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85-446: Founded in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl, PDI was one of the pioneers of computer animation, it produced more than 700 commercials, contributed visual effects to more than 70 feature films, and produced and contributed to many of DreamWorks Animation's films, beginning with DreamWorks's first animated film, Antz . PDI's final animated film before its closure on January 22, 2015, was Penguins of Madagascar , released on November 26, 2014. PDI

170-446: A fly swatter and attempt to squish the ants with a shoe. Z rescues Bala from the sneaker, and the two ants at last find Insectopia, a trash can overfilled with decaying food. Meanwhile, after interrogating Weaver, Mandible learns that Z is looking for Insectopia and sends Cutter to find it. That night, while Z is away, Cutter arrives at Insectopia and forcibly flies Bala back to the colony, where Mandible reveals his intention to restart

255-420: A flying ant named Cutter, begins to doubt Mandible's constant reassurances that he is acting for the good of the colony. Z and Bala come upon a human picnic, which they mistake for Insectopia. They are baffled by the wrappings on the food, but Muffy and Chip, a married couple of liberal wasps , condescendingly befriend them and try to help break the wrappers. They are disrupted by a human, who kill Muffy with

340-518: A bitter competitive rivalry with Jeffrey Katzenberg and his new DreamWorks films. In 1995, Katzenberg announced The Prince of Egypt to debut in November 1998 as DreamWorks' first animated release. A year later, Disney scheduled Bugs to open on the same weekend, which infuriated Katzenberg. Katzenberg invited Disney executives to DreamWorks to negotiate a release date change for Bugs , but the company refused to budge. DreamWorks pushed Prince of Egypt to

425-456: A commodity which would soon be replaced, enabling lower operating costs. Pacific Data Images's early focus was on network TV productions, for they captured more than 50% of that market in 1985. However, in 1990, PDI introduced the digital film scanning process. This process was used to popularize automated rig removal and image touch-up. PDI was also instrumental in introducing performance animation for theme parks, ads and movies. This started with

510-420: A feature-length CG animation film in 1985, but they were unable to raise the funding needed to produce it. Pacific Data Images outlived all the other computer graphics studios that existed in the early 1980s. One of the reasons for this is that PDI never went into significant debt by purchasing expensive hardware. While other studios purchased or leased supercomputers , PDI bought cheaper hardware, treating it as

595-469: A final proposition to delay Antz if Disney and Pixar changed the date of A Bug's Life , but Katzenberg denied this. Jobs believed it was "a blatant extortion attempt". As the release dates for both films approached, Disney executives concluded that Pixar should keep quiet on Antz and the feud concerning DreamWorks. Regardless, Lasseter publicly dismissed Antz as a "schlock version" of A Bug's Life ; however, Lasseter later admitted that he never saw

680-532: A garage owned by Carl's father. PDI moved to its first real offices in 1985, to its second offices in 1995, and to its last location in Redwood City at the Pacific Shores Center in 2002. The growth of the company was financed solely through profit. The company was run as an open book ; monthly financial reviews were shared with the entire company, and a detailed monthly financial report was released. Money

765-466: A group of artists with the creative and technical skills needed to produce a feature-length computer-generated film. The group originally consisted of Johnson, Grignon, Raman Hui , Glenn McQueen , Beth Hofer, Dick Walsh, Karen Schneider and Eric Darnell . Under this group, PDI's commercial character animation skills grew, and numerous notable short films were produced. Among these are Gas Planet (1992), Sleepy Guy (1994), Brick-a-Brac (1995), Gabola

850-440: A joint project in 1988 with Jim Henson's Creature Shop on a real-time performance character named Waldo C. Graphic for The Jim Henson Hour (1989). During these years of transition, Pacific Data Images moved away from the motion graphics market, and focused its attention on commercials and 3D visual effects for feature films. Noted for its commercials for the first Pillsbury Doughboy created with computer graphics . Pillsbury

935-450: A legendary insect paradise. Bala attempts to return to the colony, but quickly rejoins Z after encountering a praying mantis . Z's act of individuality inspires the workers and some soldier ants, halting productivity. To gain control, Mandible publicly portrays Z as a self-centered war criminal, promotes the glory of conformity, and promises the workers rewards for completing a "Mega Tunnel" he designed. However, Mandible's second-in-command,

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1020-417: A pill." Tensions would remain high between Jobs and Katzenberg for many years after the release of both films. According to Jobs, years later, Katzenberg approached him after the opening of Shrek , and insisted that he had never heard the pitch for A Bug's Life , reasoning that his settlement with Disney would have given him a share of the profits if that were so. In the end, Pixar and PDI employees kept up

1105-522: A polygon scan-line renderer (called p2r), an interactive animation program (called e-motion), an animation scripting and scene-description language (called script), and a lighting tool (called led). All of these tools were written in C and deployed on a variety of machines running various flavors of Unix. The initial investment to start the company was $ 250,000 (equivalent to $ 924,000 in 2023). Its original offices were in Sunnyvale , California, working from

1190-504: A release date war ensued. While Antz beat A Bug's Life to the big screen by two months, the latter film significantly out grossed its predecessor. Rip off or not, Antz' s critical response has proven to be almost exactly as positive as what A Bug's Life has enjoyed." The original music for the film was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell . The soundtrack was released on November 3, 1998 by Angel Records . Initially, Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted Hans Zimmer to compose

1275-504: A rumor, "never confirmed", was that Katzenberg had given PDI "rich financial incentives to induce them to whatever it would take to have Antz ready first, despite Pixar's head start". Jobs was furious and called Katzenberg and began yelling. Katzenberg made an offer: He would delay production of Antz if Jobs and Disney would move A Bug's Life so that it did not compete with The Prince of Egypt . Jobs believed it "a blatant extortion attempt " and would not go for it, explaining that there

1360-493: A soldier ant named Weaver, and joins the army, where he befriends staff sergeant Barbatus. The ants are unaware that General Mandible, the army's leader and Bala's fiancé, is secretly sending the soldiers loyal to the colony's Queen to die so he can stage a coup d'état . In the battle, everyone except Z is killed by much-larger acid-shooting termite defenders. Before dying, a decapitated Barbatus tells Z to think for himself instead of blindly following orders. Meanwhile, Weaver joins

1445-710: Is called progressive scan video. Video shot with a standard video camera format such as S-VHS or Mini-DV is often interlaced when created. In contrast, video shot with a film-based camera is almost always progressive. Free-to-air analog TV was mostly broadcast as interlaced material because the trade-off of spatial resolution for frame rate reduced flickering on Cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions. High-definition digital television (see: HDTV ) today can be broadcast terrestrially or distributed through cable systems in either interlaced (1080i) or progressive scan formats (720p or 1080p). Most prosumer camcorders can record in progressive scan formats. In video editing, knowing which of

1530-592: The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences . Pacific Data Images's first feature film, Antz , was released by DreamWorks Pictures October 2, 1998. This was followed by Shrek May 18, 2001. After the success of Antz , Sega contacted the company to create a series of commercials for a marketing campaign for the launch of the Sega Dreamcast . in 2000, Carl Rosendahl sold his remaining interest in PDI to DreamWorks. PDI

1615-470: The Exxon car-into-tiger morph and the extended morph at the end of the " Black or White " music video by Michael Jackson . These morphing jobs were easy to do with PDI's software, and the effect was in high demand. The algorithms invented by Beier and Neely were published at the annual SIGGRAPH conference, and are now the basis of most image morphing tools. For many people, their first exposure to these algorithms

1700-532: The Toronto International Film Festival on September 19, 1998, and was released theatrically in the United States on October 2, 1998. It grossed $ 171.8 million worldwide on a budget of $ 42–105 million and received positive reviews, with critics praising the voice cast, animation, humor, and its appeal towards adults. Z is an anxious worker ant who is suffering an existential crisis due to

1785-479: The United States . Pacific Data Images won their only Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Shrek in 2002, which was the first time it was awarded. PDI/DreamWorks has won nine Scientific and Technical Academy Awards . The first was awarded in 1994 to Les Dittert, with others, for work in the area of film scanning. The second was awarded to Carl Rosendahl, Richard Chuang and Glenn Entis in 1997 for

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1870-552: The Universal Studios Lot 's Technicolor facility in Universal City , where DreamWorks was also located, he called Katzenberg and dropped by with Stanton. When Katzenberg asked what they were doing next, Lasseter described what would become A Bug's Life in detail. Lasseter respected Katzenberg's judgment and felt comfortable using him as a sounding board for creative ideas. Lasseter had high hopes for Toy Story , and he

1955-483: The Christmas season and the studio had decided not to begin full marketing for Antz until after Prince of Egypt was released. Disney afterward announced release dates for films that were going to compete with The Prince of Egypt , and both studios had to compete with Paramount Pictures , which was releasing The Rugrats Movie in November, based on Nickelodeon 's animated series Rugrats . Katzenberg suddenly moved

2040-521: The Great (1997), Fishing (1999) and Fat Cat on a Diet (1999). This character group set the company in a new direction that set the basis for development goals during this period. The short films were a way to develop animation techniques, as well as being a test for software and pipeline procedures and flow. Pacific Data Images allowed animators to pursue individual products and shorts. This produced several award-winning short films in this category. Some of

2125-563: The Jade Scorpion . In 1988, Walt Disney Feature Animation pitched a film called Army Ants , about a pacifist worker ant teaching lessons of independent thinking to his militaristic colony. Years later, Jeffrey Katzenberg , then chairman of Disney's film division , had left the company in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner over the vacant president position after the death of Frank Wells . Katzenberg would later go on to help co-found DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen , and

2210-579: The PDI studio, but they also assisted in DWA projects based in the Glendale DWA studio. By the time Pacific Data Images reached its 25th anniversary in 2005, it had completed more than 1,000 projects, and grown to more than 400 employees. In 2008, Richard Chuang, the last of the founding three, left the company to pursue his own ventures. In July 2012, PDI/DreamWorks moved to a larger office building with about 200,000 square feet (19,000 m) of interior space in

2295-569: The Queen and the workers at the opening ceremony. Bala warns the Queen while Z attempts to stop the workers in time, but fails. Z and Bala unify the Queen and workers into building a ladder towards the surface as the water rises. Meanwhile, Mandible gathers the soldiers on the surface and gloats he has created a new colony, where only the strong survive. When the worker ants break through the surface, Cutter betrays Mandible and rescues them. Enraged, Mandible attempts to tackle Cutter, but Z intervenes and takes

2380-534: The Third , Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa , Megamind , Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted , Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Penguins of Madagascar . PDI also did provided additional animation, effects, and lighting support for Over the Hedge , along with production services for Home . With $ 441.2 million in domestic box-office ticket sales, Shrek 2 is the sixteenth highest-grossing animated film of all time in

2465-461: The aforementioned rig removal and cleanup, and performance animation. During this era, Pacific Data Images transitioned from the Ridge32 computer to SGI workstations, running IRIX . They were not alone in this transition, for most of the industry followed suit. In early 1990, Tim Johnson and Rex Grignon officially formed Pacific Data Images's Character Animation Group, with the mandate to develop

2550-422: The ant colony, Z must combine his desire for purpose with his inner strength to save everyone. Development began in 1988 when Walt Disney Feature Animation pitched a film called Army Ants , about a pacifist worker ant teaching lessons of independent thinking to his militaristic colony. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Katzenberg had left the company in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner over the vacant president position after

2635-852: The blow. He and Mandible fall back into the flooded tunnel, with Mandible striking a root and dying on impact. Z nearly drowns, but is rescued by Cutter and resuscitated by Bala. Z is praised for his heroism, and he and Bala become a couple. Together, they rebuild the colony, and Z narrates that he is finally content with his place in the world. The camera then zooms out to show the anthill is in Central Park in New York City . The cast features several actors from films Allen wrote, starred in and directed, including Stone ( Stardust Memories ), Stallone ( Bananas ), Hackman ( Another Woman ), and Walken ( Annie Hall ). Aykroyd later co-starred in Allen's The Curse of

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2720-449: The business of TV motion graphics and logo animation. PDI designed some early show openings and other special projects for Rede Globo. The software written was also given to Rede Globo and is the only time the in-house software was given to another company. The contract ended in the mid-1980s, but Rede Globo continued to use the software until 1989. Most of the 1980s were spent creating broadcast graphics for many television networks around

2805-550: The colony with Bala as his Queen. Seeing Z's desperation at finding Bala gone, a drunken Chip, mourning over Muffy's death, flies Z back to the colony. When Z arrives, Mandible's soldiers forcibly direct him toward the Mega Tunnel. Along the way, he finds Bala held captive in Mandible's office. After he frees her, they both discover that Mandible's Mega Tunnel leads straight to the puddle next to Insectopia, which Mandible will use to drown

2890-420: The computer-generated characters in the otherwise live-action special. This became PDI's first 3D Character Animation pipeline. Using this pipeline, they created a 3D stereo Daffy Duck for Warner Bros. , and a CG Homer and Bart Simpson for the "Homer" segment of the 1995 The Simpsons episode, " Treehouse of Horror VI ". The result of these projects was a movie deal with DreamWorks SKG in 1995 to make

2975-510: The concept and architecture of the PDI animation system. This award, in particular, recognized their pioneering work in computer animation, dating back to the founding of PDI 17 years earlier. Nick Foster was given an award in 1998 for PDI's fluid animation system (flu), and in 2002, Dick Walsh was given one for the development of PDI's Facial Animation System. In 2010, Eric Tabellion and Arnauld Lamorlette were given an award for PDI's global illumination rendering system first used on Shrek 2 . It

3060-541: The day so the entire company could go see it. Jobs and Katzenberg would not back down and the rivaling ant films provoked a press frenzy. "The bad guys rarely win," Jobs told the Los Angeles Times . In response, DreamWorks' head of marketing Terry Press stated, "Steve Jobs should take a pill." Despite the successful box office performances of both films, tensions would remain high between Jobs and Katzenberg for many years. According to Jobs, Katzenberg came to Jobs after

3145-615: The death of Frank Wells . Katzenberg would later go on to help co-found DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen , and the three planned to rival Disney with the company's new animation division. Production began in May 1996, after production had already commenced on The Prince of Egypt (1998). DreamWorks had contracted Pacific Data Images (PDI) in Palo Alto, California , to begin working on computer-animated films to rival Pixar 's features. Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell composed

3230-435: The digging crew and falls in love with Z's co-worker, Azteca. Z returns home and is mistakenly hailed as a war hero. Secretly dissatisfied, Mandible congratulates him and introduces him to the Queen. There, Z meets Bala, who recognizes him as a worker. Z panics and pretends to take Bala hostage; he flees with Bala, but they end up falling out of the anthill via a garbage chute. Now a fugitive, Z decides to search for Insectopia,

3315-412: The direct-to-video unit with the feature animation, the sequel was still planned, but eventually the project was cancelled. Field (video) In video , a field is one of the many still images displayed sequentially to create the impression of motion on the screen. Normally, two fields comprise one video frame , in what is known as 2:1 interlacing. 3:1, 4:1 and 5:1 interlacing also exist. When

3400-405: The discarded field. Since each field contains only half of the information of a full frame, however, deinterlaced images do not have the resolution of a full frame. Sometimes in interlaced video a field is called a frame which can lead to confusion. To increase the resolution of video images, new schemes have been created that capture full-frame images for each frame. Video composed of such frames

3485-552: The early production contracts included Globo , Entertainment Tonight (produced for Harry Marks), ABC Sports 84 Olympic promos, and NBC News. Pacific Data Images worked with Atari , also in Sunnyvale, in the early 1980s on a couple of projects. In 1982, Rosendahl was hired to set up and calibrate Atari's computer animation film recorder system that would be used for video game footage in Superman III . Pacific Data Images proposed

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3570-427: The fact that everyone in the colony, including his psychiatrist , reminds him of his insignificance. While at the local bar one night, Z falls in love with the colony's princess Bala when she visits the bar to escape her suffocating royal life. Meanwhile, the ant colony declares war on an encroaching termite colony, and soldiers are sent to engage the invaders. To see Bala again, Z exchanges places with his best friend,

3655-425: The fields are displayed on a video monitor they are " interlaced " so that the content of one field will be used on all of the odd-numbered lines on the screen, and the other field will be displayed on the even lines. Converting fields to a still frame image requires a process called deinterlacing , in which the missing lines are duplicated or interpolated to recreate the information that would have been contained in

3740-422: The film a score of 73 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert praised the film, saying that it is "sharp and funny". The variety of themes, interesting visuals, and voice acting were each aspects of the film that were praised. Ebert's partner, Gene Siskel , greatly enjoyed

3825-474: The film and preferred it over A Bug's Life . Siskel later ranked it No. 7 on his picks of the Best Films of 1998. A direct-to-video sequel was in development at DreamWorks at the time of the release of Antz . Like the first film, it was planned to be produced by Pacific Data Images, and was also considered for theatrical release. By early 1999, when DreamWorks closed its television animation unit and merged

3910-424: The film, rather than an encoded version from the original files. A special edition version was released on February 14, 2003. The film was released on Blu-ray on October 16, 2018 for the film's 20th anniversary. The film topped the box office in its opening weekend ahead of Rush Hour and What Dreams May Come , earning $ 17,195,160 for a $ 7,021 average from 2,449 theatres. It surpassed Stargate to have

3995-432: The film. Lasseter claimed that if DreamWorks and PDI had made the film about anything other than insects, he would have closed Pixar for the day so the entire company could go see it. Jobs and Katzenberg would not back down and the rivaling ant films provoked a press frenzy. "The bad guys rarely win," Jobs told the Los Angeles Times . In response, DreamWorks' head of marketing Terry Press suggested, "Steve Jobs should take

4080-523: The first figure was doubted by the film industry, considering that other computer-animated films at the time cost twice that amount, and that the budget did not include start-up costs of PDI. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes , the film has an approval rating of 92% based on 92 reviews and an average rating of 7.60/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Featuring a stellar voice cast, technically dazzling animation, and loads of good humor, Antz should delight both children and adults." Metacritic gave

4165-444: The following films: Antz Antz is a 1998 American animated adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Pictures , DreamWorks Animation , and Pacific Data Images , and distributed by the former via DreamWorks Distribution. It was directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson (in their feature directorial debuts) from a screenplay written by Todd Alcott and the writing team of Chris and Paul Weitz . The film stars

4250-504: The highest October opening weekend. This record would last for two years until it was beaten by Meet the Parents in 2000. In its second weekend, the film held the top spot again, with a slippage of only 14% to $ 14.7 million for a $ 5,230 average and expanding to 2,813 sites. It held well also in its third weekend, slipping only 24% to $ 11.2 million and finishing in third place, for a $ 3,863 average from 2,903 theatres. The film's widest release

4335-454: The more notable productions are Opéra Industriel (1986), Chromosaurus , Cosmic Zoom (1985), Burning Love (1988) and Locomotion (1989). By 1992, Pacific Data Images was looking for a partner to produce feature-length animated films. In the meantime, the company (with help from Lucasfilm 's Industrial Light & Magic ) worked on the 1991 TV special, The Last Halloween , for Hanna-Barbera Productions , which won an Emmy Award for

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4420-404: The movie Antz . At this time, DreamWorks purchased a 40% share of PDI. Glen Entis left PDI for the game industry in 1995, joining DreamWorks Interactive as CEO. When Electronic Arts purchased DreamWorks Interactive, he moved to their Vancouver office to set up its next-generation games research group. He is a founding board member of Los Angeles's Digital Coast Roundtable, and is chairman of

4505-447: The music for the film, marking their first animated film. During its production, a controversial public feud erupted between Katzenberg of DreamWorks and Steve Jobs and John Lasseter of Pixar, due to the production of their similar film A Bug's Life , which was released a month later. The feud worsened when Disney refused to avoid competition with DreamWorks' intended first animated release, The Prince of Egypt . Antz premiered at

4590-449: The music, but he was too busy with The Prince of Egypt among other projects. Instead, Zimmer suggested two composers from his studio — either Harry Gregson-Williams or John Powell — both of whom had already collaborated on Egypt . On December 23, 1997, a teaser trailer for Antz , depicting the opening scene with Z in an ant psychiatrist office, first played in theaters in front of select prints of As Good as It Gets . Anticipation

4675-408: The old friendships that had arisen from working in computer animation for years before feature films. The final product of both films are generally perceived to contrast one another in tone and certain plot points. Antz in the end seemed to be more geared towards older audiences, featuring moderate violence, mild sexual innuendoes, and profanity, as well as social and political satire. A Bug's Life

4760-422: The opening of Antz from March 1999 to October 1998, in order to successfully beat A Bug's Life into cinemas. David Price writes in his 2008 book The Pixar Touch that a rumor, "never confirmed", was that Katzenberg had given PDI "rich financial incentives to induce them to whatever it would take to have Antz ready first, despite Pixar's head start". Jobs furiously called Katzenberg to explain that there

4845-603: The person responsible for the Antz pitch. Lasseter, who normally did not use profane language, cursed at Katzenberg and hung up the phone. Lasseter recalled that Katzenberg began explaining that Disney was "out to get him" and Lasseter felt that he was cannon fodder in Katzenberg's fight with Disney. For his part, Katzenberg believed he was the victim of a conspiracy: Eisner had decided not to pay him his contract-required bonus, convincing Disney's board not to give him anything. Katzenberg

4930-544: The production of A Bug's Life , a public feud erupted between DreamWorks ' Jeffrey Katzenberg , and Pixar's Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. Katzenberg, former chairman of Disney's film division, had left the company in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner. In response, he formed DreamWorks SKG with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen and planned to rival Disney in animation. After DreamWorks' acquisition of Pacific Data Images (PDI)—long Pixar's contemporary in computer animation—Lasseter and others at Pixar were dismayed to learn from

5015-509: The proposition, but Katzenberg denied these charges later. As the release dates for both films approached, Disney executives concluded that Pixar should keep silent on the DreamWorks battle. Regardless, Lasseter publicly dismissed Antz as a "schlock version" of A Bug's Life . Lasseter, who claimed to have never seen Antz , told others that if DreamWorks and PDI had made the film about anything other than insects, he would have closed Pixar for

5100-408: The rendering was done on fields at 60 or 50 frames per second (depending on the video broadcasting standard used locally). As one of the first mass producers of computer animation, Pacific Data Images controlled a large percentage of this market during this time. One year producing two major networks' graphics packages meant specifically rendered images for over 400 local television stations. Some of

5185-601: The same office complex at Pacific Shores Center. It was about one-third larger than the previous building and featured "an on-site clinic for a doctor’s office and nutritionist, a larger cafe and more outdoor space with gas heaters" to allow for "hanging outside year-round". On January 22, 2015, PDI/DreamWorks was shuttered as part of its parent company's restructuring plans following the box-office underperformance of 2014's Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Penguins of Madagascar , cutting off 500 jobs. PDI/DreamWorks produced Antz , Shrek , Shrek 2 , Madagascar , Shrek

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5270-476: The studio's foliage (trees and vegetation) system. The system was first used on Shrek . At the ceremony, Karl Rasche was awarded with engineers from HP for his part in the creation of the "DreamColor" monitor. Richard Chuang, Rahul Thakkar, Mark Kirk and Stewart Birnam, with DreamWorks engineer Andrew Pilgrim, won a 2016 SciTech technical achievement award for their work on digital movie review systems. PDI contributed visual effects, animation and other services to

5355-442: The success of Shrek (2001) and insisted he had never heard the pitch for A Bug's Life , reasoning that his settlement with Disney would have given him a share of the profits if that were so. Although the contention left all parties estranged, Pixar and PDI employees kept up the old friendships that had arisen from spending a long time together in computer animation. At the time, the current Disney studio executives were starting

5440-832: The three planned to rival Disney with the company's new animation division . Katzenberg at DreamWorks began developing projects he tried to pursue or suggested while at Disney, including The Prince of Egypt , a collaboration with Aardman Animations which resulted in Chicken Run , Sinbad , and Army Ants . Also many ideas for the film were borrowed from a scrapped PDI film pitch for a computer-animated film from 1991 called Bugs: Lights Out about microscopic robots that take apart machinery. Production began in May 1996, after production had already commenced on The Prince of Egypt . DreamWorks had contracted Pacific Data Images (PDI) in Palo Alto, California to begin working on computer-animated films to rival Pixar 's features. Woody Allen

5525-398: The trade papers that PDI's first project at DreamWorks would be another ant film, to be called Antz . By this time, Pixar's project was well known within the animation community. Both Antz and A Bug's Life center on a young male ant, a drone with oddball tendencies that struggles to win a princess's hand by saving their society. Whereas A Bug's Life relied chiefly on visual gags, Antz

5610-432: The voices of Woody Allen , Sharon Stone , Jennifer Lopez , Sylvester Stallone , Christopher Walken , Dan Aykroyd , Anne Bancroft , Danny Glover and Gene Hackman . Some of the main characters share facial similarities with the actors who voice them. The film involves an anxious worker ant, Z (Allen), who falls in love with Princess Bala (Stone). When the arrogant General Mandible (Hackman) attempts to seize control of

5695-433: The world. PDI was working concurrently for ABC , A&E CBS , NBC , HBO , Cinemax , MTV , PBS , VH1 , TNT , WOR-TV , Nine Network Australia , Sky One , Showtime and USA Network . PDI focused on direct-to-video production, as opposed to film output being done at other early studios. PDI modified the interface to a Sony BVH-2000 using parts put together from a trip to a toy store to do single-frame recording. All

5780-450: Was 2,929 theatres, and closed on February 18, 1999. The film altogether picked up $ 90,757,863 domestically, but failed to outgross the competition with A Bug's Life . The film picked up an additional $ 81 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $ 171.8 million. According to DreamWorks, the film's budget was about $ 42 million, while the numbers $ 60 million and $ 105 million were also reported. According to Los Angeles Times ,

5865-507: Was 512 by 480 by 24 (8 bits for red, green and blue channels), which took two minutes to render. The PDP-11 was soon replaced by a DEC VAX-11/780 , and PDI shifted to another superminicomputer called the Ridge 32 from Ridge Computers . This machine was 2-to-4 times faster than the VAX-11/780, at a fraction of the cost. The original in-house software evolved to a large suite of tools that included

5950-516: Was a DEC PDP 11/44 , with 128 kilobytes of memory. This was a lot of memory, given that the computer had only 64 kilobytes (16-bits) of address space. It had a 20 megabyte disc. Attached was a $ 65,000 framebuffer that had a resolution of 512×512 and was 32 bits deep. The first 3D image rendered at PDI was done March 12, 1982. The image was simply a 4 by 4 by 4 grid of spheres of varying colors. The spheres were not polygonal; they were implicitly rendered and were fully anti-aliased. The resulting image

6035-424: Was cast in the lead role of Z, and much of Allen's trademark humor is present within the film. Allen made some uncredited rewrites to the script, to make the dialogue better fit his style of comedic timing. An altered line from one of his early directed films, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) was included – "I was going to include you in my most erotic fantasies..." During

6120-469: Was founded in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl with a $ 25,000 loan from his father. He was joined in 1981 by Richard Chuang, and in 1982 by Glenn Entis. Richard and Glenn wrote the foundation of the in-house computer animation software that was to be used for the next two decades. They started work on 3D software at 1981's end, and 3D production started in fall 1982. The initial goal of the company was "Entertainment using 3D computer animation". The first computer at PDI

6205-511: Was further angered by the fact that Eisner scheduled Bugs to open the same week as The Prince of Egypt , which was then intended to be DreamWorks' first animated release. Lasseter relayed the news to Pixar employees but kept morale high. Privately, Lasseter told other Pixar executives that he and Stanton felt let down by Katzenberg. Katzenberg moved the opening of Antz from spring 1999 to October 1998 to compete with Pixar's release. David Price writes in his 2008 book The Pixar Touch that

6290-406: Was generally high with adults rather than families and children. Antz premiered at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival on September 19, 1998, and entered wide release on October 2, 1998. Antz was released on VHS and DIVX on February 9, 1999, and on DVD on March 23, becoming the first feature-length CGI-animated film to be available on DVD. The original release used a 35mm print of

6375-457: Was more family-friendly and lighthearted in tone and story. The two films especially differ in their artistic look: Antz played off more realistic aspects of ants and how they relate to other bugs, like termites and wasps, while A Bug's Life offered a more fanciful look at insects to better suit its story. PopMatters journalist J.C. Maçek III compared the two films and wrote, "The feud deepened with both teams making accusations and excuses and

6460-427: Was more verbal and revolved more around satire. The script of Antz was also heavy with adult references, whereas Pixar's film was more accessible to children. Lasseter and Jobs believed that the idea was stolen by Katzenberg. Katzenberg had stayed in touch with Lasseter after the acrimonious Disney split, often calling to check up. In October 1995, when Lasseter was overseeing postproduction work on Toy Story at

6545-412: Was never taken out of the company, which maintained a 7% investment in research and development. PDI was debt-free when acquired by DreamWorks in 2000. Pacific Data Images's first client was Rede Globo , Brazil's largest TV network, owned by Grupo Globo through its current Globo division. This gave PDI the major client it needed to fund the creation of most of its early software. This also sent PDI into

6630-616: Was nothing he could do to convince Disney to change the date. Katzenberg responded that Jobs had taught him how to conduct similar business long ago, explaining that Jobs had come to Pixar's rescue by making the deal for Toy Story , as Pixar was near bankruptcy at that time. Katzenberg said, "I was the one guy there for you back then, and now you're allowing them to use you to screw me." He suggested that if Jobs wanted to, he could slow down production on A Bug's Life without telling Disney. If he did, Katzenberg said, he would put Antz on hold. Lasseter also claimed Katzenberg had phoned him with

6715-443: Was nothing he could do to convince Disney to change the date. Katzenberg said to him that Jobs himself had taught him how to conduct similar business long ago, explaining that Jobs had come to Pixar's rescue from near bankruptcy by making the deal for Toy Story with Disney. He told Jobs that he had enough power with Disney to convince them to change specific plans on their films. Lasseter also claimed Katzenberg had phoned him with

6800-592: Was renamed PDI/DreamWorks and continued to operate as a stand-alone business unit. Rosendahl left PDI in February 2000 to become managing director for Mobius Venture Capital, where he focused on investments in the technology and media companies. In May 2001, the sale essentially united the two studios, PDI and DreamWorks, into a single entity that went public a few years later as DreamWorks Animation (DWA). PDI stopped making commercials and visual effects for live-action films in 2002. Animators at PDI worked on projects based at

6885-472: Was telling friends throughout the tight-knit computer-animation business to get cracking on their own films. He told various friends, "If this hits, it's going to be like space movies after Star Wars " for computer animation companies. Lasseter later recalled, "I should have been wary. Jeffrey kept asking questions about when it would be released." When the trades indicated production on Antz , Lasseter, feeling betrayed, called Katzenberg and asked him if it

6970-548: Was the SGI IRIX software called "Elastic Reality". PDI also did the opening sequence for the 1990s revival of the classic game show, Let's Make a Deal . Pacific Data Images broke into the feature film visual effects business with contributions to Terminator 2 , Toys , Angels in the Outfield , Batman Forever and The Arrival . At the time, the strengths of PDI included character animation, lip synch, rendering effects,

7055-449: Was the first company to move an established icon to CGI . Previously, animated commercials with stop-motion include the " Bud Bowl " and " Scrubbing Bubbles " spots. Early in the 1990s, Thaddeus Beier and Shawn Neely developed a method for morphing that resulted in a more natural and expressive morph. The technique is called "feature-based morphing". Pacific Data Images used this technology to create various well-known sequences, including

7140-452: Was the first use of global illumination in an animated feature film, a technique that is commonplace today. In 2013, Lawrence Kesteloot, Drew Olbrich and Daniel Wexler were given an award for PDI's lighting tool, called "light". The tool was developed in 1996 for PDI's first feature film, Antz , and was used until 2015 at PDI and DreamWorks Animation, 25 films later. In 2015, Scott Peterson, Jeff Budsberg and Jonathan Gibbs were awarded for

7225-494: Was true, who in turn asked him where he had heard the rumor. Lasseter asked again, and Katzenberg admitted it was true. Lasseter raised his voice and would not believe Katzenberg's story that a development director had pitched him the idea long ago. Katzenberg claimed Antz came from a 1991 story pitch by Tim Johnson that was related to Katzenberg in October 1994. Another source gives Nina Jacobson , one of Katzenberg's executives, as

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