story in his studio. Being the recipient of 4 Honorary Academy Awards. There is no doubt that he is one of the best. And his studio remains as one of the top studios worldwide and continues to influence the world of animation.

IT has also changed the way movies are shot particularly through application of film special effects. The film industry heavily relies on illusions to simulate imaginary events in a story (McClean, 2007). Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) is another key technology that is applied to special effects to enhance films. CGI is mainly used in special effects to enable filmmakers to control the scenes instead of using many extra actors. This has simplified film production and reduced the costs incurred. A lot of movies especially those classified under fiction, action, and horror genres rely on CGI.

Pixar, being a leader in CG animations and having an exemplary track record of producing blockbuster hits, had a lot of potential suitors which include Warner Bros., AOL, Time Warner, Fox and Sony. Any media companies that strikes a deal with Pixar may instantly forefront the animation market.

This study examines how leadership, teamwork, and organizational learning can contribute in making mergers and acquisitions work. Our intention is to identify critical factors and practices needed for merger success. Our research is part of an ongoing project, and builds on previous analysis of merger success/failure in such organizations as Standard Oil, Exxon Mobile, and Time Warner-AOL. In this paper, we turn our attention to the recent merger of Pixar and Disney. In our view, the Disney-Pixar case seems to be a good example of a successful merger in progress. This is demonstrated very clearly by recent box office successes such as Academy Award

In a world where technology is rapidly developing and evolving, it is sometimes hard to keep up with the changes that are made. When looking back on changes that are made it is particularly interesting to look at the development of animation over history. Today when one thinks about animation it is impossible not to think of Disney and their major motion pictures. The Shreck films, Finding Nemo, and Happy Feet, to name just some of the dozens of animated films Disney has produced, raked in million upon millions of dollars at the box office, and have been hit films with people in all age groups.

Pixar has exceptional talents not only in art and film making but also in science and technology. It has a group of engineers

Disney has become a marketing goliath and the #1 entertainment company in the US. They have been able to develop a creativity-driven philosophy that over time was tempered by financial responsibility and that benefitted from powerful synergies between its divisions. From the very beginning, Disney has been synonymous with innovation within the children’s entertainment industry, from their introduction of animations with synchronized audio, full-length animated feature films and then later into theme parks and on-ice and Broadway shows. One important element of Disney’s success was the extent to which they integrated and expanded into different

Pixar Animation Studios as we know today, was started as in 1984 when John Lasseter, chief creative officer of both Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios was founded in 1979, initially specializing in producing state of the art computer hardware (Carlson, 2003). In 1990, due to poor product sales the company diversified from its core business and began producing computer animated commercials for outside companies. Success came for Pixar after the production of its first computer animated film ‘Toy story’ in 1995 (Hutton and Baute, 2007). Since then, Pixar has made many innovative animated feature films, with well known ones including - A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille and WALL-E, six of which are in the top grossing animated

Known to be one of the largest producers of multi-media content, Walt Disney and Pixar greatly impacted the entertainment industry with the use of three-dimensional generated content. It quickly gained popularity with the release of its animated movies and especially got the attention of children from their sequels. With the growing popularity, the competition in the media industry began to increase. Disney was then faced with a difficult decision regarding its relationship with Pixar on whether they should acquire or not acquire the company.