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Pixar Director Squashes Fan Theory That Suggests All Of The Movies Take Place In The Same Universe

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Earlier this year, Jon Negroni proposed "The Pixar Theory," an elaborate idea that suggests that every Pixar movie exists in the same universe. 

While there are Easter Eggs that show up from one film to the next (the "Toy Story"pizza truck can be spotted in most movies), the idea is a bit of a stretch. 

The theory draws elaborate parallels between each of the studio's 14 films starting with 2013's "Brave" in the 14th or 15th century, and weaving past "The Incredibles" and the "Toy Story" films before ending up at the "Monsters Inc." movies in between the years 4000 and 5000.

First, here's a look at how Negroni weaves all of Pixar's films together.

disney pixar theory

The theory suggests that the magic introduced in "Brave" allows inanimate objects in every subsequent film to exist.

"It all starts with Merida discovering "the-will-of-the-wisps" (magic). The Magic turns her mother into a bear. This magic is why animals and inanimate objects (brooms & tools) behave like humans," Negroni writes.

brave pixar

He suggests human pollution and experimentation hinted at in 2003's "Finding Nemo" has led to curiosity in animals who "carry more humanistic behaviors."finding nemo

While "Up" foreshadows the fall of civilization to a large corporation after elderly man Carl is threatened to give up his home and land to fictional company Buy and Large (BnL) which appears in numerous Pixar movies.

up house pixar

Negroni suggests a war ensued between humans and animals while blaming BnL for polluting the Earth as eventually seen in "Wall-E."

wall e

This leads to the rest of the human race heading to space to live out their days before returning to Earth to rebuild.

Wall-E exploring spaceship

You can read more on the theory on Negroni's blog, here.

Pixar has been pretty quiet on whether the fan theory held any water.

Last year, Pixar's Jay Ward laughed off the theory to Jalopnik saying, "I think somebody had a lot of time on their hands."

"The movies were sort of made in a different order by different directors in different times, in different places," he added. "It's cool that it all worked out that way, but it probably was not intentional."

Recently, Movies.com caught up with "Monsters University" director Dan Scanlon and producer Kori Rae to ask once and for all what Pixar thinks of the very complex universe.

"It's a funny idea, but we would've had to be insane geniuses to have plotted that out." Rae said, "It's nothing that we talk about at Pixar, I don't think. Or at least I don't. I'm sure people do, though."

So, while the theory is fun and in-depth, it's definitely no more than that, a theory.

Scanlon does admit it's clear some of the movies are connected in the same broad universe by brands that appear in the films.

"When you really think about  all the Easter eggs and stuff, you know what I mean," Scanlon told Movies.com.

"Like the toy [bear from Toy Story 3] in Up, or the Rex action figure in WALL-E. You gotta think  obviously we build on a world, and it's not for any other reason than a fun thing to do, but you can't deny that certain products are sold in the same world."

SEE ALSO: More on Negroni's Pixar Theory

SEE ALSO: A woman is suing Disney for $250 million claiming "Frozen" ripped off her life story

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The First Teaser For Pixar's Next Movie Is Very Different From Anything They've Done Before

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inside out pixar

Pixar released the first teaser trailer for its next big film "Inside Out."

The movie looks like a huge risk. It will explore how an individual processes experiences by personifying five emotions in one's brain — Fear (Bill Hader), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Joy (Amy Poehler), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Anger (Lewis Black). 

Pixar has an excellent track record though making us fall in love with everything from animated cars to a lonely robot left on an abandoned, polluted Earth.

The majority of the trailer takes you through Pixar's lengthy list of successful films before teasing its next film.

Watch it below:

Variety's Peter Debruge was already impressed with footage shown from the film during a presentation at the Animation Film Festival in France in June.

Here's the full synopsis for the film via Disney:

Growing up can be a bumpy road, and it's no exception for Riley, who is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions – Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley’s mind, where they help advise her through everyday life. As Riley and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco, turmoil ensues in Headquarters. Although Joy, Riley's main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.

"Inside Out" will be Pixar's 15th movie and will be in theaters June 19, 2015.

SEE ALSO: Pixar director squashes fan theory that suggests all of the movies take place in the same universe

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Here's Why Office Layout Was So Important To Steve Jobs (AAPL)

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Steve Jobs of Apple, Next, and Pixar Illustration

Anyone who's heard even a little bit about Steve Jobs and Apple already knows that attention to detail is extremely important. That mindset is very evident in the way Apple designs its products.

But what you may not realize is that Jobs held the layout of his work place's office to the same level of detail, Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson writes in his new book "The Innovators: How A Group Of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution." 

When he designed a new headquarters for Pixar, Jobs obsessed over how the atrium should should be structured, Isaacson wrote. Jobs was very particular about where the bathrooms were placed in Pixar's office because he wanted "serendipitous personal encounters" to occur.

Isaacson posted a specific passage from the book on LinkedIn, detailing why office layouts were so crucial for Jobs and other executives.  One of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's first moves in the role, as Isaacson pointed out, was to discourage employees from working remotely.

The general point that Isaacson is trying to illustrate is that many influential companies, from Apple to Yahoo to Bell Labs, realized that bringing different types of people with various skill sets together on a daily is important for growth.

Here's how Isaacson explains their rationale in his book:

Even though the Internet provided a tool for virtual and distant collaborations, another lesson of digital-age innovation is that, now as in the past, physical proximity is beneficial. The most productive teams were those that brought together people with a wide array of specialties. Bell Labs was a classic example. In its long corridors in suburban New Jersey, there were theoretical physicists, experimentalists, material scientists, engineers, a few businessmen, and even some telephone-pole climbers with grease under their fingernails. Walter Brattain, an experimentalist, and John Bardeen, a theorist, shared a workspace, like a librettist and a composer sharing a piano bench, so they could perform a call-and-response all day about how to manipulate silicon to make what became the first transistor.

SEE ALSO: Here's What Steve Jobs Did When An Employee Told Him The Apple Store's Layout Was All Wrong

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Pixar's 22 Rules For Telling A Great Story

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pixar brave

Ever since Pixar made its first feature-length film "Toy Story" in 1995, it has been capturing the world's imagination with hit movies like "Monsters, Inc.,""WALL•E," and "Up."

It has won 27 Oscars and brought in more than $8 billion in gross revenues. And while Pixar is known for establishing the CGI animated feature and pushing graphical boundaries, it is as much known for its brilliant storytelling that appeals to people of all ages.

Last year, former Pixar story artist Emma Coats took to Twitter to share some of the wisdom she gained working on the films "Brave" and "Monsters University."

Gavin McMahon, cofounder of New York-based communications consulting firm fassforward, collected these insights into a presentation he thinks managers and entrepreneurs can benefit from, whether they're selling an idea or a product. He tells us that effective storytelling is an essential leadership skill. "It's an antidote to increasing complexity, the day to day grind of meetings, email jail, and death by PowerPoint," he says.

We've published the presentation here with fassforward's permission.







See the rest of the story at Business Insider

16 Hidden Secrets In Pixar And Disney Movies That Actually Exist In Real Life

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big hero 6 baymax hiro

Disney's newest film, "Big Hero 6," opens this week. 

And some eagle-eyed viewers have already spotted some Easter eggs in the trailer that was released over the summer. 

An Easter egg, as it relates to movies, is when the movie's creators hide something in the film that's an intentional inside joke. 

John Lasseter, cofounder of Pixar and now overseer of all animation projects at Disney, is no stranger to the Easter egg world. Both of the companies he's led, particularly Pixar, have included dozens of Easter eggs in their movies. There's even something called the Pixar Theory, where all the Pixar characters live in the same universe. 

Some Easter eggs are based on real-world locations. There are obvious ones — in the beginning of the 2006 movie "Cars," the announcer says the entire town of Emeryville will be closed for the race; Pixar Studios is in Emeryville, California — but some Easter eggs aren't so obvious. 

Pixar just announced another sequel to "Toy Story" during Disney's Q4 conference call. It'll come out in June 2017, so it's a sure bet that even more Easter eggs are on their way. 

References to A113.

Perhaps the most famous of all the Pixar Easter eggs are references to A113. References to A113 can be found in all Pixar movies, some Disney movies, and even in "The Simpsons" and other animated shows and films. References to A113 can also be found in video games. Chances are, if an alum from the California Institute of the Arts is somehow involved, A113 will be included in the animation. 

That's because A113 is the classrooms used by the graphic design and animation students at the school, including John Lasseter. 



The real CalArts is located in Southern California.



Fenton's Creamery in Disney-Pixar's "Up" is located in Oakland, California.

At the end of the movie, Russell and Carl can be seen eating an ice cream cone on the sidewalk in front of Fenton's Creamery



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Disney Has Been Hiding A Secret Message In Its Movies For Years

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Woody, Toy Story, number

Pixar has been known for its Easter eggs — hidden messages in films — but one of its best has to do with A113.

A video on Disney Pixar's YouTube page shows A113 can be found in almost all of Pixar's films, from "Toy Story" to "Finding Nemo."

What does it mean?

Pixar's John Lasseter has explained A113 is the number of the animation classroom at the California Institute of the Arts.

Many animators like Lasseter attended school there, and by including the number they are giving a subtle shoutout to their alma mater.

The number has been used for many different things in Pixar films, such as Andy's mom's license plate in 1995's "Toy Story."

Woody, Toy Story, number

It was on a camera in 2003's "Finding Nemo."

finding nemo, number

A113 is the number of a train in 2006's "Cars."

train, cars, number

It can also be found on a box that Flik walks by in 1998's "A Bug's Life."

a bugs life, number

Here's Sully from 2013's "Monsters University" entering a classroom whose number is A113.

monsters university sulley

However, Pixar films aren't the only ones to hide the number in plain sight. Here's Tiana from Disney's 2009 "The Princess and the Frog" jumping on a trolley car marked A113.

Princess and the frog, number

"The Simpsons" used it for Bart Simpson's mug shot.

the simpsons, number

It even shows up on a door in 1987's "The Brave Little Toaster."Joe Ranft, who went on to work on Pixar movies including "Toy Story,""A Bug's Life," and "Monsters, Inc.," and Dan Haskett, a character designer on "Toy Story," worked on the film.

the brave little toaster

You can also notice the number on a chewed-up vehicle in Warner Bros.' 1999 movie "The Iron Giant." The director, Brad Bird, later made Pixar hit "The Incredibles."the iron giant a113

Even live-action films like 2012's "The Avengers" had a file labeled A113.

the avengers, number

Finally, here's a photo of Lasseter and Pixar animators Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter standing outside the famed classroom:

Pixar animators

Frank Pallotta contributed to this report.

SEE ALSO: How Napkin Sketches During A Pixar Lunch Meeting Led To Four Of The Studio's Greatest Movies

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New Details On Pixar's Next Two Movies

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In the last few days, Pixar has come out with a wealth of new details surrounding two of its most-anticipated films: "Finding Dory" and "Inside Out."

I’ve compiled some of the new things we’ve learned below.

"Finding Dory":

finding dory disney

Turns out Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) was born and raised at the Marine Biology Institute of California.

She was released into the ocean at a young age, and this "Finding Nemo" sequel will be about the forgetful fish trying to reunite with her long-lost parents, Charlie and Jenny (Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton).

"Modern Family's" Ty Burrell will also be lending his voice talents as a beluga whale named Bailey, and Marlin (Albert Brooks) will be returning as well.

Honestly, I can’t wait to see all of the new fish they’re drawing for us at this aquarium.

"Inside Out":

inside out pixar

The details are a little heavier here since "Inside Out "is coming out sooner. The big news is that we’ll get to go inside the minds of Riley’s parents (voiced by Kyle McLachlan and Diane Lane). Of course, we know already that most of the movie centers around 11-year-old Riley and the emotions personified inside her head.

But according to writer-director Pete Docter, Riley’s parents will also be a major focus (not too surprising for a Pixar movie). As Docter puts it:

"I started out doing a film about growing up, but it turned out it’s a film about me watching my kids grow up. These parents are realizing that their kid is changing. That’s difficult. But it is a part of life."

We also learn that the job Riley’s dad is taking in San Francisco is for a start-up company (another not-so-surprising surprise). And Riley’s mother is the supportive “Aunt Cass” of the family who tries to make the best of their big move from the Midwest. According to Docter, the role of the parents is to help grind the story in reality, which is helpful considering the fantastical nature of the rest of "Inside Out's" cast.

“These guys are the pillars on both sides. They are pivotal parts, knowing how joyful this kid Riley used to be and the young woman she’s changing into.”

And of course, "Inside Out "will take us inside the heads of the parents. Riley’s mustachioed dad has a fittingly militaristic “Headquarters” inside his head, filled with likewise mustachioed emotions. Her mom’s Headquarters looks like something out of "The View. "

A lot of Docter’s comments actually inform a bulk of the narrative we’re likely to see. As he puts it:

“We’re intercutting to show what’s going on inside each of their heads behind the scenes. What seems like a simple family dinner is actually fraught with all sorts of emotional angst and drama.”

So while Riley’s emotions go haywire, we can probably expect some fantastic set pieces to come out of a usually normal dinner, and "Inside Out" is clearly going for the coming-of-age theme that Pixar Animation has a certain mastery of.

We’ll find out more as July approaches. As for how this fits into the Pixar Theory, we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m not saying anything until I see the movie.

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HOUSE OF THE DAY: Pixar Cofounder Ed Catmull Is Selling His Hawaiian Vacation Home For $20 Million

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catmull house

Ed Catmull, cofounder and president of Pixar Animation Studios, has listed his Hawaiian home for $20.138 million, Realtor.com reports.

The house has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a large swimming pool, and 125 feet of untouched beachfront. It's located in Kailua, on the island of Oahu.

Catmull has quite the real estate portfolio — in addition to a $6 million home in San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood, he and his wife own homes in Piedmont, California and Salt Lake City, Utah.

They also previously owned two other homes in Kailua, but they sold both in 2012 for $2.15 million and $3.5 million, respectively. 

The home is located on an oceanfront lot in Kailua, in the eastern part of the Hawaiian island of Oahu.



The house itself has more than 10,500 square feet of space.



The interior has a classic Polynesian feel.



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Oculus Has Signed Up A Pixar Animator To Make Its First Virtual Reality Movie

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lost full edited

Oculus, the Facebook-owned company that's building a virtual reality headset, is making its own virtual reality movies now. It just announced a new in-house team called the Oculus Story Studio to spearhead the project.

The first movie from Story Studio is called "Lost," and it's directed by Pixar animator Saschka Unseld, the man who made the Pixar short "The Blue Umbrella," which was shown before "Monsters University."

Like Pixar's films, "Lost" will be entirely computer-generated rather than live action. This will likely make for a heightened feeling of immersion, as live-action content shown on the Rift is still pretty rough, and it's easier for the brain to believe a fully rendered environment.

"We all heard these stories of how it was like to be there at the birth of computer animation, or see films on how it was to be there at the birth of cinema," Unseld recently told The Verge. "And when I tried out VR the first time, and everyone here, they realized this is that moment. This is the moment of a birth of a completely new medium. That made me just instantly jump on it."

"Lost" will debut at Sundance this week, and will offer a virtual reality short story that will last about five minutes, though it's an experience that's designed to respond to the pace of the viewer. If you take your time, it could be up to 10 minutes.

Unseld and the Oculus Story Studio team hope to tackle some of the biggest questions of bringing storytelling into the realm of virtual reality. Traditionally, a director can decide when and what a viewer sees onscreen. But that goes out the door in VR, where people can gaze around them freely. This requires a different style of storytelling, but it also opens up the doors for what's possible.

Oculus Story Studio Lost concept art

Here's one example: Instead of jump-cutting to a scary monster like horror films usually do, VR directors could theoretically use sounds or distractions to cause a viewer to look in a specific area of the room, and sneak in the monster only when the viewer is looking away. Talk about the potential for realistic terror.

People will be able to sign up to watch "Lost" at Sundance, where it will be shown on the latest Oculus Rift prototype, Crescent Bay. Oculus has promised additional films as well as the opportunity for outside filmmakers to one day distribute content as well.

While it's still early days for VR films, Oculus joining the fray early on will only help set the standard for what's possible with virtual reality storytelling, and that can only be a good thing.

Films in the future are going to be insane.

SEE ALSO: See How Strange And Trippy Virtual Reality Was 20 Years Before The Oculus Rift

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Why Mark Zuckerberg thinks everyone can learn something from Pixar

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toy story

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's New Year's resolution for 2015 was to read a new book every two weeks, discussing them along the way with the Facebook community.

His first four picks for "A Year in Books" have been in-depth looks at sociological issues like violence and the debate over vaccination, but his fifth pick is much lighter.

He's chosen "Creativity, Inc." by Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull and author Amy Wallace.

It tells the story of how Pixar became an animation legend with films that have together accumulated over $8 billion in gross revenue and 27 Oscars, with Catmull's personal insight along the way.

Zuckerberg explains his latest book selection on his personal Facebook page:

This book is written by the founder of Pixar and is about his experience building a culture that fosters creativity.

His theory is that people are fundamentally creative, but many forces stand in the way of people being able to do their best work.

I love reading first-hand accounts about how people build great companies like Pixar and nurture innovation and creativity. This should be inspiring to anyone looking to do the same, and hopefully there will be lessons we can apply to connecting the world!

Catmull is an introspective guy, and the book is filled with valuable wisdom on entrepreneurialism and management in addition to plenty of fun facts about Pixar.

"A Year in Books" so far:

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg wants to help curb the anti-vaccination movement with his latest book club selection

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NOW WATCH: Watch Mark Zuckerberg In China Surprise The Audience By Speaking Fluent Mandarin

‘Toy Story 4’ will not be a sequel to the third film

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Toy Story 3

When Disney CEO Bob Iger casually announced "Toy Story 4" during an earnings call in November, it was a huge surprise.

The successful Pixar trilogy didn't appear to need another followup.

2010's seemingly final film came full circle.

The young boy from the first film, Andy, who owned toys Woody and Buzz, grew up. Before heading off to college, he handed off his old toy collection to a new young owner to carry on his adventures with the cowboy and space ranger.

At the time of its release, the film became the highest-grossing animated picture ever until "Frozen.""Toy Story 3"grossed over $1 billion. It went out on top.

What else is left to tell?

/Film happened upon an interview with Pixar Animation Studios president Jim Morris done in Spanish on blog Disney Latino in which he discusses brief details about the anticipated next film.

According to Morris, "Toy Story 4" won't be a continuation of the third film. Instead, "Toy Story 4" will be a romantic comedy, one that won't focus on the interaction between the characters and kids.

As /film points out, if that's true, it sounds like the upcoming film may follow the setup of the newer "Toy Story" short specials which focus on the toys' interactions with each other. 

/film translated parts of the interview via Google. 

Business Insider double checked over the original article to translate.

Here's a section of the interview translated in English:

What stage of production is "Toy Story 4" in?

We will have the third table reading. Usually, after working on the idea with the story team and the writers who will be finishing their screenplay, we call Pixar or include actors to sit down and read the script. It’s evolving very well. We are coming up with a beautiful story. It isn’t a continuation of the last film “Toy Story 3.” It is temporarily, but it will be a love story. It will be a romantic comedy. It will not have much focus on the interaction between the characters and the children. I think it will be a very good movie. 

Honestly, I never thought that we would be doing another Toy Story movie, but in one of the brainstorming sessions that we did, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and John Lasseter had this idea. To John, it seemed irresistible and felt the need to make it. The third film had ended in a way that was beautiful and that completed a trilogy. I think that this film isn't part of this trilogy. It's a separate story, which in turn … I’m not sure whether it will be a continuation. We never start a project with that in mind.

Morris goes on to defend the making of “Toy Story 4,” saying that Pixar only decides to do sequels if they have an idea they’re passionate about, and reassures that they're not exploiting the franchise just for the sake of another film.

"Fortunately, our movies are successful, and we don't have to exploit them by making sequels for money," he adds. "That's not what it's about. It's about an idea that is met with enthusiasm."  

"Toy Story 4" is set for a June 16, 2017 release.

You can read the full interview with Morris, here.

SEE ALSO: An explanation of everything in the new "Avengers: Age of Ultron" trailer

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NOW WATCH: Ian McKellen plays a retired Sherlock Holmes in first 'Mr. Holmes' trailer

Steve Jobs had a crazy idea for Pixar's office to force people to talk more

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Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, while CEO of Pixar, cared so much about the construction and design of its offices that company executives like to describe the finished product as "Steve's movie."

"It took the same budget and the same amount of time as one of our movies, and he was the director," Pixar exec John Lasseter told Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli for their book "Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart Into a Visionary Leader."

Jobs obsessed over the building's exterior — he made a Washington kiln reopen just to commission him 24 very specific shades of brick — but also the way everything was laid out inside. Ultimately, Jobs wanted the office layout to encourage unplanned meetings.

"He had the theory of this big atrium that would be able to house the whole company for a company meeting, and that would have everything that gets you out of your office and into the center spine," Lasseter told Schlneder and Tetzeli. "It would draw you to the center, or have you crossing it, many times a day."

He was so set on this, that he proposed a crazy idea: that there would only be one set of bathrooms in the office's central atrium, and none in either of the building's two wings. 

Forcing everyone to use the same set of bathrooms, he reasoned, would force more interactions. 

Luckily for Pixar employees, CTO Edwin Catmull managed to ease Jobs out of the "absurd" idea  — the office had a a second set of bathrooms upstairs. 

Jobs ended up spreading the same mantra over the early designs of Apple still-unfinished new "Spaceship" campus. Like Pixar's office, the new, circular building was designed to foster spontaneous encounters.

Apple Campus

SEE ALSO: Amazon's tech boss discovered a bad side effect of being a jokey manager

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Why execs from other companies wanted to meet with Steve Jobs on Fridays (AAPL)

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Steve Jobs Pixar

Although Steve Jobs is best known for his role as the CEO of Apple, he also played a huge role in turning film company Pixar into a multi-billion-dollar success. 

After Jobs was ousted from Apple in 1985, he bought Pixar (at the time called Graphics Group) from Lucasfilm for $5 million. He became the company's largest shareholder and CEO until Disney bought it for $7.4 billion in 2006.

His years at Pixar provided Jobs' with a series  of "uncomplicated highs," according to Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli in their new book "Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart Into a Visionary Leader." 

Because Jobs reclaimed Apple's CEO spot in 1997, he balanced his work at Pixar with running Apple for most of that period. He always tried to make it to Pixar's office at least once a week, usually on Fridays. He wasn't a filmmaker, but Pixar's creative team found his ability to articulate criticisms about different movies as they were developed was hugely valuable. 

Jobs had an explosive temper and a tendency towards very harsh criticisms, but was more relaxed at Pixar than he was at Apple, sources told Schlender and Tetzeli, a fact that some smart executives learned to take advantage of:

Andy Dreyfus, a former Apple designer who went to work for CKS Parnters in San Francisco, says that whenever he and his boss Tom Suiter wanted to present something to Steve, they tried to meet him at Pixar. "We were always happy when we had a Friday meeting with Steve," Dreyfus recalls, "Because Friday was the day he was at Pixar, and he was always in a good mood there."

Since his role at Pixar was less hands-on than his role at Apple, it was simpler for Jobs to relish his time at Pixar and celebrate the company's successes. He would get incredibly excited to pre-screen new movies and took great pride in attending the Oscars whenever the company earned awards. Pixar exec John Lasseter describes Jobs as Pixar's "biggest fan." 

SEE ALSO: Steve Jobs had a crazy idea for Pixar's office to force people to talk more

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NOW WATCH: Steve Jobs' biographer reveals the childhood moment that defined the Apple founder

Work on the sequel to one of the greatest Pixar movies is finally underway

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the incrediblesBack in March 2014, Disney CEO Bob Iger hinted that a sequel to one of Pixar's most-beloved films, 2004's "The Incredibles,"was in the works

Director Brad Bird is expected to return for the sequel.

We didn't know much else about the project until now. 

In an interview with NPR about his upcoming Disney film "Tomorrowland," Bird confirmed he is working on the anticipated sequel. 

"I'm just starting to write it, so we'll see what happens," Bird said. 

While Bird didn't reveal any details about the plot, the film is expected to be released in 2016.

In the meantime, Bird's next film "Tomorrowland," featuring George Clooney, will be out in theaters on May 22.

SEE ALSO: Steve Jobs had a crazy idea for Pixar's office to force people to talk more

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NOW WATCH: George Clooney goes on a quest to save the world in this new 'Tomorrowland' trailer

'Inside Out' is Pixar's most stunning animated film since 'Finding Nemo'

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inside out pixar

Pixar's latest, "Inside Out," packs all the feels. Quite literally.

The movie follows 11-year-old Riley, spirited and goofy, as her dad's new job in San Francisco uproots the family from the Midwest. Helping to navigate Riley through this change are her emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith).

The anthropomorphic emotions live in Headquarters, the control center of Riley's mind, where they work together to advise her through everyday life. It's one of Pixar's most daring concepts to date. Directors Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen reimagine the brain as a Rube Goldberg-inspired aparatus, where memories are stored in glowing orbs that play back like Vines and a literal train of thought runs on a track through her psyche.

"Inside Out" is an unmistakable Pixar production. Much like "Toy Story," Finding Nemo," and "Up," the movie takes you on wildly funny adventures, all while tugging at the heartstrings. It strikes a perfect balance between childlike wonder and enthusiasm and smart, crass humor — appeasing both the kids and adults watching. And while "Inside Out," which is the studio's first release since 2013's "Monsters University," falls just shy of its predecessors' emotional pull, it surpasses them in its stunning animation and technical feats.

inside out pixar

In an interview at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California, Del Carmen ("Up,""Ratatouille") told Business Insider that the team set out to create the "largest set" of any animated movie. It was an absurdly tall order.

"We had to create the worlds that have never existed before. What does the interior of the mind look like? What are the systems in place?" del Carmen said. How do you visualize short-term memory converting into long-term memory, and the process of forgetting things? "We had to make that represented in the movie."

A person's personality, for example, is made up of large, amusement park-like "personality islands." Each represents a core trait or value. Below, we see the emotions peering out into the vast landscape of Riley's mind, where family island, friendship island, ice hockey island, and goofball island form her very essence.

pixar inside out

The emotions interact with the real world through the looking glass: Riley's eyes. The vibrant colors and detail are exquisite.

pixar inside out

Getting an audience to care about such conceptual characters — emotions that you recognize, but have never seen manifested in the physical form — is an enormous challenge. But Pixar made their lives all the more difficult by advancing the tech used to make the film.

If you look at Joy, her clothes, teeth, and hair appear plain, however, her skin appears to shed twinkling particles of energy. Pixar's chief creative officer John Lasseter described them as "champagne" bubbles.

pixar inside out

When Anger is particularly angry, his skin prickles even more. This technique informs the viewer how the emotions are feeling.

pixar inside out

Del Carmen told us this bold style didn't come cheap, but the effect was worth it.

"Having a character that is made of little particles that actually move around and lift up and disappear and not be distracting" was a tall order, he said. They blew through the budget in order to do it. But, "these characters are uniquely their own. They're not toys, they're not made out of plastic or wood, they're emotions." Their texture is how you know.

Typically, once the animators and voice actors finish their jobs, the footage is sent to the lighting department, where technicians manually light the frames and characters to make them more dynamic. This process can be arduous, particularly when the leads appear to be light sources themselves.

Pixar sped up this process by developing a new lighting technology that automatically made the characters' feet and appendages emit light on their surroundings, Cinemablend's Nick Romano reported in an interview with the filmmakers. 

inside out light sources

It's as simple as that. Add some effervescent glitter, and boom — you've turned chemical firings in the brain into a digestible and iconic visual metaphor for understanding what role emotions play in your life and the lives of those around you. "Inside Out" teaches that each serves you in some way, be it Joy who fulfills you, Fear who keeps you safe, or Anger who defends you when you are wronged; and the film's ambitious animation succeeds in executing that concept.

I certainly hope for an "Inside Out" sequel starring Puberty.

"Inside Out" is in theaters June 19.

SEE ALSO: Why Mark Zuckerberg thinks everyone can learn something from Pixar

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Pixar's only store is locked away in a gated Bay Area campus – Here are the coolest things you can buy there

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In its sprawling campus in Emeryville, California, Pixar makes magic happen. There, animators bring your favorite characters to life, host screenings, and sell super exclusive merchandise out of its Pixar Studio Store.

The store is somewhat of a holy grail for fangirls and boys. While you can buy Pixar-related goods from Disney's online store, the campus store can only be accessed by guests. There, the company sells books, T-shirts, plush toys, and collectibles only available on site.

During a recent trip to Pixar HQ for an early screening of its upcoming film "Inside Out," I got a rare look inside.

The Pixar Studio Store is located inside the Steve Jobs Building. The late visionary acquired Pixar from Lucasfilm Ltd. in 1986, and stayed on as CEO and majority shareholder until Disney bought the studio 20 years later.

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Inside, the atrium is beautiful.

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A few familiar faces greet you. "Monsters, Inc." and "Monsters University" stars Sulley and Mike are dressed for school.

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"Toy Story" duo Buzz Lightyear and Woody are made entirely of LEGO bricks.

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The detail is unbelievable.

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They even got the swirl on Buzz's chin!

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Alas – the store calls to me like a siren. It's smaller than I anticipated.

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But the merchandise did not disappoint.

pixar campus store t-shirts

Few symbols represent Pixar quite like the Luxo Ball. The bouncing ball appeared in the studio's first-ever short, "Luxo, Jr.," co-starring two lamps, and has made cameos in feature-length films since.

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Look familiar? Watch the short here.

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I bought a $7 pin version of the Luxo Ball.

pixar campus store luxo ball pin

Most of Disney-Pixar's movies were represented in some shape or form. This wine glass set paid tribute to "Toy Story,""Monsters, Inc.,""Finding Nemo,""The Incredibles,""Cars," and other classics.

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These action figures made even the most villainous antagonists so darn cute.

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Edna from "The Incredibles" was one of my favorites.

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2013's "Monsters University" was the most recently released Disney-Pixar film, so the store had oodles of collectibles dedicated to that franchise. Here's an MU foam finger.

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And a license plate holder to show your MU pride on the road.

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These Scream Canisters, used in "Monsters, Inc." to contain "scream energy" that the monsters collect by scaring kids, held limited edition watches.

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Now the Pixar Studio Store is readying for its next sure-to-be hit, "Inside Out."

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If you get a chance to visit the Pixar Studio Store, it most definitely warrants a shopping spree.

SEE ALSO: 'Inside Out' is Pixar's most stunning animated film since 'Finding Nemo'

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Here’s the first teaser trailer for Pixar’s long-delayed movie 'The Good Dinosaur'

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Pixar’s next film “Inside Out” isn’t even in theaters yet, but the studio is already starting to tease its big November feature, the dinosaur/human buddy comedy “The Good Dinosaur.”

The studio released the film’s first teaser—which really doesn’t tell you anything about the movie at all, other than the fact that it takes place on an Earth that was never hit by the asteroid that triggered the dinosaurs' extinction. Like most teasers, it doesn’t divulge much, but it does build to a pretty fun sight gag and some “Lion King”-esque art. 

Frankly, it’s just great to know that this movie’s on track after a long and tumultuous development that upended Pixar’s release schedule and led to a large number of layoffs. Pixar’s shine may have started to wear off ever so slightly with its dependence on sequels and prequels, but it really is exciting to see the storied studio releasing two back-to-back original films for 2015. 

“The Good Dinosaur” arrives in theaters November 25, 2015.

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Pixar ditched most of its original cast for its next movie

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The Good Dinosaur T-Rex

Well it turns out Pixar wasn’t only upending its story for "The Good Dinosaur"—the studio has revamped almost its entire voice cast.

The film was originally conceived by director Bob Peterson (who co-directed "Up"), but he was conspicuously absent from the movie’s D23 panel in 2013, and shortly thereafter it was announced that he’d been removed from the film.

The voice cast of Lucas Neff, Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, Judy Greer, John Lithgow, and Frances McDormand remained, though (Steve even interviewed Neff and Greer at D23), and co-director Peter Sohnwas subsequently upgraded to director while the story was revamped.

the good dinosaur pixar filmThe original conceit—a world in which the dinosaurs never went extinct, with a story following a dinosaur and his pet human boy—remained, but Lithgow told us that the movie was “dismantled and completely reimagined,” adding that he already completed his voice work but was due to record all-new dialogue.

He and McDormand were set to play Momma and Poppa dinosaur, but today Pixar announced the film’s voice cast and Lithgow is nowhere to be found, along with everyone else but McDormand.

The new voice cast for "The Good Dinosaur" is as follows:

  • Raymond Ochoa ("The Night Shift") provides the voice of an Apatosaurus named Arlo.
  • Jeffrey Wright ("The Hunger Games: Mockingjay") was tapped as the voice of Poppa, Arlo’s father.
  • Steve Zahn ("Rescue Dawn") provides the voice of a pterodactyl named Thunderclap.
  • AJ Buckley ("Justified") voices a T-Rex called Nash.
  • Anna Paquin ("True Blood") is the voices of T-Rex Ramsey.
  • Sam Elliott ("Justified") was called on as the voice of a tough T-Rex named Butch.
  • Frances McDormand ("Fargo") was tapped as the voice of Momma, Arlo’s mother.
  • Marcus Scribner ("black-ish") voices Arlo’s brother Buck.
  • Jack Bright ("Monsters University") provides the voice of Arlo’s unlikely human friend, Spot.

While Pixar has previously replaced voice actors (Reese Witherspoon was originally be Merida in "Brave"), this is the first time the studio has cast an entire film, recorded dialogue, and then replaced 99% of the cast.

It couldn’t have been a cheap move, but it perhaps speaks to the extent of the changes that Sohn and the Pixar Brain Trust made to the story once Peterson left—and also their desire to make sure they get this one right.

GOOD DINOSAUR 1"Inside Out" is getting rave reviews, but will "The Good Dinosaur" return us to lackluster Pixar?

There’s now an equal number of production-troubled films that turned out great ("Ratatoullie,""Toy Story 2") and disappointing ("Cars 2,""Brave"), so it looks like we’ve got a 50/50 chance. Here’s hoping all of these changes only improved the film.

"The Good Dinosaur" opens in theaters on November 25th. Click here to watch the teaser trailer.

SEE ALSO: ‘Jurassic World’ completely ignores these important discoveries scientists have made about dinosaurs

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NOW WATCH: Here’s the first teaser trailer for Pixar’s long-delayed movie 'The Good Dinosaur'

'Inside Out' may be Pixar's best film yet

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Pixar continues to top itself with nearly every new film it makes. 

Their latest, "Inside Out," doesn't open until Friday, but it is already sitting at an impressive 100% on Rotten Tomatoes from 35 straight reviews. 

inside out rotten tomatoes
Before general audiences were able to see a single frame of it, "Mad Max: Fury Road" also briefly sat at 100% this summer. It was dethroned a few days later, but at 98%, it isn't doing too bad, either. 

Hype has been slowly yet strongly building for "Inside Out" ever since footage first debuted. Rave reviews came out when it screened at Cannes back in May. The script brought stars Mindy Kaling and Amy Poehler to tears.

Those who have seen it are comparing it to some of Pixar's best movies. The comparison may come with merit, as it stacks up well next to the Tomatometer of a few of Pixar's best films:

"Toy Story": 100%

"Toy Story 2": 100%

"Toy Story 3": 99%

"Finding Nemo": 99%

"UP": 98%

And here's how "Inside Out" ranks so far against some of this summer's biggest movies:

"Mad Max: Fury Road": 98%

"Avengers: Age of Ultron": 74%

"Jurassic World": 70%

Could "Inside Out" remain on top all summer?

"Inside Out" will be released in theaters Friday, June 19.

SEE ALSO: 'Inside Out' is Pixar's most stunning animated film since 'Finding Nemo'

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Pixar blew through its 'Inside Out' budget to create the biggest effect in the movie

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inside out

While Pixar's "Inside Out" may not be the emotional powerhouse that its predecessors "Toy Story" and "Up" were, its animation is unlike anything you've seen before.

That's because the animation studio blew through its budget to do so.

The movie follows 11-year-old Riley, spirited and goofy, as her dad's new job in San Francisco uproots the family from the Midwest. Helping to navigate Riley through this change are her emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). The anthropomorphic emotions live in Headquarters, the control center of Riley's mind, where they work together to advise her through everyday life.

Even in a technicolor dreamscape like the set of "Inside Out," the emotions manage to shine brightest. If you look at Joy, her clothes, teeth, and hair appear plain, however, her skin appears to shed twinkling particles of energy. She also appears to be glowing.

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When Anger is particularly angry, his skin prickles even more. This technique informs the viewer how the emotions are feeling.

inside out, anger prickle skin

The movie's co-director Ronnie del Carmen ("Up,""Ratatouille") told Business Insider in a recent interview at Pixar's Emeryville, California, campus that this bold style wasn't easy to produce.

"Having a character that is made of little particles that actually move around and lift up and disappear and not be distracting" was a tall order, he said. But, "these characters are uniquely their own. They're not toys, they're not made out of plastic or wood, they're emotions. So that's why they have that effervescent quality to them."

Ralph Egerton, the film's production designer, said the look didn't come cheap either. While the movie's production budget is unknown, similar Pixar films like "Up" and "Brave" cost $175 million and $185 million, respectively. Egerton told Cinemablend's Nick Romano:

"We worked on the idea of her [Joy] being effervescent or sparkly for champagne bubbles, for about eight months. And it got to the point where we couldn’t afford to do it. There was just no way. … None of the other characters had it, because we just couldn’t afford it. When John [Lasseter] saw it on Joy he said, 'That’s great. Put it on all the characters.' You could hear the core technical staff just hitting the ground, the budget falling through the roof. But it was all good. They found a way to make it work."

They certainly made it work. See for yourself when "Inside Out" arrives in theaters June 19.

SEE ALSO: 'Inside Out' is Pixar's most stunning animation since 'Finding Nemo'

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NOW WATCH: Here’s the first teaser trailer for Pixar’s long-delayed movie 'The Good Dinosaur'

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