by jason chen david lin sdoe 775 project october 19, 2007

By

Jason Chen David Lin

SDOE 775 Project October 19, 2007

Table of Content

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1

Systemigram ................................................................................................................................................. 1

Pixar Animation Studio as a System .............................................................................................................. 1

Process ...................................................................................................................................................... 2

Why is Pixar a Soft System ........................................................................................................................ 4

Properties of the system ....................................................................................................................... 4

Open Communication ....................................................................................................................... 4

Feedback Promotion ......................................................................................................................... 5

Research ............................................................................................................................................ 5

Iterative Refinement ......................................................................................................................... 6

Justification for Pixar as a System ......................................................................................................... 7

Limitation as a System ...................................................................................................................... 7

System Paradox ............................................................................................................................................. 8

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 10

List of Figures

Figure 1: Pixar Animation Studio Systemigram ............................................................................................. 2

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Introduction

The goal of this paper is to illustrate Pixar Animation Studios as a soft system by showing analogy between Pixar’s moviemaking process and philosophy, and soft system methodology shown in System Thinking, System Practice book (Checkland, 2006). The paper is broken down into three major sections. The first section contains the root definition of Pixar as a system through systemigram. The diagram contains the goal and philosophy of Pixar on producing 3D animation films. The mid section depicts Pixar as a human-activity system by making systemic observation on how Pixar functions as a movie studio. The section also puts together a formal justification of Pixar as a system. The last section discusses system paradoxes that are revealed in the bonus material DVDs (Finding Nemo Bonus DVD, 2003; The Incredibles Bonus DVD, 2004), and Pixar’s solution to those paradoxes.

Systemigram

The Pixar Animation Studios produces 3D computer-animated films to entertain the audience. Pixar promotes creativity by providing a fun-working environment to be enjoyed by Pixar employees. Pixar adapts to changes in technology to enhance the 3D computer-animated films. In the 3D computer-animated films, the Pixar employees constantly define new methods to create believable scenes inside of a make-belief world. Pixar facilitates open communication that allows Pixar employees to share new ideas and discoveries. The open communication also simplifies and promotes the iterative refinement process. Figure 1 illustrates the systemigram

Pixar Animation Studio as a System

This section describes how Pixar Animation Studios can be interpreted as a system. First, the process employed by Pixar is briefly described to serve as a basis. An abridged version of the process is offered; the complete process description is located at Pixar’s official website (Pixar Animination Studios). Second, common attributes observed in both process description and footage in bonus DVD is also discussed to serve as another data point. Last, a systemic interpretation of Pixar Animation Studios is offered.


Pixar Animation

Studios

Creativity

A Fun-Working Environment

Pixar Employees

New Methods

Believable Scenes

A Make-Belief World

New Ideas and

Discoveries

Open Communication

Iterative Refinement

Process

Audience

Changes in Technology

3D Computer-Animated Films

adapts to

to enhance

to entertain

produces

constantly define

to produce

???

to sharesimplifies and promotes

promotesfacilitates

that allows

Figure 1: Pixar Animation Studio Systemigram

Process 1. Story Pitch – The first stage is story pitch. A film idea often comes from a Pixar employee

and then pitched to members of the development team. If the pitch is successfully in that the story is believable and can be realized within acceptable resources, then the story is formalized in the next stage

2. Text Treatment – A successful pitch is further developed into a text treatment. A text treatment is a summary that describes the main idea of the story. Multiple text treatment may be composed to find the right mix of story ideas and alternative plots. The gaps or unspecified details will be filled in by storyboard artists.

3. Storyboard – The storyboard is similar to a comic-book version of the feature film. It serves as the blueprint for key actions and dialogues. To create a storyboard, the storyboard artists receive script outlines describing the character development and action sequences. The artists then realize the script into hand-drawn comic sequences and forward their works to the director.


4. Voice Recording – First cuts of voices are recorded by Pixar artists themselves for any immediate storytelling needs. As the story and dialogue matures, Pixar brings in professional voice talents to read from a script. A line may be read several different ways, and the best reading will later be animated. In some cases, the initial voice acting has such high quality that it is directly used in the feature film.

5. Story Reel – A story reel is an animated version of the storyboard. The reel is the closest thing to the actual animated film. Its purpose is to illustrate the timing of the sequence and validate the storyline without a pitch person. The film editors also use the reel to control the length of the film and elements of shots in a sequence.

6. Look and Feel – With completion of storyboards, text treatments, and their own creative brainstorming, the art department constructs illustrations of the world and the characters. In addition, the art department also produces design sets, props, textures for surface, and “color scripts” which shows the tone and atmosphere in scenes.

7. 3D Model Creation – The sculptors and 3D computer animators then convert the 2D illustrations generated from previous development stage into sculptures or 3D models, depending on the complexity. Having the model in three dimensions offers additional insights. Sculptures are later scanned into 3D models. The animators then create “avars” or hinges and place them onto objects or characters to make them move.

8. Set Decoration – Sets are populated with prop models, such as furniture and plants, to create a believable world. These decorations are carefully chosen and placed to reflect director’s vision of the world.

9. Shot Layout – Once the virtual world has been adequately constructed, the layout department creates character choreographs and places virtual cameras to portray the emotion and story plot of each scene. Multiple shots are often generated to provide editorial department the freedom to maximize storytelling effect. The best version of the shots is then released to animators.

10. Animation – At this stage, the animators have the character background, models, storyline, and voice recording at their disposals. These materials allow the animators to act through their virtual characters. Unlike traditional 2D animator who renders one picture frame at a time, 3D animator choreographs the movements and facial expression in each shot. The animation software then generates the in-between frames.

11. Shading – Shading is a computer rendering technique calculating the surface colors of an object. Shading is done via shader, a software program or function that computes the


mathematical formulation behind color interaction. In many cases, animators only need to choose an appropriate shader and its corresponding parameters and let the rest be handled by high-end computer workstation or supercomputers.

12. Lighting – Lighting is another computer rendering technique that simulates stage lights. Lighting can enhance and emphasize a particular mood and emotion of a shot. For instance, in Finding Nemo, bright lights are used to emphasize the colorful nature of the coral-reef in the beginning of the film.

13. Rendering – Rendering is a translation process that coverts all the computational information, such as texture, lighting, shading, color, etc., into a single frame of the film. Rendering is an extremely computationally intensive process and is done by large computer system. In Pixar, a single frame can take from 6 to 90 hours to render.

14. Final Touch – The editorial department manages the musical score, sound effects, and the completion of the film. Additional animations are added for special effects. Lastly, the photoscience department converts the digital frames to appropriate distribution format such as traditional or digital projection film.

Why is Pixar a Soft System This section shows a list of system property observed in the documentaries: open

communication, feedback promotion, research, and iterative refinement. These properties exhibit same qualities as those in a soft system. Open communication and feedback promotion allow the root definition of the feature film to be defined. Subject-matter research creates a construct for the virtual universe. Iterative refinement allows objects and rules to be realized within the virtual universe. Later in the section, a comparison between the soft system methodology, Pixar’s moviemaking process, and Pixar documentaries, is provided to justify Pixar as a soft system.

Properties of the system

Open Communication The documentaries in both (Finding Nemo Bonus DVD, 2003) and (The Incredibles

Bonus DVD, 2004) display an enormous amount of people-to-people interactions. From the initial concept brainstorming to film finalization, each step of the process generates plenty of peer-reviews, supervisory reviews, and technical plausibility discussions. The majority of these interactions are ad-hoc; a peer may drop in and start commenting on another’s work, or an animator may start a discussion with a graphical programmer to discuss new rendering technique. The employee in Pixar Studios prefers face-to-face communication. Perhaps this preference is partially helped by the fact that Pixar Studios is not a geographical dispersed company.


Feedback Promotion Because Pixar’s well-connected communication style and its emphasis on iterative

refinement, Pixar managerial staffs are extremely open to feedback. In many instance in the bonus material commentaries, the director would visit individual artist or animator to discuss aspect of the film. They would engage in bi-directional communication in which both receive other’s point of view on the subject matter. In major milestone review, the entire crew will participate. When the animation department had completed the Finding Nemo sequence, the entire organization came and watched the animation. Every audience can voice his/her opinion and concern, or defend his/her work.

Research A believable virtual world requires extensive research on the subject matter. The driving

forces behind research are believable outward appearance, simulation and animation. Outward appearance is perhaps the simplest one of the three. Outward appearance is the combined result of surface texture, lighting, and material property. Surface textures can be obtained through digital photography, and effects of lighting can be properly calculating by software rendering package. Material property is, in essence, parameters that describe how light interact with surface texture. The main research in this appearance is finding the correct material property. Once the animator inputs the correct material property, the computer can handle the grunt work.

Some elements are simply too complex to be handled by human animator. Water, for instance, is extremely challenging. The best hope to animate such complex system is creating a mathematical model that “adequately” describes the system. Note that the model is not required to precisely describe the system. High fidelity model is often computationally intensive, which translates to more computer time and schedule slips. In simulation, the research is focusing on finding the “cheapest” mathematical equations that can describe the complex system.

Human and animal animation is difficult. The more familiar an animal, for instance, cat and dog, is to the audience, the more difficult the animal is to animate. The audience simply has much more experiences on how those animals behave. Therefore, organic system such animal and human in particular is thoroughly researched before its corresponding 3D model is created. One popular method Pixar deploys is to bring in biologist to describes how animal moves through its skeletal framework. The animators can mimic nature’s work by constructing a simplified version of the skeletal framework and attach virtual muscles. With adequate simulation on how muscles contract and relax, virtual animals can exhibit realistic movements. Another difficulty associated with organic systems is their skins and how they interact with light


sources. Organic skin, unlike metal surface that simply reflects rays of light, absorbs lights and returns a certain portion back. Animators have to model not just the surface skin but also what’s underneath it, so the surface can exhibit the soft glow on the skin. Modeling process and technology of the skin thickness and its “material property” is always under incremental improvement.

A good example of Pixar’s dedication to research can be found in (Finding Nemo Bonus DVD, 2003). The director makes animators and artists obtaining scuba diving licenses so they can observe and experience the coral reef ecosystem in person. Later, animators were able to recall the awesomeness and translate their emotion into beautiful virtual coral-reef. The animators also did extensive research on fish skin to properly illuminate the glow within the skin. The end result of skin research can be seen in Marlin and Nemo, the father clown fish and his son; they have a thin layer of semi-transparent flesh underneath their skin. The flesh close to the skin surface has high transparency then flesh further below the skin.

Checkland’s text (Checkland, 2006) describes a soft system as “a human-activity system” that leads to “means of structuring a debate rather than as a recipe for guaranteed efficient achievement, but its departures from the starting position can be all plotted and described in terms of the particular experience which force modifications to be made.” Using the key points from the Process and Attribute of Pixar Process sections as basis, one can argue that Pixar Animation Studios is a soft system: Pixar Studios is a human-activity system that produces animated films by encouraging iterative product refine through feedback, reviews, and face-to-face communication.

Iterative Refinement Both bonus DVDs show ample amount of footage on their iterative process. Two levels

of product refinement proceed simultaneously. First level occurs within each process stage, focusing on intermediate outputs. In each stage, outputs undergo intensive iterative refinement process. In (Finding Nemo Bonus DVD, 2003), an animator talked about how one scene had taken 6 months to be perfected.

Second level of refinement occurs across the film-making process. First refinement occurs in the story and plot definition stages, starting from the initial Story Pitch to the creation of story reel. The output of first refinement is a story reel that has been accepted by the stockholders. Second refinement takes the story reel as foundation and constructs the virtual universe and its characters. The birth of the virtual world starts with the Look-and-Feel stage and completes at the Animation stage. The third refinement brings the virtual universe and its


characters to live with color, texture, and lighting. At this point, the construct of the virtual world is completed. In the last refinement the virtual world is rendered, with additional special effects, into 2D digital frames.

Justification for Pixar as a System Pixar filmmaking process follows closely to the soft system methodology (SSM) depicted

in Figure 6, of Checkland text. Pixar process stages 1 through 4 can be said to follow SSM stages 1 and 2. SSM stages 1 and 2 are “an ‘expression’ phase during which an attempt is made to build up the riches possible picture, not of ‘the problem’ …” Analogously the first 4 Pixar processes attempt to build up a most compelling storyline. The story and screen writers compose the story plot without imposing a particular hard requirement or structure on the digital film itself. The story reel in Pixar stage 5 is comparable to SSM stage 3. As mentioned in the Process section, a story reel is an animated comic book; it now contains real world elements, such as the sequence timing, pace, atmosphere, character emotion…etc, that defines the “fundamental nature” of the film. These reels also have impact on relevant systems – Artists and animator may be pulled from other projects, and computing resource may need to be pre-allocated. SSM stages 4, 4a, and 4b are realized through Pixar process stages 6 to 12. The goal of those 6 Pixar stages is creating a believable virtual universe, or conceptual model as depicted in SSM stage 4. A believable virtual universe can only be created through meticulous object modeling and research on appropriate subjects “to check that models built are not fundamentally deficient.” Although Pixar process do not have corresponding stages that match SSM stage 5, 6, and 7, the process as a whole conforms to the ideas presented in those 3 stages. As a whole, the Pixar process improves its product through iterative product refinement. During each major production iteration, ample feedbacks and peer-reviews are exchanged (SSM stage 5) to find ways to express elements of the story (SSM stage6) so the product can mature and move on to the next stage (SSM stage 7). The final iteration begins in Pixar process stage 13 and ends at stage 14 to produce the final rendered digital film.

Limitation as a System Although Pixar’s process is predominately developed for a soft system as described in

preceding paragraphs, the end-product, or feature film, is undoubtedly closely restricted by available computing resources. As production heads toward later process stages, hardware resources become increasing important. The story brainstorming and reels can be made with relative small resource, corporate PC or workstation. When progress advances to 3D modeling and animation, the computing resource is moved to professional graphical workstation. The


rendering stage, involving immense amount of computation, is done at “computer farm” – a cluster of high-end computers linked together to perform a common task.

Because computing resource is finite, this limitation affects the scale and complexity of the virtual universe. Therefore, when the animators construct the world and choreograph the movements, they must also take the hardware reality into consideration. The computer engineer or system administrator has to periodic update the computing platform and upgrades software package without major interruption of computing services. Although relatively quiet on its computer system design, Pixar must have spent considerable amount of effort to optimize computer efficiency and adjust people’s computer usage behavior to ensure the computing resource are neither under-utilized nor overwhelmed.

System Paradox

Just like many soft systems, the Pixar system has many paradoxes, such as boundary, control, intelligence, crowd, and performance paradox. The boundary paradox is defined as the contradiction between creating a boundary to help each employee develop their expertise, and facilitating an open environment to allow interactions between disciplines in order to create an integrated product. All Pixar employees have defined roles and responsibilities, but they must also interact with each other to ensure that their outputs can be integrated into the system. For example, in Finding Nemo, the 2D illustration artist, who created Dory, worked closely with the sculptor, the 3D computer animator, and the director to make sure the character design is in line with the story needs and had enough details to allow others to do their job. The artist spent three years creating and perfecting Dory by doing research on fishes and creating lots of 2D drawings. In the process, he had to learn how the sculptor uses his 2D drawings to make a 3D clay model. He also had to work with the 3D computer animator who scanned the clay model into the computer to create the character in 3D. Ultimately, his 2D character design had to have enough details for the sculptor to make the most realistic model and enough facial components to allow the 3D animator to create believable character emotions for the different scenes.

In terms of the control paradox, Pixar has to find a good level of command and control to guide its outputs. Pixar is an organization with structures, delivery schedules, and strategic directions. Therefore, command and control is needed to provide guidance on film direction, deadlines, and available budgets. However, it’s also a place promoting fun and creativity to produce the most enjoyable entertainment for the audience. The designers can always find ways to improve the product, and it’s the director’s responsibility to decide when it is “good enough.”


In “The Incredibles”, Brad Bird, the director, was constantly dealing with the dilemma of “when is it good enough?” Brad had a dual role in the film; he was not only the director but also the creator of the story. On one hand, he wanted to preserve the story and make every scene perfect, but on the other hand, he had a budget and schedule to deliver a product. John Walker, the producer, also had a control paradox. He wanted to limit the movie to within 100-min. to reduce cost and schedule risk, but he also realized the importance in “protecting the story,” which is one of the most important philosophies of Pixar. Balancing the control paradox, John and the team preserved most of the story, and allowed the film to grow to a run-time of 107-minute – the longest film in Pixar history. However, with the right balance of control, The Incredibles became a big success. It obtained a US box office over $261 million that is ranked in the top 40 of the all-time US box office record.

The intelligence paradox is something that the Pixar system encounters all the time. Early in the film creating process, when the storyline is written and the storyboards drawn, the director and the film creators will already have insights on how to convey the story and make the film. Based on their previous experience and the history of other Pixar films, they can create schedules, forecast budgets, estimate resource needs, and assess risks. However, as the film production progresses, “emergence” also begins to surface. The system will evolve based on its individual parts. As more animators get involve with the film, they bring alternative methods to do the required tasks, therefore making the overall system better as a whole. For Example, in the production of Finding Nemo, the team realized the difficulty in modeling and simulating water, especially the splash scenes with water drops spreading in all different directions. Traditionally, each splash scene needs to be rendered independently, but with the number of splash scenes planned in Finding Nemo, this would be time consuming and very costly. When animators were brought together to solve this problem, they found a clever way to reuse the same splash shots for different scenes, therefore opening the possibility to create more splash scenes to enhance the story telling without worrying about budget.

The crowd paradox is a little similar to the intelligence paradox, where the “whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” Each animator has different backgrounds and experience level. This diversity helps to give each character or scene their own “personality.” If everything in the Pixar film is created by the same person, the same way each time, the audience would most likely get bored pretty quickly. However, this type of diversity must also be controlled to follow the direction of the film, otherwise the scenes will seem out of place to the audience. In The Incredibles, the scene where Bob and Helen had their discussion, after Bob came home late

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because he was saving people from the burning building, was done by four different animators. The animators used different camera work and character emotions to tell their part of the story, but the overall scene showed a lot of continuity and uniformity. The crowd paradox was also evident in the production of Finding Nemo. There were about 30-40 lighting specialists needed to create the lights necessary in every scene of the film. The lighting needed to be uniform and consistent from scene to scene, but it also provided the specialists with the flexibility to add their spin to give each scene a different flavor for the audience.

Pixar system has a very unique performance paradox. With the current technology level, Pixar is capable of making 3D films that appear to be real. However, the storylines of the films require some imagination and exaggeration. Therefore, “believable” scenes are created in a “make-believable” world. In the “behind the scenes” for Finding Nemo, animators described that their existing tools can maximize realism to the point where one cannot discern what is real and what is imaginary. However, the goal of 3D computer-animated films is not to create reality. The goal is creating a make-belief world with believable scenes. Therefore, animators had to constantly remind themselves to pull back the realism generated by the computers.

Conclusion

After examining the philosophy, process, and characteristics of the Pixar Animation Studios, it can be concluded that Pixar is an effective system. Pixar has a very clear philosophy, which is to produce enjoyable 3D computer-animated films to entertain the audience. The Pixar moviemaking process closely follows the soft system methodology defined by Checkland. Pixar’s open communication, feedback promotion, subject-matter research, and iterative refinement process are all characteristics of a good system. In addition, Pixar has the right balances to handle its system paradoxes to deliver quality results. Therefore, Pixar Animation Studios is not only a system, but a very efficient system.

Bibliography Finding Nemo Bonus DVD [DVD]. ‐ Pixar Animation Studio : Walt Disney Picture, Buena Vista

Distribution, 2003.

Pixar Animination Studios [Online] // Pixar Animation Studios. ‐ 10 12, 2007. ‐ http://www.pixar.com/.

System Thinking, System Practice [Book] / auth. Checkland Peter. ‐ [s.l.] : John Wiley & Sons Limited,

2006. ‐ ISBN 10: 0‐471‐986062.

The Incredibles Bonus DVD [DVD]. ‐ Pixar Animation Studios : Walt Disney Pictures, 2004.

Yahoo! Movies ‐ All Time Box Office and Buzz [Online] // Yahoo! Movies. ‐ 10 16, 2007. ‐

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/boxoffice/alltime.

by jason chen david lin sdoe 775 project october 19, 2007

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