Pixar’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Jobs, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Simon Bax, have conducted a teleconference to discuss information relevant to the third quarter results. The teleconference was held Tuesday, November 8, 2005 at 5:00 p.m. ET, 2:00 p.m. PT.
Notes in reverse chronological order:
– End of conference call.
– Jobs: “Chicken Little” – I haven’t seen it, yet. I hope to see it next week.
– Jobs: film following “Cars” will need to have distribution deal in place by early next year
– Jobs on guarding against piracy: the world has seen digital downloads of movies, but not in high quality, yet. Some evidence shows that the people downloading illegally wouldn’t have bought them anyway. Piracy effects on Pixar are difficult to measure. Best to create legal methods, so that people don’t get into the habit of stealing. That’s not a healthy culture. Hollywood has some time to put in place legal alternatives and experiments, so that people don’t develop the habit of pirating films.
– Jobs: right now it looks like Blu-ray will win, but nothing’s certain, yet
– Jobs on Blu-ray vs. HD DVD – Pixar would like to be in the format their audience’s players play
– Jobs plans summer 2007, 2008, 2009 release dates for the first three films after “Cars”
– Jobs will not go into any details of the ongoing negotiations with Disney
– Jobs: Pixar not against doing sequels – just not doing any now under current deal with Disney
– “Cars” DVD release planned for November 2006
– Jobs: Pixar’s movies aren’t “wait for the DVD” type movies – people go to the theaters to see them, then get the DVD
– Jobs: Biggest problem with downloading feature-length films via iTunes is bandwidth – takes too long in U.S.
– Jobs: I like Disney’s Bob Iger a lot – again, Disney is first choice
– Pixar gets same revenue split as all other video partners with Apple
– Disney is our first choice for distribution deal
– Jobs thinks there is a lot of room for animated films in the summer
– 8 million “Finding Nemo” and 5 million “The Incredibles” computer games shipped
– 125,000 copies of Pixar short films sold via Apple iTunes Music Store in just under 1 month
– “Cars” will be a huge cap on the Disney relationship or the beginning of a new chapter with Disney
– Executive Producer John Lasseter is very happy with the results
– “Cars” animation is complete
– We will announced 3 films following “Cars” after distribution deal is set
– Discussions are very productive with Disney
– We will know about results of Disney discussions by the end of the year
– CEO Steve Jobs: We are in deep discussions with Disney
– CFO Simon Bax reviews results available in the earnings report (see related article)
– Welcome to the Pixar Animation Studios Q3 2005 Conference Call
Advertisement: The New iPod with Video. The ultimate music + video experience on the go. From $299. Free shipping.
Related article:
Pixar reports third quarter financial results – November 08, 2005
Pixar runs on Power Mac G5s and Mac OS X – May 29, 2004
Report: Pixar switching to Apple’s Mac OS X on Power Mac G5s – March 10, 2004
Is it being streamed with QuickTime?
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It seems to be Disney’s game to lose. Let’s see if they can stomach being out-box-officed by a “Partner”.
“Is it being streamed with QuickTime?”
It’s available for QuickTime, Real Player and Windows Media.
My goodness, I know that MacDailyNews is sychophantic, but posting quarterly result for Pixar (which uses PC’s for animation, by the way) is little too much, don’t ya’ think?
I’m as big a fan of Macs as anyone, but I could care less what Jobs does in his spare time.
Maybe we could have updates on Stevie’s trip to Tibet or holidays in Provence? I personally would like to know how often and how long Mr. Jobs goes to the restroom, is in an automobile/aircraft. What sort of socks does Stevo wear; and how many black faux turtleknecks does boy wonder wear?
Someone has far, far too much time on their hands.
Excellent job, MDN!
Great info gleaned from Jobs regarding Apple, especially these tidbits:
– Jobs on guarding against piracy: the world has seen digital downloads of movies, but not in high quality, yet. Some evidence shows that the people downloading illegally wouldn’t have bought them anyway. Piracy effects on Pixar are difficult to measure. Best to create legal methods, so that people don’t get into the habit of stealing. That’s not a healthy culture. Hollywood has some time to put in place legal alternatives and experiments, so that people don’t develop the habit of pirating films.
– Jobs: right now it looks like Blu-ray will win, but nothing’s certain, yet
– Jobs on Blu-ray vs. HD DVD – Pixar would like to be in the format their audience’s players play
– Pixar gets same revenue split as all other video partners with Apple
– 125,000 copies of Pixar short films sold via Apple iTunes Music Store in just under 1 month
Thanks for the nice notes!
Jobs on guarding against piracy….
Very unwise it is … to not listen to Stevie. Hollywood has some time…. Best not waste it.
Illegal downloading is not “free.” Consider bandwidth costs, processing costs if you want to reconvert into dvd (media, processor-power and time, particularly if you have a slow cpu or connection), storage costs (oops, need a bigger drive), shareware/donationware costs (gotta support the codewriters)… etc. It’s almost more economical to get a discounted dvd for legacy films. And yet, downloading is thriving. Why’s that?
It’s becoming a digital world where old-fashioned-distribution models are being bypassed. The costs of such models, particularly the end-retailer margin shouldn’t apply to the digital download market. In order to compete in the digital age, the price of legal downloads must come down. The sooner legal downloading becomes established (a realistic price is necessary), the better it is for the content creation industry because … illegal downloading costs CAN ONLY DROP further. In other words, Hollywood has a limited time window! It gets harder to discourage illegal downloads the longer they wait as that ecosystem is developing rapidly.
Now what does this mean for the brick and mortar distribution channels? They have a window too, but eventually that model will need some tweaking. Higher quality product (Hi-Def, many extras, large capacity media) is the short term answer. You already see packages of audio CDs with attached DVDs, for example. Eventually, a print-on-demand system will be required when the time to do so gets down to well under 10 minutes. This would allow a store to warehouse [or download-to-demand] almost all titles, and charge less particularly for legacy films. This is best done on a global catalog basis, and you can select features to add at a nominal cost such as dubbed audio, subtitles or soundtrack albums, or even specify less quality.
I’m speculating, of course, but I think Stevie has a better grip on the future than Hollywood does. He also has the best digital sales model and the right attitude to pricing. So get with it, chumps!
and to build on W Baker’s comments, the servers that they are using are not running OSX but Linux…and they are not using xServes with xSan but companies like iBrix, etc.
Correction: “particularly the end-retailer margin of a bricks and mortar store”.
I did not know that Pixar does not use xServers or xSan. I understand that a company has to use a platform/hardware which best supports its goals – in Pixar’s case, Wintel stuff for animation. What I do not understand is why Pixar doesn’t use xServers or xSan.
Unless macdailynews has a serious portion of its portfolio invested in Pixar, I fail to see why they wouldn’t hold Pixar to same Mac litmus test they hold every other enterprise which involves computing.
Parenthetically, the Apple community hasn’t learned anything from Pixar’s quarterly report: we already know that Jobs is eyeing film like he did music years ago; we already know Apple’s leaning toward Blu-Ray; it would be big news if Pixar was getting a “sweetheart” deal from the sale of its clips via iTunes; et cetera ad nauseum.
Let’s hear some reasons from some admin. types at macdailynews why Pixar shouldn’t be trounced for their obvious anti-Apple bias.
“Someone has far, far too much time on their hands.”
Evidently you. WTF do you care what MDN posts on their website. Don’t like it? Who cares. Start your own fookin website.
Or here’s an even simpler idea: skip the stories that don’t interest you.
Do you actually think MDN needs to maintain some kind of journalistic integrity? Or even logical consistency? If you want to correct a factual error, great. On matters of style and subject? Leave that to the content provider. Or contact them with a friendly suggestion.
effwerd,
I agree wholeheartedly. I enjoy going through the titles of offerings posted on the MDN site — the variety keeps me interested. Those items I have no interest in, I skip over — too radical idea for W Baker?
No, I skip over MDN “fookin’s” stories – effwerd’s lovely contribution to the language – all the time.
I quite agree with effwerd and nsapap: this site is not mine, nor should it give two hoots about what I think, and it can publish any sort of ‘content’ it wants.
Having said that, I still fail to see why Pixar can get off ‘scott-free’ for not using Mac hardware/software when MDN will strain at every tiny gnat when some other company or columnist overlooks Apples superior platform.
I think W Baker has a point. I find that the MDN staff can be quite hypocritical at times.
Mr. Baker,
Don’t be a dick. Pixar is Jobs second company, plus they sell content on iTMS and developed a lot of the rendering programs for Mac OS X. Also it’s of interest to the mac community. So chill out dude.
I’ve heard from those-who-know that many desktops at Pixar are Mac. However, they committed as a company to non-Mac servers long before Steve came back to Apple and this was based on a pure cost/rendering time decision. As I understand it, they continue to re-evaluate and consider porting their software to Mac but for a server farm this is a pure financial decision. But note that Apple has been progressively building the servers and tools and improving the cost factors to make it more possible to convert to Macs. I think that’s their long-term goal, but if they’re to be fair to the Pixar stockholders, they should not do so until their is a clear cost savings from doing so.
Who gives a pixar?
Mr Baker you are funny
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…but I could care less what Jobs does in his spare time [W Baker] — what one of the most influential people in computing and media does at any time excluding private [family, etc.] time is of interest to many. What he does at other times, unfortunately, is still of interest to the low brow press [tabloids, celebrity mags, etc.].
start your own fookin website [effwerd] — I was wondering if you were all nick, but I guess you are a master at deploying the fookin’ effwerd. It’s like adding tabasco to ketchup for a chip dip.
…but if they’re to be fair to the Pixar stockholders… [tom] — case succinctly closed.
I love it how someone will go of on some unneccessary diatribe and waste 15 minutes of their day typing a complaint about a story that is posted on this website.
If you dont like it, don’t click it. And while you’re at it, get over yourself.
BTW, they do use OS X Server, running on X Serves. Or the OS X Server admins they hired are just sitting around.
And IIRC, the rendering farm is Itaniums, not exactly what I call a PC.
Please keep info on Pixar et al coming — it’s relevant and interesting.
Mr Jobs plays a major role in this Web Sites main topic. His work at Pixar is of interest to Mac folks because it influences the man and hence his work with Apple and then affects US.
Mr Jobs was doing his Pixar thing heavily before his triumphant return to Apple. It took him a while to clean house and get the turnaround going, not to mention, recoding Next to be OS-X. Before returning to Apple, Pixar was all X86 based. Workflows on digital Hollywood productions are very expensive and complex to put into place. Pixar uses a lot of custom code so it’s not easy hopping around from platform to platform. Also, lets face it, a powerful render farm can be built a lot cheaper with X86 hardware.
After the switch to Intel processors, the Mac will be able to work its way into more Hollywood production shops because the OS options will be there.
For those who don’t like Pixar info on MDN change the channel (but don’t be a weener about it). You are certainly entitled to your own opinion (no matter how irrelevent
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Mea culpa maxima. I am so over myself and so humbly and contritely genuflexing. Please excuse my stumbling as I exit backwards through the door.
I will make every effort to love our leader and think of his every move. I will learn not to be a “dick”, “weener”, etc. and to read MDN with quiet faithfulness.
W Baker, I don’t think anyone really asked you not to express your opinions, you just seemed to be nit picking and making statements without actual facts! Renderman has been brought out for OS X. so they definitely use OS X and apple computers, how many I don’t know!! but the reason why the so called “rabid fanatics are jumping down your throat is simply because you made statements which weren’t factual and made them seem so like many ANALyst do!
MW some/ On a serious note SOME of you so called “rabid, brainwashed, mac cultists” need to bring it down a bit, lmao.