“Moana” and “Raya and the Last Dragon” producer Osnat Shurer has left the Magic Kingdom.
She has joined Baobab Studios, where she will serve as co-chief creative officer alongside company founder and Cco Eric Darnell, a DreamWorks veteran who worked as a director on “Antz” and every “Madagascar” film (including “Penguins of Madagascar”).
Shurer joined Disney more than a decade ago as a VP of development, having come from Pixar where she oversaw short films like the Oscar-nominated “Boundin’” and “Lifted.” She also worked on shorts that appeared on the studio’s home video releases like “Jack Jack Attack,” written and directed by Brad Bird, which appeared on the home video release of “The Incredibles.”
Baobab Studios describes itself as “the leading interactive animation studio” and has produced a number of award-winning VR experiences. At Baobab Shurer joins Maureen Fan, the chief creative officer (she is a veteran of game...
She has joined Baobab Studios, where she will serve as co-chief creative officer alongside company founder and Cco Eric Darnell, a DreamWorks veteran who worked as a director on “Antz” and every “Madagascar” film (including “Penguins of Madagascar”).
Shurer joined Disney more than a decade ago as a VP of development, having come from Pixar where she oversaw short films like the Oscar-nominated “Boundin’” and “Lifted.” She also worked on shorts that appeared on the studio’s home video releases like “Jack Jack Attack,” written and directed by Brad Bird, which appeared on the home video release of “The Incredibles.”
Baobab Studios describes itself as “the leading interactive animation studio” and has produced a number of award-winning VR experiences. At Baobab Shurer joins Maureen Fan, the chief creative officer (she is a veteran of game...
- 9/27/2023
- by Drew Taylor
- The Wrap
Northern California-based indie toon houses Baobab Studios, Kuku Studios and Tonko House have joined forces to form the Bay Area Animation Alliance to build a community of industry professionals in the area and foster creativity.
One of the group’s first events was to hold an auction of original work by artists from each of the studios to benefit the Equal Justice Initiative — founded by lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson — whose goal it is to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the U.S.
The first Art Auction for Racial Justice raised nearly $13,000 and drew the attention other Bay Area-based artists who asked if they could participate. A second auction is taking place this weekend, June 19-22 at baanimationalliance.org/events.
“We’ve been so inspired by the Bay Area animation community’s reaction to our first Baaa art auction,” says Baobab Studios’ Eric Darnell, who directed all of...
One of the group’s first events was to hold an auction of original work by artists from each of the studios to benefit the Equal Justice Initiative — founded by lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson — whose goal it is to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the U.S.
The first Art Auction for Racial Justice raised nearly $13,000 and drew the attention other Bay Area-based artists who asked if they could participate. A second auction is taking place this weekend, June 19-22 at baanimationalliance.org/events.
“We’ve been so inspired by the Bay Area animation community’s reaction to our first Baaa art auction,” says Baobab Studios’ Eric Darnell, who directed all of...
- 6/19/2020
- by Terry Flores
- Variety Film + TV
While the news was not entirely unexpected given the return of his health issues and his recent retirement from Apple, it’s still sad to report that Steve Jobs, the man who helped bring the world Pixar, the iPod, iTunes and the iPad has died at the age of 56.In a career that was marked by a roller coaster of staggering falls and ambitious rises, Jobs influenced everything from personal computing to digital filmmaking, reshaping the way we buy music and driving the creation of iconic products.Jobs introduced his first machine, the Apple II (co-created with Steve Wozniak) in 1977 and went on to become a multimillionaire who ran Apple until he was ousted in 1985.But that very year, he created a new company called NeXT Computer and, in 1986, bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm for $10 million at a time when it was threatened with closure. Spearheaded by Jobs,...
- 10/6/2011
- EmpireOnline
In 1985, the Graphics Group in LucasFilm‘s Computer Division was on the chopping block. As Robert Sutton relates, George Lucas wasn’t confident that computer animated films had much of a future, and as a result, department heads Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith (two pioneers of extreme importance) were being pressured to fire some of their workers. Instead, they offered up their own names to be culled, which saved the entire division. At least for that moment. It’s unclear what fate might have fallen on the Graphics Group had the Computer Division not been purchased in 1986 by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs for a tidy $5m. Of course, we know this department by another name: Pixar. Jobs put his money down on a company he believed in, and the result stands currently as 26 Academy Awards, an absurd amount of box office money, a legion of fans worldwide and nearly complete animation dominance in the movie world...
- 8/25/2011
- by Cole Abaius
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
And How Young Sherlock Holmes Unexpectedly Paved The Way For Pixar
The story of how Pixar began is a fascinating one when you consider the creative risks that a young John Lasseter took that ultimately cost him his job at a company he would later (practically) run! This, somewhat Shakespearean tale, can be punctuated quite well by a series of films that all, in some way, lend themselves to the development of the Pixar we know and love…
1. The Fox and the Hound (1981)
In 1975 the California Institute of the Arts set up a new programme for animation, taught by three members of Disney’s ‘Nine Old Men’, whilst that is impressive in itself the students they taught in that inaugural year included John Lasseter, Brad Bird, John Musker, Henry Selick and Tim Burton with artists like Joe Ranft, Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter.
After graduating Musker, Bird, Selick and Burton...
The story of how Pixar began is a fascinating one when you consider the creative risks that a young John Lasseter took that ultimately cost him his job at a company he would later (practically) run! This, somewhat Shakespearean tale, can be punctuated quite well by a series of films that all, in some way, lend themselves to the development of the Pixar we know and love…
1. The Fox and the Hound (1981)
In 1975 the California Institute of the Arts set up a new programme for animation, taught by three members of Disney’s ‘Nine Old Men’, whilst that is impressive in itself the students they taught in that inaugural year included John Lasseter, Brad Bird, John Musker, Henry Selick and Tim Burton with artists like Joe Ranft, Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter.
After graduating Musker, Bird, Selick and Burton...
- 6/22/2011
- by Owain Paciuszko
- Obsessed with Film
Back in 1984--two years after Tron, Lucasfilm backed what we can consider to be the first Pixar short, The Adventures of Andre and Wally B, written and directed by Alvy Ray Smith, animated by John Lasseter, with sound by Ben Burtt and help from the big Cray computer. Delightful. Steve Jobs bought this unit of Lucasfilm and turned it into Pixar two years later. Speaking of Steve Jobs, the ailing Apple chief, who has been on a leave of absence, was photographed attending the Silicon Valley dinner with President Obama (below), seated to his left, with Mark Zuckerberg on his right. I would have loved to have been able to hear that conversation. [Hat Tip: Flickeringmyth.]...
- 2/21/2011
- Thompson on Hollywood
When a company first starts out it will take them awhile to be profitable, even Pixar. For instance, back in 1985, Pixar (once the Computer Division of Lucasfilm) was in a sad financial state. Craig Good, a Pixar veteran, recently recalled a story of how Pixar bosses Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith saved their employees losing their jobs.
Below is an excerpt:
[Lucasfilm president Doug] Norby was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, Catmull tried to make a financial case for keeping his group intact, arguing that layoffs would only reduce the value of a unit that Lucasfilm could profitably sell … But Norby was unmoved. As Craig tells it: “He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing him off. Finally came the order:...
Below is an excerpt:
[Lucasfilm president Doug] Norby was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, Catmull tried to make a financial case for keeping his group intact, arguing that layoffs would only reduce the value of a unit that Lucasfilm could profitably sell … But Norby was unmoved. As Craig tells it: “He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing him off. Finally came the order:...
- 1/12/2011
- by Tiberius
- GeekTyrant
[1] It's hard to imagine a day when Pixar was in hard financial times, but the company took many years to earn a profit. In the 1985, the Computer Division of Lucasfilm (which later became Pixar) was under financial pressure. Pixar veteran Craig Good recently recalled a story of how Pixar bosses Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith saved their employees from being let go. Here is an excerpt: [Lucasfilm president Doug] Norby was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, Catmull tried to make a financial case for keeping his group intact, arguing that layoffs would only reduce the value of a unit that Lucasfilm could profitably sell … But Norby was unmoved. As Craig tells it: “He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing him off.
- 1/12/2011
- by Peter Sciretta
- Slash Film
Primer is The A.V. Club's ongoing series of beginners' guides to pop culture's most notable subjects: filmmakers, music styles, literary genres, and whatever else interests us—and hopefully you. This week: Pixar Animation Studio, the company that invented the computer-animated feature film and has become the Walt Disney corporation's most acclaimed imprint. Their ninth full-length film, Wall•E, opens today. Pixar 101 Making movies was never what Pixar's corporate overlords had in mind. They intended to sell specialty imaging computers and software for advanced rendering to businesses like advertising agencies and medical equipment manufacturers. But Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith—the tinkerers who started Pixar to explore the use of computers to produce moving graphics—also wanted to produce work with characters and stories. When they hired John Lasseter at a computer graphics conference on the Queen Mary, the laid-off Disney animator hid from his bosses behind the title...
- 6/27/2008
- by Noel Murray, Donna Bowman
- avclub.com
Primer is The A.V. Club's ongoing series of beginners' guides to pop culture's most notable subjects: filmmakers, music styles, literary genres, and whatever else interests us—and hopefully you. This week: Pixar Animation Studio, the company that invented the computer-animated feature film and has become the Walt Disney corporation's most acclaimed imprint. Their ninth full-length film, Wall•E, opens today. Pixar 101 Making movies was never what Pixar's corporate overlords had in mind. They intended to sell specialty imaging computers and software for advanced rendering to businesses like advertising agencies and medical equipment manufacturers. But Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith—the tinkerers who started Pixar to explore the use of computers to produce moving graphics—also wanted to produce work with characters and stories. When they hired John Lasseter at a computer graphics conference on the Queen Mary, the laid-off Disney animator hid from his bosses behind the title...
- 6/27/2008
- by Noel Murray, Donna Bowman
- avclub.com
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