Chapter 32 Chapter 3 Another Abyss

When Jobs bought the graphics studio and named it "Pixar", the company roughly included three businesses: research and development and sales of graphics computers and their software, using 3D computer animation technology to create special effects shots for movies or TV commercials, and Together is Lasseter's animation team, responsible for creating animated short films. Unfortunately, none of these three businesses is profitable. Today, Jobs is the chairman and CEO of Pixar.However, his CEO is somewhat in vain.Smith and Catmull just regarded him as a wealthy boss similar to Shure, and they didn't buy him in day-to-day management.For example, Jobs wanted to move Pixar's offices to San Francisco so that he could save a lot of time by rushing to Pixar from NeXT.But Smith and Catmull turned down the offer.They would rather go to Silicon Valley to report to Jobs every week than Jobs often come to the scene to guide.

Since he was unable to deeply participate in the company's business, Jobs was also happy to be a high-ranking investor.According to the memories of Pixar employees, Jobs visited Pixar no more than five times in the five years before 1992.Pixar's product development worked exactly as Smith and Catmull had planned, except that Jobs used his own marketing talents and connections to help sell the product.Of course, no one knows when the company will be profitable. The computer hardware developed by Pixar is called the Pixar Graphics Computer, which is also the direction that Jobs is most interested in.But 3D animation technology was still too complicated for computers at the time, and Pixar's computers had to use a lot of expensive technology, and the final price was ridiculously high, selling for $135,000 a piece.

Such a high price, even production companies, advertising companies, and TV stations that really need to use computers to make 3D animations cannot afford it.Of course, the more important reason is that at that time most people could not understand why 3D computer animation would become the future trend. For example, although Pixar has always maintained a close relationship with Disney, every time Jobs went to Disney to sell Pixar computers, he would have a bad nose.Once, when Jobs was demonstrating the latest computer for Disney's most powerful president, Jeffrey Katzenberg (Jeffrey Katzen-berg), who was in charge of the animation department, Disney CEO Michael Eisner (Michael Eisner) also Accidentally walked into the conference room.The two giants of Disney listened to Jobs' product introductions in the conference room together.

Of course, Jobs was not afraid of such a big scene, and he quickly threw himself into a passionate speech, talking about 3D animation and Pixar's computer products representing future technology. At that time, Jobs brought two computers, one was an ordinary computer with a black and white screen, and the other was a color computer for presentations.After listening to Jobs' speech, Eisner walked slowly towards the two computers, and then pointed to the black and white one and said to Jobs: "This computer represents a commercial office. Disney needs a lot, and we may buy 1,000."

Just when Jobs couldn't figure out the mystery in Eisner's words and was stunned for a while, Eisner pointed to the color graphics computer again: "This computer represents the art of animation. However, at Disney, some are artists and some are painting equipment. Here, no one will need the help of a computer." Failure to sell means failure.Jobs was experiencing the failure of NeXT sales. He didn't want to see that the two companies he invested in at the same time faced the same dilemma in computer sales.He went to great lengths to find customers for the Pixar graphics computer.In addition to the target customers Smith and Catmull had in mind, such as film animators and researchers, Jobs even wanted to sell Pixar computers to doctors for creating three-dimensional pathological images.

At the same time, Jobs is also sparing no effort to help Pixar create a marketing network.Like he had done at Apple and NeXT, Pixar soon had a marketing network in several major cities across the United States, and the company had more than 100 employees for the first time. But sales still haven't picked up.In addition to being too expensive, the Pixar graphics computer was also extremely difficult to operate, even for professional researchers in universities. The customer joked: "To make good use of this computer, you must first become a missile expert." Pixar's own salespeople joked, "To introduce computers to clients, I'd have to bring three Ph.D. students with me."

By 1988, just over 100 Pixar graphics computers had been sold.Seeing that the hardware department could not persist no matter what, Jobs did not show his indecision when he was at NeXT. In April 1990, he decisively sold Pixar's hardware department and all sales outlets, completely shutting down the hardware business.All hardware R&D and sales personnel have left, and Pixar has shrunk from more than 100 people to more than 40 people. Pixar sells a software product called RenderMan for the creation and rendering of 3D animation.Software sells slightly better than hardware, but not far enough to make a profit.The most important reason may be that Pixar's 3D animation technology is too advanced.3D animation is a very complex and difficult technology. Using a computer to simulate the volume, texture, and light and shadow of the real world requires a lot of computing power, and most computers at that time were not competent.

Jobs tried to open up software sales through partners, and he thought of Adobe. Adobe CEO Jon Warnock (John Warnock) previously worked at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (well, this magical place again), left Xerox to found Adobe, engaged in page description used in the desktop printing field Development and sales of the language PostScript.Previously, Jobs and Warnock became good friends because of Adobe's cooperation in licensing Apple's use of PostScript. Jobs hoped to combine Pixar's technology in computer graphics with Adobe's accumulation in the field of desktop publishing, but talks with Adobe came to no avail.Warnock himself did not see any good prospects for practical application of Pixar's technology.

Warnock commented: "The main reason is that there is not a big enough market for highly complex 3D animation technology. This is a very difficult technology, and artists do not know how to control it. 3D animation requires different fields. Wisdom. The author of three-dimensional animation must be a novelist, a photographer, a sculptor, an artist, and a mathematician at the same time, and he has to design his own algorithms and programs.” Yes, as Warnock said, 3D animation technology is too complex.To make a real computer-animated feature film, we not only need to wait for technological breakthroughs, but also need to wait for the moment when artists can truly control the creation of 3D animation.

Pixar's technological pioneers have been working hard, waiting for the moment of blockbuster. But Jobs couldn't wait any longer.His own money in NeXT and Pixar was draining away at a rapid pace every month.Smith and Catmull are well aware of this, but there is no way to do it. The animation duo only have difficult techniques in their hearts, but no way to make money.Every time the company ran out of cash, the two would have the cheek to ask Jobs for money. It seems that for Jobs, Pixar is another abyss besides NeXT. NeXT and Pixar, which are unable to generate revenue, are dragging the drifting Jobs into the abyss, and no one knows when it will end.

When Pixar's hardware and software products were struggling to sell and the capital chain was about to break, Jobs tried several times to close Lasseter's animation team.Although the hardware and software departments were losing money, they made money anyway, and Lasseter's animation team didn't make any money except for a few short films for advertising. What Jobs didn't realize at the time was that it was this group of artists who created the animated shorts that ultimately saved Pixar, Jobs, and, in a sense, Apple later. In the summer of 1990, Pixar's old partner Disney finally extended an olive branch to Pixar.Katzenberg personally informed Catmull that he was willing to give Pixar a chance to see if the two sides could cooperate to shoot several feature-length computer-animated films in the true sense. Why did the animation film giants who used to sneer at 3D computer animation suddenly favor Pixar again? The reason is that several animated short films created by Lasseter moved Katzenberg. Those are some of the best short films that could go down in the annals of animation technology. As mentioned before, Lasseter's first 3D animated short film "The Adventures of Andrew and Willy" has already won a lot of applause at the SIGGRAPH conference.Using the futuristic technology developed by Smith and Catmull, Lasseter's passion for using the computer as a paintbrush to create short animated films grew. In 1986, he presided over the landmark film "Naughty Jumping Lights" (Luxo Jr). "Naughty Jumping Lamp" uses a unique 3D animation language to give life and emotion to two ordinary desk lamps.In the short film, the lamp "child" joyfully chases, rushes to the top, and steps on a ball until it deflates.And the desk lamp "father" stood by, looking at the naughty child lovingly.He tried to persuade the "child" to be quiet for a while, but there was nothing he could do. People were stunned when "Naughty Jumping Lights" was screened at the SIGGRAPH conference.It was no less surprising than seeing Star Wars for the first time.The short film vividly portrays the metallic luster of the table lamp and the plastic texture of the ball. What's even more amazing is that the light and shadow effects of the two table lamps, one large and one small, are extremely realistic, far beyond the limit of people's imagination of computer graphics at that time. In the end, "Naughty Jumping Lights" was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, and this was the first time that Pixar's 3D animation technology was known to the film circle and the public.The image of the jumping lights became part of the commercial identity of Pixar Studios.Every time we sit in the movie theater, when the cute jumping light appears on the screen, we know that this is another Pixar masterpiece. Lasseter, who has won many victories in artistic creation, made persistent efforts. In 1988, "Tin Toy" (Tin Toy) won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. It is "Naughty Jumping Lantern" and "The Little Tin Soldier", which combine perfect artistic creation and magical computer technology, that really attract the attention of Disney film tycoons.Without Lasseter's artistic creation, perhaps the future technology developed by Smith and Catmull would have slept in the laboratory for more years. Although in the eyes of art masters such as Lasseter, Jobs is a layman who does not understand art.But Jobs still noticed the value of these three-dimensional animated short films.If even big names like Katzenberg recognize the value of these short films, does it mean that the core value of Pixar is actually not the cold computer hardware, but the group of people who have mastered future technology and have genius artistic minds? Where's the animator? Jobs realized that perhaps Disney's invitation was a good opportunity for Pixar to achieve transformation.It's been 15 years since the animation duo created this computer graphics team at New York Institute of Technology.If a start-up company has not found its value for so long, it is really time to transform. Back then, when Jobs saw these future technologies in Lucasfilm, he made an assertion that future animated films would be realized by 3D computer animation.But at that time, Jobs didn't really think about it, and the task of shooting the first 3D animated feature film on the earth would fall on the shoulders of this small team.Now, Jobs, who has experienced too many failures, seems to understand the simplest truth-if no one knows how to use the future technology created by Pixar, then let Pixar take the first step. "Pixar's mission is to make real movies." Jobs made up his mind, "We want to make the world's first computer-animated movie. This movie must be completely made by computers, including scenes, characters, and everything else. " Jobs, Catmull, and Lasseter came to the Disney headquarters building in Los Angeles and began to negotiate with Disney executives about the shooting of animated feature films. In the IT industry, Jobs is a figure who can shake the wind and rain, but in the film industry, Jobs is just an outsider without any qualifications. At this time, Katzenberg, the real movie mogul, sat across from Jobs and the others with an arrogant face. "Let me make it clear," Katzenberg said first, "if you want to negotiate with Disney, then you have to negotiate with me." "I've personally put over $50 million into Pixar," Jobs said, trying to sound as tough as Katzenberg. "Even though it's been tough, I'm not going to give up. We agreed to make movies for Disney, but you can't get that." Pixar's patented technology. Moreover, Pixar will get 30% of the box office." "That's impossible," Katzenberg said. "There is no room for discussion between us about copyright and box office revenue. If you don't accept it, then goodbye." In the face of the strength of the movie tycoon, Jobs softened: "Then, can't it be less?" "10%, up to 15%, depends on the box office performance." Katzenberg said, "But Disney must own the copyright of the film, that is to say, if Disney is not satisfied with Pixar, it can choose to co-produce sequels with other companies in the future." .” "Okay." Jobs reluctantly agreed to the harsh conditions. Regarding the production cost of the film, Jobs, who has no experience in film investment, first quoted the price: "We want a production fee of 22 million US dollars." "It's impossible." Katzenberg said deadpan. "We've never had such a high budget for an animated film. Before that, no film had a budget higher than 15 million." "15 million?" Jobs felt that the bargain was too aggressive. "Okay," Katzenberg said, "because of our long-standing relationship, I'll make an exception for you, $17 million." Jobs, who has always been arrogant, had to bow his head in front of the movie tycoon this time.They reluctantly agreed.Pixar signs a contract with Disney to make three animated feature films. It didn't take long for Jobs and the others to find themselves completely fooled by Katzenberg.In fact, Disney’s budget for a cartoon at the time was at least 30 million U.S. dollars, and the actual cost of the cartoon "Beauty and the Beast" that was being filmed at the time was 32 million U.S. dollars! In any case, the contract has been signed.As long as the movie can be made as scheduled, Pixar at least has a chance to come back to life.However, what kind of animated feature film should I make?