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.

Comments

Depressed...

[Shant3030]

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.

Re:Depressed...

[rhythmblind]

As a former Pixar employee, let me state unequivically that all those stories about how great it is to work at Pixar are bullshit. It is a horribly caste ridden company with those in higher castes barely acknowledging the existance of those in lower castes. It doesn't matter that they put all the bathrooms in one place.

When I was there I often had occasion to visit Steve Jobs office. What did I find on his desk? He had on his desk an 8x10 photo of... himself. I shit you not. I took photos of the office showing this as I figured my friends would not believe me if I told them about it.

Tippet Studio nearby in Berkeley is a much better place to work, but understand that it doesn't matter if you are making canoes or movies, work is work.

Like most "information" in these fluff articles about Pixar their statement that

At the end of the second gallery is a trophy case holding some of Pixar's awards -- including two Oscars and a Golden Globe. "We were really reluctant for a long time to display these -- we're still a little embarrassed by the whole thing.

is patently false. As soon as they could they built a case for it an displayed and Oscar shortly after Toy Story. I know. I was there.

Some of you may recall the Salary Snafu at Pixar around 1997 or 1998. Someone emailed to everyone at the company a list of employee salaries making it seems as if the mail came from Steve Jobs. To top it off the mail came the Monday morning of the week of employee reviews. Every employee went into their review knowing how much their boss was paid and how much their coworkers was paid.

There were alot of unhappy people. That list showed that Pixar's salaries were awarded without regard to skill, exprerience, or performance. There could be upwards of 20K/yr separating office mates with the same skill/experience/title/performance.

As you might guess, quite a few larger than expected raises were negotiated that year.

Although a lawsuit was filed they never caught the guilty party. No doubt some disgruntled ex-employee...

Re:Depressed...

[dubiousmike]

The "bathroom effect" yields dividends.

This must be a direct result of all of the free coffee.

Bah

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:Bah

[Musashi Miyamoto]

Worse yet, the CG in most movies is not believeable. The quality is so low and the animation so obvious that it removes the credibility so that only children could possibly enjoy it.

In the 80's, most sci-fi and fantasy movies needed to use puppets and camera trics. The puppets were significantly more believable and enjoyable to watch than most current CG characters. I would take an old starwars puppet over a CG Jabba anyday.

One of the only movies to do it right was Jurrassic Park. It was also one of the first. It is a shame that production values have dropped so dramatically.

Think of all the great fantasy and scifi movies in the past that used puppets instead of graphics:

The neverending story
Star wars trilogy (before profiteering by Lucas)
Labrynth
The Dark crystal
Legend

All of the characters were more believable than the current crop... Even Gollum from the recent LOTR movies, which had some of the best acting by a CG character in a while, was difficult to believe because half the time he was on the screen, it we obvious that he was a CG character.

Re:Bah

[Anonymous Custard]

Worse yet, the CG in most movies is not believeable. The quality is so low and the animation so obvious that it removes the credibility so that only children could possibly enjoy it.

That may be true for implementations like Jar-Jar in SW Episode 1, but don't group Pixar in there with the hollywood CG abusers. Pixar produces high quality cartoons, not real-life simulations. They're not trying to fool your eye into thinking that the bugs in A Bug's Life are actually real bugs moving around.

Even Gollum from the recent LOTR movies, which had some of the best acting by a CG character in a while, was difficult to believe because half the time he was on the screen, it we obvious that he was a CG character.

So your glass is half-empty. I thought it was amazing how the other half the time, I was watching the movie forgetting that Gollum was CG.

Re:Bah

[gpinzone]

In the 80's, most sci-fi and fantasy movies needed to use puppets and camera trics. The puppets were significantly more believable and enjoyable to watch than most current CG characters. I would take an old starwars puppet over a CG Jabba anyday.

Let's not get carried away! I think a better example is Ghostbusters. Listen to the commentary track on the DVD and you'll find out how ingenious tricks were used to do the effects. For example, the "frying egg on the countertop scene" was done using no computer animation; just some basic stuff a magician would do. Nowadays, they'd animate the whole thing with a cgi egg on a blue screen that would look completely fake just because no one would bother to figure out how to do it any other way. Probably the best example of old school effects has to be in the Wizard of Speed and Time. In fact, I'd say it's the definitive movie on the subject.

Re:Bah

[Java Pimp]

I would take an old starwars puppet over a CG Jabba anyday.

I agree. Although you got to admit that the CG Yoda in AOTC was pretty impressive. There was only one point in the movie (and only after I had watched it a few times) were you able to "tell" he was CG.

I think the reason CG Yoda was more believeable over Jabba or Jar Jar, etc... was the fact that they tried to make him look and act like the Puppet Yoda and not a real live creature/character.

They are trying to overkill the CG characters giving them cartoon like motion for acting and speaking. (over exaggerate lip movements for syllables, etc...) My lips don't move that much when I speak, and neither do puppets.

Perhaps if they concentrate on making the CG characters look like puppets they may be more believable.

It was looking good until

[Timesprout]

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

Re:It was looking good until

[Alranor]

It's such a shame you gave up reading at that point, for if you'd just read a couple of lines more you'd have seen

Mercifully for the bladders of Pixar's caffeine-addicted staffers, the central atrium has eight restrooms on two floors -- four men's and four women's

:)

Get copy from Hong Kong

[zakezuke]

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.

Re:Get copy from Hong Kong

[Doomrat]

Hong Kong?! Phooey.

Bunch of nice people work there

[3.5 stripes]

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.

Airplane Contest

[dschuetz]

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....

These people are idiots.

[teamhasnoi]

All it takes is ONE person to share it. ONE. Then the day is over, time to go home, you've lost the battle.

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.

Re:These people are idiots.

[gosand]

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..

Nor did it have any impact on the box office take of the movie. It was the highest opening for an R rated movie ever. So if it wasn't on the net, does that mean that they would have made 100 million more? The other pirated movies on the net that make the articles are LOTR and Spider-man. Both couldn't have done much better at the box office. I don't understand why these movies make the news. If it hitting the net was such a revenue hit, wouldn't these things do poorly at the box-office? Or is it just that they would have made so much MORE money? Boo frickin hoo.

I understand why Pixar would take measures to prevent people from taking it before the release. EVERYONE steals stuff from work, it would be no different at Pixar. They have every right to keep people from pilfering it. (Hey, I would too). After it hits the public though, all bets are pretty much off.

Wait wait wait wait wait...

[HaloZero]

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.

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..

...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 / 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...

Losing between $3-4B a year???

[molarmass192]

"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.

I just don't get it...

[nherc]

From the article:

Studios are very keen to prevent copies of their films hitting the black market, denting box office takings.

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

Kill, rape or beat someone to within an inch of their lives and you'll probably receive less than half of the sentence this guy faces. I realize he most likely won't get 26 years, but what's wrong with a society where you get more hardcore jail time for swiping a copy of the latest Disney flick than for say running down the Director.

Re:I just don't get it...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's federal vs state laws.

Depending on the state, violent crimes will be treated differently. Murder is practically legal in California, but Texas is another story.

Now, kill, rape or beat someone while wearing a policemans uniform, you've just violated their civil rights, and the feds will execute you. Kill, rape or beat a federal employee - same thing. This is why the DC snipers are facing the death penalty. They cant get it based on MD law (where most of their killings took place), but they took out a fed, so they'll fry.

Laws are crazy and varied all over. Get caught with a half a joint in some states, you probably wont even be charged. Get caught in Nevada, its 5 years manditory for any amount of marijuana. Even an unsmokable hemp stem.

wtf

[adamruck]

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.

Bathroom effect?? Worst idea ever.

[teamhasnoi]

Here's the "bathroom effect" theory, as Greenberg explains it: "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."

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?

8 hours is an estimate, folks!

[Guano_Jim]

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.

Too Little.. Too Late.

[tezzery]

Taken from vcdquality.com Finding Nemo - TELESYNC - FTF FTF Presents: Finding Nemo RlS.DaTE....: 29th May 2003 FoRMat......: Telesync VCD

If you want to keep it secret....

[CPIMatt]

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

Only 3 weeks

[Namarrgon]

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 :-)

Re:yep

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

think inside the box damnit!

[machinecraig]

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.

Re:I'm American, and I'm a Proud one.

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

That reminds me of an incident many years ago... I worked part time at a computer store in Alexandria, VA. One of my co-workers was a U.S. Navy Master Chief who worked at the Navy Research Labs. One of his lab coworkers asked him to buy a copy of a computer game with his employee discount and bring it to him at work. Pretty harmless, right?

The name of the game (IIRC) was The Haley's Project, or something else spacey - you flew from planet to planet within the solar system and at each stop you would receive a trivia clue to guide you to the next planet. Anyways, the manual was made up to look like a NASA guide and all the pages were printed with fake 'TOP SECRET' stamps all over everything.

Last I heard, the guy was still smuggling the manual out one page at a time - stuffed in his underwear - since the security checkpoint wouldn't let him take home anything marked TOP SECRET... :-)

Losing Nemo

[yerricde]

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.

Re:Pixar: Good movies, suck-ass company

[sahala]

they usually produce good stuff, but they also are incredibly self-serving. I just have a bad feeling about the company.

How are they so horrible because they're self serving? You claim that Pixar's a suck-ass company, but I don't see any valid reason behind this, other than the fact that they don't give away all their (Rendarman) technology. If Pixar is so bad because they keep industry secrets to themselves, then almost every other company in the world must be "suck-ass" as well.

I'm sorry that Pixar's not an open source software company -- I kinda thought that they made movies or something.