11/15/20061 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006

25 years of PDI – 1980 to 2005

Richard Chuang, PDI/DreamWorks

11/15/20063 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Agenda

History
Some facts
How we got here

11/15/20064 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Brief History

PDI’s 25 th Anniversary  Founded in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl (1980-2000)  Co-founder Richard Chuang (81) and Glenn Entis (82-94)
3D software started at end of 1981
3D production started in the fall of 1982
“Entertainment using 3D computer animation”
Over 1000 projects completed
Staff size grew from 3 to over 400 during Shrek
1982-2002 Service business in Animation and EFX in film and television
Became division of DreamWorks in 2000

11/15/20065 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 1982

11/15/20066 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 1980s
1980s  First generation of home video games (Pac-Man 80 and Donkey-Kong 81)  IBM pc (1981), MAC (1984)  TCP/IP and Internet (1982)  Compact disk (CD) (1980 proposed)

11/15/20067 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Technology that started PDI

First computer at PDI  PDP 11/44 with 128 Kbytes of memory  20 Mbytes disk  $65,000 512x512x32 framebuffer  64 Kbytes (16 bits) address space

11/15/20068 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 First 3D image rendered at PDI

March 12, 1982
Implicit rendering of spheres
Fully anti-aliased
512x480x24
On PDI-11/44
Render time – 2 minutes

11/15/20069 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Other images from 1982

11/15/200610 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 The business

Initial $250,000 investment [about $600,000 in 2005 dollar adjusted for inflation]
Started 1981 in Sunnyvale  Moved to our first building in 1985 (Sunnyvale), 1995 (Palo Alto)  Moved to current location in 2002 (Redwood City)
Financed growth through profit
Open-book, monthly financial review with company
Monthly detailed financial analysis
Worked with a yearly 5 years long-term plan
Debt free when we made the deal with DWA
Did not take money out of the company
Maintained a 7% minimum investment in R&D
Low margin service business

11/15/200611 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 The Early (logo) Years 1982 to 1987

First Client – Global TV from Brazil
Business of TV motion graphics logo animation
Concurrent work on: ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, Cinemax, VH1, MTV, TNT, Showtime
Animated at 60 fields/sec
First mass production of 3D animation. 2 major network’s graphics package over 400 stations.
Planned and proposed a CG film production in 1985

11/15/200612 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 1987-1992 Transition

Commercials and the beginning of 3D VFX
Morph – a new era and business
3D and Hollywood

11/15/200613 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Start of 3D character animation 1987-1992

A fun new direction
Setting the goals
Forming the character animation group
Making the plan
Building the tools and the pipeline
Shorts
Finding the project

11/15/200614 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Getting the First Film

First CG feature plan in 1985
“Last Halloween” – Emmy Award winner for CG characters in a TV special  Worked with Hanna-Barbara  Built first 3D character production pipeline (1991)
3D Daffy Duck for Warner Brothers
Simpson 3D Halloween Special
Production Deal with DreamWorks 1995

11/15/200615 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 PDI/DWA feature animated films

Antz (1995-1998)

Shrek (2001)

Shrek 4D (Universal)

11/15/200616 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 DWA Feature Animated Films

Shrek 2 (2004)

Madagascar (2005)

Shrek 3 (in production)

11/15/200617 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 DWA CG feature films

Over The Hedge (2006)

Flushed Away (2006)

11/15/200618 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Changes in the past 25 years

11/15/200619 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 CPU Speed 1980-2005

CPU Performance

4500

4000

3500

3000

2500

Clock 2000

Performance 1500

1000

500

0 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 Year

11/15/200620 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Total Computational Power (studio wide)

Total Computation Power

100000000

10000000

1000000

100000

10000

1000

100

10

1 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 200 4 2006

11/15/200621 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 25 years of Changes

More things change  10 million times more computational power  20 million time more disk storage
More things stay the same  200 pixels per seconds
About 3 hours per frame at film resolution
About ½ hour per frame at video resolution  Still no reliable viewing method

11/15/200622 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 Keys to success

Hire good people that fits in with your team
Train and support your team
Make mistakes and learn from mistakes
Backup your team
Take risks
Keep things simple
Plan cash flow and delay spending
Run an open and honest business
Challenge your team
Share the rewards and challenges
Encourage innovations across the company
Creative freedom – personal projects

11/15/200623 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 11/15/200624 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006 11/15/200625 PDI/DreamWorks Animation 2006