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| | Description | The Pixar Touch is a lively chronicle of Pixar Animation Studios' history and evolution, and the “fraternity of geeks” who shaped it. With the help of animating genius John Lasseter and visionary businessman Steve Jobs, Pixar has become the gold standard of animated filmmaking, beginning with a short special effects shot made at Lucasfilm in 1982 all the way up through the landmark films Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and others. David A. Price goes behind the scenes of the corporate feuds between Lasseter and his former champion, Jeffrey Katzenberg, as well as between Jobs and Michael Eisner. And finally he explores Pixar's complex relationship with the Walt Disney Company as it transformed itself into the $7.4 billion jewel in the Disney crown. | |
| | Product Details | | Author: | David A. Price | | Paperback: | 320 pages | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Publication Date: | May 05, 2009 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0307278298 | | Product Length: | 5.2 inches | | Product Width: | 0.68 inches | | Product Height: | 7.98 inches | | Product Weight: | 0.75 pounds | | Package Length: | 7.95 inches | | Package Width: | 5.2 inches | | Package Height: | 0.79 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.75 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 50 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 50 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 The magic touch Jun 14, 2008
By Julie Neal
I was glued to this book about Pixar's humble beginnings and inspiring ascension into the firmament. In true Cinderella fashion, the company starts with nothing, gets no respect, but eventually its dreams come true. It's a thought-provoking journey.
Pixar's story interweaves with that of the Walt Disney Company throughout its history. Founding CEO Ed Catmull's college dissertation involved creating a texture map projecting Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh onto undulating surfaces. When Disney decided to replace its ink-and-paint process with computers, it had Pixar test the system with a scene from The Little Mermaid. In 1991, Disney agreed to finance Pixar's first full-length feature film, Toy Story, but production was shut down in late 1993 because the plot dictated that Woody be mean and petty. Disney rewrote the script to make the toy cowboy more sympathetic. And in January 2006, Disney agreed to acquire Pixar for 287.5 million shares of Disney stock.
The story works in the biographies of some fascinating men. Catmull turned down Disney when it approached him to help design the Walt Disney World attraction Space Mountain. Steve Jobs, newly thrown out of Apple Computer, bought Pixar for just $5 million, only to discover he had to spend twice that to keep it afloat. You read how John Lasseter advances from a skipper on Disneyland's Jungle Cruise to the principal creative advisor of Disney and Pixar animation.
The book includes a handful of black and white photos, and eight glossy, full-color pages with images from Pixar movies Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille.
Here's the chapter list:
1. Anaheim
2. In the Garage
3. Lucasfilm
4. Steve Jobs
5. Pixar, Inc.
6. Making it Fly 1
7. Making it Fly 2
8. "It Seemed Like an All-Out War"
9. Crisis in Monstropolis
10. Emeryville
11. Homecoming
Appendix 1: Pixar Academy Awards and nominations
Appendix 2: Pixar Filmography
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A solid, interesting chronicle of Pixar from early days to Disney acquisition Aug 11, 2011
By Brian Frankenfield
As a long time fan of Pixar and a fan (and critic at times) of Disney animation, I found this to seemingly be one of the better books written about Pixar and the evolution of 3D animation from Pixar's perspective. It is a solid look at Pixar from the Catmull's early years at the newly formed New York Institute of Technology to the arrival of Lasseter, to the investment of Jobs and his evolution from seeing Pixar as a hardware company to an animation studio, and finally to the Iger's epiphany (although perhaps obvious to others) that Disney Feature Animation needed Pixar. This book not only serves as a good case study of Pixar, but as a reminder that great animated films all start with a great story and are made absolutely fantastic in the execution of the details of that story's characters - concepts that held true when Disney first introduced animated features and still hold true today. It also makes clear something I had long thought, that Disney Feature animation lost its way under Eisner, substituting short term profit for long term value. The whole reason for the Disney Company's rise to success in the first place was its feature animation work. That work flowed to everything - it's theme parks, merchandising, resorts, etc. Pixar and Lasseter, ironically, brought this back to Disney. I would recommend this book to anybody interested in feature animation, story-telling and/or the business of either. It's filled with rich experiences of how business works and sometimes doesn't, and how a group of passionate animators with a knack for storytelling and drive for their trade brought animation into the mainstream once again.
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
An effortless, informative read Aug 09, 2008
By Jerry Saperstein
"The Pixar Touch" is a book about business and technology and filmaking. Author David Price is remarkable in his skill at keeping all three themes not only interesting, but engrossing as well.
Pixar began as something of a Quixotic quest three decades ago with some young men having a vision not only of applying computer technology to traditional animation, but making full-length computer animated movies as well.
Their pursuit takes some of them through stints at the mecca of traditional animation, the Disney Studios, while others were to be found at universities. All the Pixar founders and some of their creative stalwarts found themselves at Lucasfilms, where they tried to peddle their concept and do things beyond special effects, commercials and impressive short films. Along the way, they invent or refine many of the techniques at the core of sophisticated computer animation.
It is not the land of milk and honey, though. Lucasfilm wants to be rid of Pixar and tries to peddle it to everyone they could think of. One of the first to be offered Pixar was Steven Jobs, who had been forced out of Apple. Lucas wanted ten million - Jobs offered five. A year later, after failing to sell Pixar at their asking price, Lucasfilm sold the company to Jobs for five million dollars.
There follows an almost heroic story of a few men struggling to acheive their vision of computer generated animated feature-length movies. Over the next few years, backed by more than fifty million dollars of Jobs' money, Pixar finally makes a deal with Disney to distribute a feature length animated film.
It is a fascinating process to see how the now legendary "Toy Story" came to be. None of the principals in Pixar had ever made a feature length movie before. And no one really knew how audiences would react to 90 minutes or so of computer created animation.
"Toy Story", of course, was a major success as were the next several Pixar produced films.
Price excels at telling the business story of Pixar from its beginnings to its ultimate $7.4 billion acquisition by Disney, which left Steve Jobs as the major stockholder of Disney. And quite a story it is, by turns, of good luck and then hard business dealings. He also does an excellent job of explaining the technology of computer generated animation and the agonies of creating feature length movies.
Overall, Price does a simply superb job of telling the stories of Pixar, the development of computer animation, Steve Jobs and Disney (in part) and the lives of the Pixar founders and many who joined along the way.
It is quite a story and exceptionally well told by Price.
Jerry
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
This book went to Infinity and Beyond!! Jul 02, 2008
By Joel Siegel
"PIXAR Guru"
I am an animator and have always had an affinity for PIXAR. When I heard about this book I knew I needed to read it immeadiately. It goes through the entire history of PIXAR with some detailed background on computer animation itself. Also it gives brief back stories of each of the major players that started PIXAR and/or have been major players since then. I have never found a non-fiction book more interesting in my life. Once you pick up this book you actually will no be able to put it down. There is however a lot of tech talk so if you do not know much about computers or animation you may not like it as much, but it really is a good and fast read. I recommend it to all who are truly interested in PIXAR, computer animation, and even the growth of a small business.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
The success of Pixar "is a feat not of intellect, but of will." Nov 30, 2010
By Robert Morris
I re-read this book after reading the more recently published book co-authored by Bill Capodaglio and Lynn Jackson, Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World's Most Creative Corporate Playground. (They also co-authored The Disney Way, Revised Edition: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company.) Karen Paik is the author of another book, To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios, that also provides a wealth of information about a unique organization and the brilliant people who have been centrally involved in it for more than 20 years.
Others have their reasons for thinking so highly of The Pixar Touch. First, David A. Price's does a brilliant job of delineating the complicated chronological sequence that began with the hiring of Edwin Catmull (then at the New York Institute of Technology) to head the graphics group within the computer division at Lucasfilm (1979). Subsequently, Pixar Animation Studios (later shortened to Pixar) was purchased by Steve Jobs in 1986. After a highly successful IPO (11/29/1995), Years later, Jobs sold it to the Walt Disney Company for $7.4 billion (in an all-stock deal) in 2006. Price covers each of the company's transitions thoroughly without bogging down in details. With the predictable exception of Jobs, those who provided leadership at Pixar demonstrate remarkable composure, indeed style and grace, during difficult times and sincere appreciation when lavished with praise, awards, and wealth. (Jobs's primary - if not only - motive was and remains, the creation of "insanely great work.") Price's mini-biographies of the major figures probably provide the information that most people require.
Second, I was especially intrigued by the fact that the key people provide what Price characterizes as "unlikely ingredients" for success when they joined Pixar. John Lasseter was hired by Disney immediately after college and had just been fired. Catmull had been turned down for a teaching position and "ended up in what he felt was a dead-end software development job" at Computer Graphics Lab. Alvy Ray Smith was employed by Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) "and then abruptly found himself out on the street." As for Jobs, he had been forced from the company he co-founded, was widely ridiculed, and considered a has-been. Price suggests that, despite and perhaps because of these and other serious setbacks, those who established and developed Pixar illustrate Joseph Schumpeter's observation that successful innovation "is a feat not of intellect, but of will."
Finally, I admire Price's skills when explaining the artistic significance of each of the feature films that Pixar has produced from Toy Story (1996) until WALL-E (2009). He establishes a multi-dimensional context for each, identifying the challenges the production process faced and eventually overcame. With regard to the creative process, for example, the original attributes of the two central characters in Toy Story (Woody and Buzz Lightyear) underwent significant changes as did the initial thoughts about the relationship between them. Those involved in collaboration at Pixar have always followed John Lasseter's admonition that "quality is the best business plan" and embraced Ed Catmull's assertion that perfection is a minimum standard. Production of each of the other feature films also demonstrates the same commitment to artistic standards that few other films achieve.
Leaders in any organization can read and re-read this book, then attempt to apply the business principles and core values that define what Pixar does and how it does it. Although the principles and values are sound, however, they are insufficient. What is also needed is the Pixar "touch" and there is no way that David Price or anyone else can explain how to develop it but you'll know it when you see it...in any of the Pixar films.
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