Pixar

I have to confess, I love what Pixar does. I have seen every film they have done and while some are better than others, I have thoroughly enjoyed every film. The company has an amazing history. A small group of computer geniuses at ILM who had a dream for computer animation. A dream that Steve Jobs was able to see when he purchased the division from Lucas and spun it off into Pixar.

Pixar's original product was a very high end rendering package. In addition to this, the company was winning awards at Siggraph with their amazing animated shorts as well as making about 5 animated commercials for products such as Listerene. When it became clear that sales of the rendering product and revenues from the commercials were not going to sustain the company, Steve Jobs, John Lassiter and Ed Catmull struck a deal with Disney to produce a feature.

And the rest, as they say...

I have been a Lightwave 3D user for many many years. Doing good 3D work is hard. REALLY hard. I know how much work I put into my Lightwave projects and I look at Pixar's work and I am always floored by it.

This morning I ran across a story about a 10 year old girl that was dying of cancer and whose dying wish was to see Up before she died. Her cancer was advanced to the point that she was bedridden at home. The family frantically contacted Pixar to ask for their help. They responded by sending an employee to the girl's home with a DVD of the film. They screened the film for the young girl who passed 7 hours later.

Pixar does not acknowledge that this happened nor will they say who the employee was.

Thanks, Pixar. You guys are, as I always suspected, a class act.

You can read the news story HERE.