I’ve been reading about Pixar, the company. One of my favorite notes is how much of their history lies in failure. The main computer scientist started off working in a boring CAD company, Jon Lasseter was fired from Disney, the company itself was sold by Lucas to Jobs who then tried to sell of parts of it for years. Even when ‘Toy Story’ was set to be released, Mattel and Hasbro couldn’t be bothered to distribute toys (Disney’s primary concern?).
The script for Toy Story went through 10+ revisions and the final product is nothing like the original idea. They went through revision after revision to try to capture an effective and appealing story. Competitors such as Dreamworks rushed to compete and failed on both a technical and story level. I can’t think of another film company who have had such a consistent level of quality and box-office performance.
I remember seeing ‘Toy Story’ at the Dollar Cinema in Muncie and being stunned at what they were able to accomplish. I was studying music at the time and managed to get in touch with one of the sound designers at Pixar. It still remains a dream company to work for.