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A Tour of Pixar
Jellybob writes "A little something for those of you who aren't happy with where you work: just go and work at Pixar." This is apparently part of the Finding Nemo hype machine; here's a BBC story talking about deploying metal detectors and night-vision goggles to stop people from camcording the movie.
I read the first part of the article but stopped after "But first comes the sound: a blast of blues-rock from the four-person band playing in a funky bar-lounge area called "The Animation Pit." "
Now I am thoroughly depressed because the closest thing we have to a blues-rock band is the annoying lady here who plays adult contemporary from her one speaker radio.
100% Insightful
Every time they release something we're treated with another "behind the scenes" story about pixar.
I remember when "behind the scenes" features were cool. The giant life sized dinosaurs used in the first "Jurassic Park". The enormous sets for "Honey I Shrunk the kids". The model mine cart and track for "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". The thousands of horses and riders used in Braveheart. Actors spending 6 hours in make up to shoot a 5 minute scene.
Even if the movies sucked, it was really cool to see how it was made.
Now we watch some nerd sitting in front of his console. And so its not boring, they all force themselves to act zany and wild throughout the special. Of course it's so obvious they're under orders to ham it up for the camera.
Just face it. With CG, Hollywood just isnt cool anymore.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
That wasn't enough for Pixar's CEO, Steve Jobs. "He thought it was really important that there only be one bathroom in the building, for all 700 people who work here," Greenberg says.
There is no way my bladder could survive the trauma of working there given the amount of coffee I drink
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Cool, half a soccer field. So they can ... play with themselves?
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
What what I understand, it's not a problem going to a movie with a video camera in hong kong. Piracy is common place, can buy films on the street or see them in the theater.
While you can sorta impose these rules in america, you can't always impose these rules in other parts of the world. Besides, I have never thought it was a serious threat with a cam corder as they look crapy anyway. A cam edition of a film atleast here in america has NO comercial value what so ever.
Now a DVD screener on the other hand, will why bother buying the DVD if you download the screener, that's something they should actually be concerned about. Fortunatly for Hollywood the equipment required to copy films onto the small screen is pretty costly and not something typical home users own.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Most of the people I've met from there are just big kids, although I haven't had a chance to see them work. Dylan for example, reminded me of a few of my fith grade classmates.
Wish I was talented enough to work there.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
There's a great easter egg on the Monsters, Inc. DVD.
Second disc, Humans Only, Pixar studio tour, highlight the logo at the bottom, press left (a black circle should appear around the airplane). I think then you click on the airplane.
It's a short film of a paper-airplane contest they held in the atrium, with lots of crazy contraptions either flying the distance, curling into the sides, or plummeting straight down. All set to an appropriate classical soundtrack.
Why is it that all the really cool places to work are on the left coast? (Pixar, Google, etc.) All we've got out here are the CIA and the Pentagon, and those sort of lose their luster after a bit....
A projectionist, a kid who works at the theater with a camera behind a wall, somebody with a camera in their glasses, all it takes is ONE.
All this is a waste of time, because you can't be everywhere at once. If broadband was available to areas with pirate flea-markets, I'm sure it would kill more of that market than anything else.
THis article talks about a high quality rip of Matrix Reloaded. That sure as hell didn't come from a theater-goer with a sony..
Clean your own house before you tell me how dirty mine is.
Here endeth the nitpick.
When Pixar started in 1985, Greenberg says, it took 8 hours to render one frame (or 1/24th of a second) of computer animation. Now, it still takes 8 hours, because the artwork in each frame is far more complex.
...the RenderFarm. Behind a large window is a wall of blinking lights, a collection of some 300 machines, each with eight processors. Together, Greenberg says, they perform 400 billion computations per second.
105 minute movie (approximation)
105 * 60 = 6300 seconds in the movie
105 * 60 * 24 = 151200 frames in the movie
151200 * 8 = 1209600 hours to compile complete movie (?!?!)
1209600 / 24 = 50400 days
50400 / 365.25 = 137.9 years
I suppose however assume that..
105 minute movie (approximation)
105 * 60 = 6300 seconds in the movie
105 * 60 * 24 = 151200 frames in the movie
151200 / 300 = 504 (one frame per machine) 504 * 8 = 4032 hours to compile movie with one machine per frame 4032 / 24 = 168 days to compile movie with one machine per frame (46% of a year)
Ok, so I suppose it could work...
Informatus Technologicus
"It's estimated we lose between $3bn (£1.8bn) and $4bn (£2.4bn) a year to this problem despite strong anti-piracy actions by the movie industry," said Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
I love these estimates. Where do they pull these numbers out of? Realistically, 95% of this figure is revenue they'd never have earned anyhow. People who are willing to pay to see a movie will not settle for a low res DivX viewing on their PC. I think the $3-4B figure is based on pirated DVDs, not camcorder captures available on the net. Even then, these figures would be based on selling a DVD at $20 a pop for each pirated one in countries where $20 is half a month's wages. You have to admit that $3 billion loss is far more impressive a figure than a more factual $150M loss since that's about what they swallow on a big budget movie flop. I'm not saying piracy does not exist but the scale of the problem is being way overstated.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Deploying metal detectors and night vision goggles will not help. Given a few days, movies are ripped with high quality sound and video without any audience being heard. This means that there are people that run the projectors, or even possibly the owner themselves ripping the movie after the theatre has shut down.
Think an employee is going to turn themselves in when they can bypass the checks and go directly to the film reel or digital stream themselves?
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
is it just me or are these people taking it a little to far, metal detectors and night-vision goggles? They have more security at the movie theatre then at school, what type of statement does that make?
In April, a 33-year-old California man was arrested and charged with illegally videotaping films - if convicted, he faces up to 26 years in federal prison.
if I pay to go to the movies and contribute to the million and million of dollars of profit, if I wanna take a peice of crap video recorder and have a grainy, shitty sounding, bad quality copy of the movie, WHO FUCKING CARES?
Now if I go and sell it to my friends, or share it on kazaa, then great, ORDER ME TO STOP, AND GIVE ME A FINE. 26 years in a federal prison is fucking insane, drunk drivers dont get that much time.
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
Places that work on top-secret military-related projects often times have "vaults" in which workers must complete projects without any real connection to the outside world (anything outside of the room). So, this means no Web, email, IRC, FTP, Instant Messaging, etc.
Perhaps if Pixar adopted something like this, and built a large room in which workers could work without contact with the outside world, their problems would be eliminated.
Of course, you would also need a security team set-up to monitor what employees are bringing home with them at night, as well as during their lunch breaks. It's very simple to fit something as small as a CD-R inside a coat pocket or similar clothing item. All you'd need is one mistake, and suddenly the newest Pixar film is released to the wild.
I feel, however, that these early releases don't really hurt the companies as much as they think they do. If anything, perhaps it generates more excitement about the film. Many people may not ever go see a film, but if they catch an early release of it, their minds may be changed.
Just some thoughts from a fellow industry insider (not Pixar, though).
Night-Vision Goggles? You know, it's bad enough that the movie industry is going bankrupt, but now, thanks to rampant piracy, I won't be able to sneak in a bag of gummi bears! Oh, the humanity!
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
I don't know about you, but when I'm sliding into first, and my pants are about to burst, the last thing on my mind is discussing with coworkers what I was doing at the Chinese massage parlor last night.
Get real. Let's not form lines in front of the bathroom and watch the girl from accounting do the funny walk, as we hold ourselves to keep from peeing.
Whatever happened to watercoolers?
When Pixar started in 1985, Greenberg says, it took 8 hours to render one frame (or 1/24th of a second) of computer animation. Now, it still takes 8 hours, because the artwork in each frame is far more complex.
Keep in mind that they don't render everything all at once! Any given frame is bound to be a composite of many different layers.
They'll break up a single element (say, one fish) into multiple passes for diffuse, specular, shadow, and who knows what else.
Then there's backgrounds, z-depth images, shadow maps, and about a bazillion other things that need to get rendered, too.
Then they have to render the composite image, which also takes an obscene amount of time if the composite is complex.
Not to mention all the test renders and placeholder renders before the final.
So this "eight hour" figure has got to be just a ballpark estimate for the public at large. It would be pretty difficult to figure out exactly how many hours of rendering time actually went into one completed frame.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Taken from vcdquality.com Finding Nemo - TELESYNC - FTF FTF Presents: Finding Nemo RlS.DaTE....: 29th May 2003 FoRMat......: Telesync VCD
why show the movie to 3000 people? Limit the number of pre-release screenings and just release the movie when you schedule it to be released. Bruce Springsteen did not have a problem of his new album getting pirated. Why? He didn't sent it to anyone.
-Matt
some 300 machines, each with eight processors.
That "8 hours per frame" would be for a single CPU.
168 days / 8 CPUs = 21 days.
However, they don't just render the final version of the movie once & then release it. There are countless test renders, animation tweaks, re-renders, texture adjustments, further re-rendering, alternate lighting setups, re-rendering, slightly different camera angles, yet more re-renders, the script for that scene is rewritten from scratch and the whole process repeats until finally the scene is cut for pacing reasons.
It all takes a god-awful amount of CPU time, and it's all completely necessary :-)
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
So if everybody pirates movies, places like PIXAR will not be able to lavish money on half a football field, nor afford employees timewasting 'creative' breaks. So until I work in an enviroment like PIXAR, I'll be doing all the pirating I can... Bastards!
Sounds like some other companies geared towards a lifestyle, such as Adidas.
For the coporate types, maybe. The overseas workers producing the shoes for a couple of dollars a day might have a different take on things.
I know this is about filming at pre-screenings, but in week one after that, given one of these High Definition Digital recorders mounted on a mini tripod under a sweater, and a matinee that no one else goes to, getting a decent copy could be pretty unstoppable. None of the high schoolers staffing my local theaters for the summer would be up to it.
Now there's progress!
Just more proof that sound bytes can say whatever you want them too.
"From the company that brought you Win98 and WinXP comes Windows Unbreakable!
I've never liked these behind the scenes looks at crazy hip work environments. I mean - the cool office with lots of toys didn't do any good for Ion Storm did it?
I wonder if Pixar will want talk about their offices if their latest movie tanks and stockholders are wonder what the hell their money is being spent on.
Also, in the article Pixar comes off sounding like Saturn or Lotus or something. Those places always kind of give me the creeps. I would half expect to show up for work and see everyone wearing blue reeboks, or drinking magic cool-aid or something.
what is this boycott?
Losing Nemo describes three boycotts against The Walt Disney Company: one by the church for gay-friendly policies, one by labor groups for producing merchandise in sweat^H^H^H^H^H substandard labor conditions, and one by concerned geeks for extending both the scope and duration of copyright.
Losing Nemo. Losing the greed.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sources went on to say that unlike in X-Men 2, the night vision goggles in Down With Love were used to identify and apprehend those elusive moviegoes who attempted to escape early.
/syle
Pixar has one position that should be of interest to the /. crowd: (asks for a unix geek who can program PERL etc.)
MacOS X Systems Administrator
Here is their comlpete listing of current jobs:
Mac/PC Systems Administrator, Systems
MacOS X Systems Administrator, Systems
Security and Safety Officer, Facilities
Software Engineer, RenderMan Products (Seattle)
Quality Assurance Engineer/API Tester, Studio Tools
Project Coordinator, Studio Tools
Film-On-Line Tools Engineer, Studio Tools
QA/Automated Test Engineer, Studio Tools
Good Luck!
Ernie Dambach
"It is no small thing to celebrate a simple life -Tolkien
Pixar is the Microsoft of the computer graphics world. They have created some good stuff, yes, but they have not given much of anything back and often hurt the field.
They do things like produce a suposedly open standard like Renderman, then sue anyone who uses it into oblivion. Most small projects get by without them batting an eye, but if competition rises up they are quick to lay the smack down.
They have all these secrets, and keep everything to themselves. Just read some of their licensing agreements (read the agreement for the "open" Renderman spec.. haha). And they provide no public inovation in the field. Rather than help the community at large, they stifle it.
Have you ever seen Pixar release anything like Massive (Weta)? I didn't think so.
Again, they usually produce good stuff, but they also are incredibly self-serving. I just have a bad feeling about the company. They're scary in a Microsoft and Disney (duh) way.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Lasseter gave a talk at my school, Cornell, ten years ago, back when Luxo and 3D animation was fairly new. It was at Cornell where Don Greenberg's team developed the first ray-tracing methods in the 70s. What most impressed me about Lasseter was his 5-step plan to making a computer-animated movie. The first step was developing the story, and the others involved determiing market and budget, and then actually making the thing. This differs from what I understand of how other studios operate, where the box office comes first and the story is just cobbled together at the end, often being written as the film is being shot. I saw Toy Story again recently and was impressed by the quality of the writing and the story. Those aspects are what make the Pixar movies of such high-quality.
every stain tells a story
ok, I'll heartily admit that the 5 titles you mentioned were all great movies. In fact, seeing the name "The Dark Crystal" brought back memories of wonderful times sitting in front of the screen, getting engrossed in the story. Of course, nowadays, if I find out about someone who hasn't seen one of those, I instantly go into this "It's awesome!" explanation with plenty of "the effects rock", etc.
:)
/. decides that the images aren't believable, it doesn't really matter to me. And while many films don't spend a lot on cg and get it horribly wrong (cough*2*fast*cough*2*furious*cough), many others bring the state of the technology farther. And that just means good things in the future.
Here's the thing though... those movies were released when I was the target demographic. When I watch one of those movies now (aside from maybe SW), I'm amazed at how many blanks my brain filled in. The Dark Crystal was one of my favorite movies, and now I can only wonder why I wasn't distracted by the muppettesque job done on all of the characters. Granted, my brain was forced to work, and who knows... that may be why I have an imagination today.
But now back to the topic at hand... to say that puppets are superior visual effects to cg seems a little short-sighted to me. Given that both are separate art forms, it seems like the applesoranges argument.
I personally believe the best mix is when full-size sets, miniature sets, and cg are combined. I loved seeing that Shrek's house was actually a miniature sculpture with Bonsai trees and moss. I loved that some LoTR frames used hundreds of layers to create the environments. And most of all, I love that technology is now being used to bring fantasy stories to life for adults rather than being relegated to 'stories for children'.
If someone on
If you're declared a dangerous offender, your sentence is "indefinite" which means that it's effectively life without parole. Paul Bernardo, who tortured and killed two young teenage girls in Ontario, received a dangerous offender sentence. He likely will never get out.
Then again, I don't trust the monkeys who run Canada either. If he's ever declared not dangerous, he can be released outright too.
http://www.adidas-salomon.com/en/sustainability/_d ownloads/adidas_Salomon_SER_2002.pdf
You can believe them or not, but their reports are there, mid 30's for numbers I think.
Only reason I bring this up is my new brother in-law works at the US headquarters in portland(germany based hq exists also) and this issue was presented to him. He responded with the answer that their conditions do concern them. This report summarizes their answer as I heard it personally and in paper.
Anyway, my point was that living conditions and lifestyles being the focus of a company produce different results. It doesn't matter who they exploit, if they exploit them to get their posh courts/etc.
TotalRenderingTime / NumberOfFrames
Since most CCDs are sensitive to IR as well as visible light, why not just have a a couple of powerful IR lamps positioned around the cinema screen to overexpose the CCD, thus washing out the recorded image...?
"If you have bathrooms that are scattered throughout the building, you use the bathroom nearest to where you're sitting. If there was one bathroom, all kinds of people would come together and talk with one another all the time -- you'd meet different people if you were waiting in line. It would enhance communication, and you'd be talking about things outside of work."
Maybe it's the introvert side of me but I'd rather not have someone talking to me while I'm trying to take a whiz and talking 'while we wait in line' doesn't sound much better. I generally don't want to wait to go to the restroom. It's a nice idea but I think it should be left to other things like maybe a single spot for vending machines or something.
As for the caste system at Pixar, the disparate culture doesn't surprise me, either. From your less-than-thrilled-with-Pixar-attitude, I'm assuming that you weren't in production. I work at a software company, production apps, not consulting, and the culture, albeit not as extreme as you describe, is similar. I wear jeans to work and can work my own hours so long as my projects are done on time. Certainly there's more of a creative atmosphere fostered on this side of the pond. The accounting and HR people have to wear business casual (at least), and work strict 8 to 6 hours. Legal and sales are even more formal. It's just the nature of the beast. Although, I think it was 'Fire in the Valley' that describes Job's carefully orchestrated tension between the Mac and Apple groups. It wouldn't surprise me if he did the same thing at Pixar.