BIG changes in the Animation World

Disney Buys Pixar

This is something...Disney giving up creative control of their legendary animation studio??? To ANYONE??? Whoa.

Comments?

I think you meant Pixar "(is) giving up creative control of their legendary animation studio". There's a lot of speculation going on in the digital art community about WHAT IT ALL MEANS! Will Pixar be pounded into creative submission like Disney's own animation division was? Or will Jobs/Lasseter/Catmull have more control over the course of Disney's future animation projects? No one seems to be talking specifics.

The fact is that even though Jobs is the biggest shareholder, only time will tell what kind of power he has over the Disney board of directors. My guess is that the Pixar acquisition is merely a happy by-product (for Disney, anyway) of Jobs master plan for dominion over a huge license leveraging, content creation and distribution empire. Think about it: Disney has one of the most valuable catalogs of movies and properties in the history of...history itself! They also own ABC television. Jobs presides over a superstar content creation facility (Pixar) and the hottest hardware and software distribution conglomerate in the computer world: Apple. I think taking over Pixar is going to seem like small potatoes when this machine gets up to full speed over the next few years.

No, I was quoting the article: "$7.4 billion deal that gives Pixar animators creative control over the world's most famous cartoon studio and makes Pixar CEO
Steve Jobs one of Disney's largest shareholders."

And also: "Disney also will surrender control of its world-famous animation studio, the birthplace of Mickey Mouse, to Pixar creative chiefs, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter. The companies will combine their animation operations.

Catmull, who is currently president of Pixar, will become president of the combined Pixar and Disney animation studios. Lasseter, who is now executive vice president of Pixar, will be chief creative officer of the combined studios.

Lasseter will also become the principal creative director of the Walt Disney Imagineering group, which designs theme park attractions."

Almost sounds like more of a giant merger than a takeover. Either way...it's intense. Yeesh.

Disney will own/run the world someday, maybe. I know everyone loves Disney, but it'd be more in keeping with my absurdist view of life if Bugs were in charge...:roll:

tikivixen

I have a problem understanding the line "Disney also will surrender control of its world-famous animation studio". What exactly is being "surrendered?" The crew that made Chicken Little? The entire Disney vault of filmed animation? See my point? One is worth slightly more and demands responsible leadership in managing it. Will Dr. Catmull (seeing his name in print always cracks me up since there's a common 3D shader named after him. He's one of the old school pioneers of 3D development from the 70s, along with about 6 other geniuses. Those guys are legends in this arena.) and Lasseter actually create and oversee Disney's animation production schedule? That would be awesome if they did. But somehow I doubt the decades-entrenched Disney corporate culture would allow that to happen. No old guard likes to have some young whipper-snappers come in and tell them what to do, least of all Disney.

On the Apple site their press release quoted Jobs as saying something like "now we are free to fully collaborate with Disney on future projects". My understanding is that "collaborating" with Disney was one of the sticking points for Pixar and they fought Disney constantly over the horrible decisions they tried to impose on Pixar films. I dread to think what those classic Pixar movies would have turned out like if Disney had their way more often.

Will Pixar remain in Emeryville?

Cartoons be big business. Blame Star Wars for creating the merchandising monster.

It bugs me when money, business men, and lawyers are the ones who decide what happens with stuff like this. Usually short sighted economic rationalism wins the day (and proves to be a poor decision in the long term...)

Kustom Kahoona* - Tiki and Hot Rod Art by Hewey*

[ Edited by: hewey 2006-01-24 23:28 ]

On 2006-01-24 22:38, cynfulcynner wrote:

Will Pixar remain in Emeryville?

They say "Yes, for now". An open-ended reply if ever there was one. Like, "Will gas prices stay the same?" "Yes, for now." Exactly how much time is in a "now?"

My guess is they will stay in E-ville. I can't image all those employees agreeing to up and move to L.A. I think there'd be a mass exodus of people from Pixar and possibly a few new production companies started if that happened.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Since the standing contract with Pixar ended, Disney was heading for a situation of being in competition with Pixar in the future. The human assets at Pixar, including not just the managerial and directorial "brain trust" but also the entire creative workforce, represents great value for any company aiming to produce good animation features. So what are the strategic options when you're going to be competing with another company that seems to have a certain magic that you'd like to duplicate? Try to woo their people away, try to copy their methods, or just buy them! That last option is very appealing, because you automatically get both the people and the methods.

So I suspect the Disney "surrender" of the animation studio is not so much like snipping it off and handing it to another company, but more like a strategic way to get that division some new leadership with a better track record of success. But I hope it's not followed by a round of cost-cutting "synergies" that kill off the creative magic at Pixar now through layoffs, moves, or whatever.

-Randy

Say goodbye to future Disney movies being able to be watched on anything other than a Mac.

(Cheap shot, I know.)

On 2006-01-25 13:32, hanford_lemoore wrote:
Say goodbye to future Disney movies being able to be watched on anything other than a Mac.

(Cheap shot, I know.)

But probably true....seriously!

To elaborate: I firmly believe that Jobs is looking far to the future with this move. A future that's nothing like the current model of making a movie, distributing it, then cleaning up with DVD profits. I think he sees a return to an old-fashioned studio system, but one that is updated through technology and therefore potentially sidesteps the anti-trust laws that dissolved the old studio systems.

In the old system, studios barons "owned" the actors, made the movies and owned the theaters they showed in. An iPod or iPod-like device that wirelessly downloads music, movies and tv shows is an inevitability. If Jobs can get all his ducks in a row, he (and Disney) will be uniquely poised to create content, establish a distribution system (iTunes Store-like in nature) based on unit sales or subscriptions, and can build the hardware himself (with all of Apple's DRM evilness built-in!).

Just as old TVs with dial tuners that received 5 channels seem unbelievably quaint today, cable TV will seem just as quaint 5 to 10 years from now when we will buy movies and "TV" shows through a download service. You'll have it on some sort of set-top or portable device that you can pop into a base station for watching on your plasma screen or laptop or whatever. Mark my words! No, seriously, MARK THEM!

[ Edited by: tiki-bot 2006-01-25 15:43 ]

I'm just really bummed about this whole thing. When I worked at DL, I got into the employee stock purchase program. By the time I quit in 1998, I had amassed three and some change shares of stock. Then it did a three for one split, and all of a sudden I had more than 10 shares! Then the bottom fell out of the stock, and it's been in the red ever since. I forget off hand how much I paid for the stuff, but the eleven + shares I currently own aren't worth what I paid for 3 back in '98!
Now the real bummer part about this: My wife got me one share of Pixar in 2004 for our anniversary. And then it split! The two shares of Pixar were way outperforming my Disney, and I was all happy.
And now that Disney has bought Pixar, I'm just gonna have more crappy, underperforming Disney stock! I hate Disney. Except the Tiki Room. That still rocks. And so do Dole Whips.

This is from an article about the Disney/Pixar thing:

That may explain why, as part of the deal, Pixar's two top executives, President Ed Catmull and top creative executive John Lasseter, were given new and more important jobs with the company. Catmull, who has been with Pixar since it was started by George Lucas in the early 80s, will become president of the Pixar and Disney animation studio. Lasseter, a one-time Disney animator and the director of Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and the soon-to-be-released film Cars, will be chief creative officer of the animation studios as well as the lead creative adviser for Disney's Imagineering unit, which devises new rides for the theme park.

I find the Lasseter/Imagineering connection interesting.

The article is about keeping people from leaving Pixar now that Disney owns it. Whole article is here:

Business Week: Hi-Ho! Work for Disney or Go?

On 2006-01-25 13:32, hanford_lemoore wrote:
Say goodbye to future Disney movies being able to be watched on anything other than a Mac.

(Cheap shot, I know.)

You say that like it's a bad thing!