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Annotated Bibliography

The History of Animation and how Toy Story Changed the Film Industry

Hannah Schirmer

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

3/06/17
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Annotated Bibliography

Barthelemy, Jerome. Organized Dynamics. Vol. 40, Elsevier B.V.,

www.sciencedirect.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/science/article/pii/S0090261610000756.

Accessed 5 Mar. 2017.

This is a scholarly peer-reviewed article that gives an in-depth description of the

relationship between Disney and Pixar. There is a common misconception that Disney

and Pixar are the same but that is not the case. Disney and Pixar have a relationship and

what binds them together is animation. Some general facts that I have made note of are

that in 1991 Disney made the decision to let Pixar create and produce animated movies so

they could focus on their marketing and distribution and between the years 1995 and

2005 the films born from the Disney-Pixar relationship resulted in over $3 billion in box

offices takings worldwide. Disney very quickly realized the potential of the company and

bought out Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion. The article then continues to talk about the

different approaches that Disney took to make partner and in-time buy out that

partnership. The author is Jerome Barthelemy, a professor of management at ESSEC

Business School Paris (France) and holds a Ph.D. from HEC Paris (France). He is also a

research scholar at Stanford and Cambridge University and has had his research appear in

many appraised journals such as Strategic Management Journal and Journal of Business

Venturing. With all of his credentials and the many citations presented at the end of the

article I am very confident in how reliable his information is. His intended audience is the

people who want to know more detail about the strategies Disney used to approach the

partnership with Pixar. He uses many business terms to explain how they tie into the

partnership, why they worked, and their benefits. This source compares to all of my other
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sources in the sense that it is very professional and has little to no bias. Bias comes from

opinions and Barthelemy looked at the black and white facts and did not throw in his

opinion or personal beliefs. He made analytical connections between Disneys decisions

and the strategies that were discussed. This source was very helpful in giving more detail

to a major portion of the history of animation. It goes in-depth into the relationship

between Disney and Pixar that was a catalyst that changed the film industry forever. This

source will most likely appear in my final project due to its lack of bias, credentials, and

how it provides major details into a big piece of the puzzle that is my project.

Messer, Lesley. 'Toy Story' Turns 20: How It Changed Animated Films Forever. ABC News,

ABC News Network, 22 Nov. 2015, abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/toy-story-turns-20-

changed-animated-films-forever/story?id=35281890. Accessed 5 Mar. 2017.

This is an article from ABC News that celebrates Toy Storys 20th birthday by honoring

its accomplishments. These accomplishments include how it altered the way animated

films were created, how the film led to some of the most lucrative films of all time, how

it helped pave the way for animated films at the Oscars, how it provoked big name stars

to voice in animated films, and how it lent credence to the idea that animated movies

dont have to be musicals. The article goes into more detail about how Toy Story effected

the points made above but those are the main ideas presented in the article. This article

does a fantastic job of praising the film and showing just how much Toy Story means to

the world of movie-making which is great for my research because that is one of my main

arguments regarding the film. This article was written by Lesley Messer who is a part of

the ABC News Digital team as the Entertainment Editor in New York. With a news

station such as ABC News there will always be some biased. She could be a huge fan of
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the Toy Story franchise and talked the film up based on her opinion. However she made

it a point to include quotes from the former Disney CEO and also included facts to help

support her claims. With that being said, I do find this source to be reliable with credible

information that can be easily fact checked. Considering that ABC News is a very

popular news station, I believe it is safe to say that the targeted audience is everyone.

This article is a celebration and whether one is a child who watches the films or an adult

who grew up with the Toy Story franchise, they can appreciate all it has done for the film

industry and also the impact on the general people. As for how it compares to my other

sources, it is the only source that focuses entirely on the accomplishments of Toy Story.

All of my other sources mention the film but they target other aspects as well such as

business agreements, software, and the animation process. Given the love this article

shows for Toy Story it is highly probable that it will show up in the final rendition of my

project.

Pixar. Pixar, www.pixar.com/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2017.

This is the official website for Pixar and it provides information on their films, future

films, short films, behind the scenes, the general history of the company, and even

careers. Essentially this website gives a detailed timeline of the past, present, and future

of the company. It talks about how it started in 1979 and recruited men such as Ed

Catmull, George Lucas, and John Lasseter to start creating works of animation that would

build upon one another to eventually create Toy Story and many other works that the

world knows and loves. While searching through the website I could not find a single

author or a list of authors. Even though I could not find an author I do not doubt the

credentials of the website. At the bottom of the website it states Pixar, All Rights
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Reserved which implies that the company owns all of the information and photos

present on the website. With that being said, I would say that the information is very

reliable because Pixar is such a major company and they would not want to risk

providing false information with the potential of being sued or damaging their reputation.

The purpose of this website is to inform the public on the movies, history, and careers

associated with Pixar and the audience is the general public. This source compares to my

other sources in the sense that it is more visually appealing and more interactive. All of

my other sources are structured the way articles are with very minimal pictures and no

interaction to navigate the content. With the Pixar website, there are pictures of the films

to match the information pertaining to the films. For example, the Toy Story link has a

picture of Woody and Buzz from the film. This source has been proven to be very useful

for my research. In fact, it was the source that peaked my interest in the topic and made

me want to switch from my original proposal. This source helps to illustrate the skeleton

of the timeline that I wish to elaborate further on with the help of my other sources. This

source will most definitely appear in my project due to its content, relativeness to my

topic, the credibility, and the overall inspiration it has given me.

Zorthian, Julia. Toy Story at 20: How the Pixar Film Changed Movie History. Time, Time, 19

Nov. 2015, time.com/4118006/20-years-toy-story-pixar/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2017.

This is an article from Time Magazine that gives more insight to the creation of the story

and characters of Toy Story and how the film truly changed movie history. This article

includes quotes from the team that created Toy Story. Those team members include Ed

Catmull, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter. Stanton and Docter were the

screenwriters for the film. Ed Catmull, who is now the president of Pixar, was then a
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software engineer and John Lasseter was a member of the brain trust with Catmull and

was the director of the film. The men go into detail about the software that was used and

also the ideas they had for the characters. For example, Woody was originally not a very

likable character and Disney did not approve of him and this became such a major issue

that production was shut down for a while to correct the problem. The men apart of the

brain trust put themselves in a room to rethink the entire story. Eventually they came to

an agreement and got Disneys approval. As for the software portion of the article, they

mainly discussed the process and how difficult it truly was. Catmull and computer

scientists were the brains behind creating the software that allowed to bring to life the

ideas they had. One example of software that was produced was RenderMan. The goal of

this software was to allow the animators with little engineering background to rig and

control the movement of their own characters. The author of this article is Julia Zorthian

who is a frequent writer for time magazine and was previously the Editor and Chief for

Yale Daily News. Since the content of this article is mainly quotes and is an interview

style there is some bias. However the bias is within the creators and masterminds behind

the film so the bias does not affect the quality of the research. The intended audience is

anyone who has interest in the animation process and character development behind Toy

Story. This article differs from all of my other sources because it uses direct quotes from

the creators of the film. Having these quotes offers insight that goes much further than

collecting data and looking at the black and white facts. It add character and depth to my

research. This source was very helpful in providing me more a different angle on my

topic. Instead of having the facts and looking at this from an outsiders point of view I

now have insight from the creators and it allows me to see the process in a different and
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more unique light. With all of that being said, this magazine article will most definitely

be present in my project.