Pixar, sometimes referred to as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American computer animation

film studio based in Emeryville, California. Pixar is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.
Luxo Jr., a character from the 1986 short film of the same name, is the studio's mascot.

Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Lucasfilm computer division, before its
spin-out as a corporation in 1986, with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who
became the majority shareholder. Disney purchased Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4
billion, a transaction that resulted in Jobs becoming Disney's largest single shareholder at the
time.

Pixar is best known for CGI-animated feature films created with RenderMan, Pixar's own
implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application
programming interface used to generate high-quality images.

Pixar has produced 17 feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995), which was the first-ever
computer-animated feature film, and its most recent being Finding Dory (2016). All 17 films
have debuted with CinemaScore ratings of at least "A−," indicating positive receptions with
audiences. The studio has also produced several short films. As of October 2016, its feature
films have made $10.8 billion worldwide, with an average worldwide gross of $634 million per
film. Finding Dory, along with its predecessor Finding Nemo (2003) as well as Toy Story 3
(2010), are among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, with Toy Story 3 being the third
all-time highest animated film with a gross of $1.063 billion, behind Walt Disney Animation
Studios' Frozen (2013) and Illumination Entertainment's Minions (2015), which grossed $1.276
billion and $1.159 billion respectively in their initial releases as of 2016. Fourteen of Pixar's
films are also among the 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time.

The studio has earned sixteen Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and eleven
Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Most of Pixar's films
have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since its
inauguration in 2001, with eight winning; this includes Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3, along
with The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), Brave (2012), and
Inside Out (2015). Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Cars (2006) are the only two films that were
nominated for the award without winning it, while Cars 2 (2011), Monsters University (2013),
and The Good Dinosaur (2015) are the only three not to be nominated. Up and Toy Story 3
were also the second and third animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for
Best Picture, the first being Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991).

When Steve Jobs, chief executive officer of Apple Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios, and John
Lasseter, then the executive vice president of Pixar, decided to move their studios from a
leased space in Point Richmond, California, to larger quarters of their own, they chose a 20-
acre site in Emeryville, California. The building has special foundations and generators to
ensure continued film production, even through major earthquakes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar
Marshall Amplification is an English company that designs and manufactures music
amplifiers, speaker cabinets and brands personal headphones/earphones. It was founded by
drum shop owner and drummer Jim Marshall, and is now based in Bletchley, Milton Keynes.

Marshall's guitar amplifiers are among the most recognised in the world. They are known for
their Marshall "crunch". This sound was conceived by Marshall after guitarists, such as Pete
Townshend, visiting Marshall's drum shop complained that the guitar amplifiers then on the
market didn't have the right sound or enough volume. After gaining a lot of publicity,
Marshall guitar amplifiers and loudspeaker cabinets were sought by guitarists for this new
sound and increased volume.

After a successful career as a drummer and teacher of drum technique, Jim Marshall first
went into business in 1962 with a small shop in Hanwell, London, selling drums, cymbals and
drum-related accessories; Marshall himself also gave drum lessons. According to Jim, Ritchie
Blackmore, Big Jim Sullivan and Pete Townshend were the three main guitarists who often
came into the shop and pushed Marshall to make guitar amplifiers and told him the sound
and design they wanted. Marshall Ltd. then expanded, hired designers and started making
guitar amplifiers to compete with existing amplifiers, the most notable of which at the time
were the Fender amplifiers imported from America. These were very popular with guitarists
and bass players, but were very expensive.

Today, Marshall is the leading manufacturer of guitar amplifiers worldwide. The products are
designed and made in Bletchley, England by a team of musicians and technicians. Marshall
also operates production sites in China and South Korea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Amplification