Read Who Was Steve Jobs? Online
Authors: Pam Pollack,Meg Belviso
Who Was Steve Jobs? (6 page)
Despite the Oscar, Pixar was a failure—a big failure. NeXT and Pixar were seen as proof that Steve was nothing more than a slick salesman. Even his early success with the Apple II was considered a fluke. Woz was the genius, people thought. Not Steve.
In 1991, the Walt Disney Company wanted to hire Lasseter. But he said no. And once again, Steve came up with one of his unusual offers. He convinced Disney to give Pixar enough money to make three full-length animated movies. All the animation would be done on a computer. This had never been done before. Perhaps Disney fell under the influence of Steve’s famous “reality distortion field.” By this time, all the people at Pixar knew about the power of Steve’s RDF. They even had a signal for it. In meetings, when someone was getting sucked into the RDF, people would tug on their ears.
The deal with Disney wouldn’t make Pixar much money—if the movies were hits, Disney would get most of the profits. But it gave Steve a chance to get Pixar movies made.
Animated movies take a long time to make. Pixar started work on its first full-length movie in 1991. But it did not come out for another four years. Meanwhile, Steve kept pouring funds into both Pixar and NeXT. In 1993, Steve had to lay off most of the workers at NeXT. He felt so helpless and so awful that he stopped going in to work. He spent his days at home with Reed. He loved being with his little boy who, he said, had Laurene’s kindness.
Return to Apple
Steve didn’t know it, but he was about to be rescued by a cowboy and a spaceman.
Inspired by
Tin Toy
, Pixar’s first full-length movie opened in 1995. It was called
Toy Story
. The characters were all toys. A cowboy doll and an astronaut action figure were the stars.
Toy Story
became the most popular movie of the year. Pixar went on to make a dozen hit movies in a row.
COMPUTER ANIMATION
TOY STORY
WAS THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH MOVIE TOTALLY ANIMATED ON A COMPUTER. BEFORE
TOY STORY
, ANIMATED FEATURES WERE DONE IN CEL ANIMATION. THAT MEANT EVERY FRAME OF THE MOVIE HAD TO BE HAND PAINTED ON A TRANSPARENT SHEET (A “CEL”). FOR A CHARACTER TO JUST MOVE A HAND UP AND DOWN TOOK MANY CELS. FOR YEARS, ANIMATORS WERE USING COMPUTERS TO HELP THEM ANIMATE FASTER.
A SCRIPT IS GIVEN TO ARTISTS TO BE SKETCHED OUT ONTO STORYBOARDS THAT ARE DISPLAYED LIKE A COMIC BOOK.
THE STORYBOARDS ARE VIDEOTAPED ONTO REELS FOR PLANNING OUT THE FLOW, TIMING, AND LENGTH OF THE FILM.
TOY STORY
SHOWED THAT ANIMATORS COULD CREATE EVERYTHING ON A COMPUTER. TRADITIONAL ANIMATION WAS TWO-DIMENSIONAL, LIKE A PAINTING. COMPUTER GENERATED IMAGES (CGI) LOOK THREE-DIMENSIONAL AS IF CHARACTERS ARE REAL AND BEING FILMED BY A CAMERA.
ACTORS RECORD THE CHARACTERS’ VOICES.
ARTISTS DESIGN THE CHARACTERS, SETS, AND PROPS. THEY ALSO ADD COLOR.
THE ARTISTS’ CHARACTER AND SET DESIGNS ARE MOLDED INTO THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODELS WHICH ARE THEN SCANNED ONTO THE COMPUTER.
WITH SPECIAL COMPUTER SOFTWARE THAT CREATES MOVEMENT, THE CHARACTERS ARE CHOREOGRAPHED WITH THE VOICES, MUSIC, AND OTHER SPECIAL EFFECTS INTO A FINISHED FILM.
By 1996, after ten years of struggle, Steve Jobs was a success—a big success. He wasn’t a millionaire anymore. He was a billionaire.
Apple, however, the company he had cofounded, was struggling. Apple computers had failed to change with the times. Other computers were just as good and less expensive. Apple computers were slow. They couldn’t handle new features that had been developed for computers over the decade. John Sculley, who had forced Steve out, had been himself forced out in 1993. Now the board at Apple wanted Steve back.
