Steve Jobs and Pixar


Since Apple introduced the Mac, and later the iPhone and iPad, the brand has been a global leader in the market. I later realised how influential Steve Jobs was on Pixar when visiting the Pixar exhibition in Hong Kong.

It surprised me that Steve Jobs was actually involved in Pixar's success story and sold the company to Disney in 2006. My friend told me their company hired a senior executive whose annual salary is HK$400 million. She considered that salary high, and not reasonable. I disagreed.

If that executive does a brilliant job like those global leaders who moved the brand to the next level, why not pay them a handsome amount of money? They deserve it!

I also grasped the concept of "continuous improvement" in the Pixar exhibition. Take an in-depth look at the stretches of how "Woody" looked at Toy Story or how "Kevin" looked in the movie Up! You would lose excitement if they really looked like that! Fortunately, those are the only stretches. As the team worked on the concept, they improved it bit by bit. They even outlined detailed movement of ears, eye brows, hands and body parts, indicating how those intricate details should look like when the characters were in action. A clay model was also made to allow the creative team to understand the characters in multiple dimensions.

How many hours and manpower went into a single character? Imagine how many characters were in a single Pixar movie? The result was an " impressive accomplishment".

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