DREAMWORKS ANIMATION

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. is an American animation studio that creates animated feature films and television programmes. The company was born on October 12^th 1994, and it resides in Glendale, California.

They have created a total of 23 feature films, with their notable works being the franchises of Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda.

On 12^th October 1994, DreamWorks SKG was founded and formed by a trio of entertainment players: producer and director Steven Spielberg, former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and music executive David Geffen. This new studio had caught the attention of many artists from Spielberg’s animation studio Amblimation. When their last feature was completed in 1995, they joined DreamWorks, and when the studio shut down for good in 1997, the remains joined DreamWorks.

In 1995, DreamWorks signed a co-production deal with Pacific Data Images to form the subsidiary PDI, LLC. PDI owned 60% of the subsidiary, while DreamWorks SKG owned 40%. This new unit would start producing computer-generated feature films, beginning with Antz in 1998. In the same year, DreamWorks SKG released The Prince of Egypt, which used both traditional animation techniques and CG technology. Both films were positively received by critics and did reasonably well at the box office; Antz grossed $171 million and The Prince of Egypt grossed $218 million.

In 1997, DreamWorks partnered with Aardman Animations, a British stop-motion animation studio, to co-produce and distribute Chicken Run, a stop-motion film already in pre-production. The deal was extended for an additional four films two years later.

In 2000, DreamWorks SKG created a new business division, DreamWorks Animation, which would regularly produce both types of animated feature films: stop-motion and CG. In the same year, DreamWorks obtained the majority interest (90%) in PDI, and reformed it into PDI/DreamWorks for their Northern California branch. The following year, Shrek was released to great critical and commercial success, taking in $484 million at the box office. Not just that, but it also won the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Due to CG success, DreamWorks Animation decided the same year to exit hand-drawn animation. All their films since Shrek 2, except some co-produced with Aardman, have been CG-produced. The release of that film and Shark Tale in 2004 made them the first studio to produce two CG-animated feature films in a single year. That number increased to three in 2010, with How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek Forever After and Megamind.

BLUE SKY STUDIOS

Blue Sky Studios is a subsidiary of 20^TH Century Fox. It is a studio that specializes in high resolution, computer-generated character animation and rendering. It is located in Greenwich, Connecticut. They have created feature-length animation films, and have worked on many high-profile films, particularly those that mix computer-generated animation with live-action.

Blue Sky was founded in February 1987 by Chris Wedge, Carl Ludwig and four other artists and technicians. These people had previously worked on the 1982 Disney film Tron while employed at MAGI/Synthavision. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the studio concentrated on television commercial production and visual effects for film. Blue Sky worked on some memorable commercials during this time, including a Chock Full O’ Nuts spot with a talking coffee bean, and an introduction for a Nickelodeon block called Nicktoons.

In August 1997, 20^TH Century Fox’s Los Angeles-based effects company, VIFX, obtained Blue Sky Studios to form Blue Sky|VIFX. This new company produced visual effects for films that include The X-Files (1998), Blade (1998), Armageddon (1998), Titanic (1997) and Alien Resurrection (1997). In 1998, Chris Wedge produced the Academy Award-winning animated short film Bunny.

Thanks to the f/x market crash, Fox decided to put their visual effects business behind them. In 1999, they sold VIFX to Rhythm & Hues Studios, and then considered selling Blue Sky. At the time, Blue Sky had the script for Ice Age and the studio received the opportunity to turn it into a comedy. In 2002, Ice Age was released and it was a commercial and critical success. The film got a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and established Blue Sky as the third studio, after Pixar and DreamWorks, to launch a successful CGI franchise.

Blue Sky Studios has released six animated feature films, with three upcoming films and more in development:

·       Ice Age (2002)

·       Robots (2005)

·       Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

·       Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! (2008)

·       Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

·       Rio (2011)

·       Ice Age: Continental Drift (July 2012)

·       Leafmen (2013)

·       Rio 2 (2014)

Blue Sky’s six released films so far have taken an overall gross of over $2.4 billion.

ANIMATION STUDIOS

20^TH CENTURY FOX ANIMATION

20^TH Century Fox Animation is the animation division of the film studio 20^TH Century Fox. It was founded in 1997 and owned by News Corporation, with 20^TH Century Fox its parent.

Their industry was traditional animation, CGI animation and motion pictures and they released products such as CGI-animated films and animated television sitcoms.

Their most famous sitcom is The Simpsons, created by Matt Groening, debuting in 1989 and still airing to this day. More famous and popular television sitcoms include King Of The Hill, Family Guy, Futurama, American Dad!, The Cleveland Show and the recent Bob’s Burgers.

Before 20^TH Century Fox started its animation division, they had already released their first six animated films, such as 1977’s Wizards and 1983’s Fire and Ice. They operated Fox Animation Studios starting from 1997, their own traditional animation studio. Not long after that, they were considered competitors to Walt Disney Animation Studios, who were experiencing fantastic, financial and commercial success at the time with films such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.

Unfortunately, Fox was not as successful. Despite their first animation feature Anastasia being critically acclaimed and mistaken at times for a Disney film, it was not commercially successful and barely made a profit, raking in $58 million at the American box office on an estimated $53 million budget. Their next feature Titan A.E. did not fare any better, only taking back $22 million of its estimated $75 million budget. It was a huge financial loss, and with the rise of computer animation, their lack of box office success led to Fox closing down the Fox Animation Studio after 2000, after only three years in the business.