Entrepreneurial chasing animation dream, Carl Rosendahl spent 20 years

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Interview Guest profile: Carl rosendahl,1980 years to create film/animation effects company Pacific Data Image (PDI), in the computer technology is far from reaching the animation standards of the era of "computer production 3D animation film" goal. PDI early relied on the production of major American television program animated images began to become the first batch of American animation company. The transition in the late 80 to film special effects, animated film as the main business. 2000 and Dreamworks Animation department merged into a pdi/dreamworks, providing computer animation core technology, the production of "small Ant Xiong", "Shrek" series, "Madagascar" and other famous animated films. In 2012, the American Visual Effects Association (visual effects powering) awarded Carl the Founder's Award (founder Award). After leaving office, he focused on education and is currently offering entrepreneurial courses at the Center for Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Silicon Valley.

In 1980, Carl Rosendahl, 23, graduated from Stanford Department of Electrical Engineering and wanted to be the first person to make animated films on computers at the time when computers had not yet become a subject. He used his father to fund more than 20,000 dollars to set up a company, but because of insufficient funds to make computer cartoons, only for the television to do the title accumulation technology. 1995, Pixar's "Toy Story" in advance of his dream to achieve success, Carl can only catch up. With more than 15 years of meticulous management, the company to 0 of debt and only on its own profit expansion of the success, and Dreamworks animation department to set up a studio. Relying on the company's animation core technology, studios for the global audience dedicated a number of animated films, "Shrek" is one of them. In an interview with Carl in Silicon Valley, Carl describes and forecasts the yesterdays, today, and future of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs from the perspective of entrepreneurs, investors, and entrepreneurial educators in his own personal experience.

Q: Your first goal is to make a long film of computer animation, but until the company was founded 15 years later to start production of the first animation film "Small Ant Xiong" ("Antz"), 20 years later, "Shrek". Why did it take so long?

carl:1980 I created a PDI after graduating from Stanford University. I like animation and film production, but also love technology, so at that time I studied electrical engineering, because at that time did not even have a computer professional. Using computers to make images and even animated images was a trendy idea at the time, but it was completely impossible to achieve them in 1980. There was no software available at the time, and the computer had not yet developed to the extent that it could make films. So we start from doing radio program images, such as the opening image, 3D animation icon and so on special effects. These help us to acquire the technology and innovation that we need to make computer animations in the future. Later, the computer became faster, cheaper, more developed software, more animation talent, finally we achieve the goal of making animated movies. It was a completely impossible thing when the company was founded, and we had to work very hard to achieve it.

Q: There were several other companies doing computer animation such as Pixar, and what was the industry's competition? What are the advantages of PDI?

Carl: The first 4 or 5 companies were doing the same thing at the same time. We and other companies in order to get the industry in the early days of the business is not much competition, while in order to be able to create this new industry together. We hope that every company can survive, hope that more competitors, so as to prove that the industry has a market, everyone can live. Industry partners are both cooperative and competitive, which is also one of the most beautiful areas of emerging industries. We spend a lot of time creating a good customer experience. We have also spent a lot of effort on the best products, but at the same time we want our customers to be happy with our cooperation, because we hope they will come to us again next time. Even competitors will be able to make the same quality products as ours in the future, but we want customers to say: Yes, we can find a good product, but the PDI experience is good and their employees bring more ideas. We later found that such a culture is very useful, because there are users repeatedly using our products, we also return more creative and efforts to them.

Q: What excellent products did PDI do at that time? Give me an example.

Carl: Michael Jackson's "Black or white" MTV was made by us, causing a sensation at the time. There is a section in which many people of different color, age and sex take turns singing "black or white" and gradually become the next person in the process of singing. For example, a boy sings and sings and becomes a middle-aged woman, then becomes an old man. It was a very cutting-edge technique at the time and a very new attempt on Jackson himself. This MV has greatly enhanced our visibility. (The interested children's shoes can be seen here to start with the Mv:5 in 30 seconds.) There are also many familiar "Terminator 2", in which the villain from the liquid metal into human lens also uses the PDI technology. )

Q: So for today's startups, the advantage you think you need to grasp most is ...?

Carl: Now in Silicon Valley, we can see a lot of competition in the industry, and the last winners are trying to develop the best products. Most of those who have not succeeded have spent too much of their time focusing on their opponents rather than themselves. So in the competition must focus on their products, even if some competitors, they are in the process of fighting for new users to help expand the entire industry.

Q: From the time you created your company to the present, the film special effects Industry (VFX) has evolved from the very beginning to the very mature stage. What are the current and future directions?

Carl: Now the model of VFX industry is completely different, in our start-up time, even 5-10 years ago, the industry is still inventing new tools to solve the technical problems never seen, to bring the audience a new visual experience. Now the situation is completely different, the audience basically see the visual effects can reach the limit, it is difficult to invent the technology that has not been completely. Many special effects work has been replicated, many companies provide similar services, so customers generally only choose the lowest price. Now is not the quality of the problem, many companies can achieve high quality, what is needed is lower prices, faster, which makes the industry's focus has changed. On the basis of globalisation, there are a lot of special effects that have shifted from California to Asian countries with low labour costs, and are now being shifted to those countries by Britain, New Zealand, and Australia's low tax incentives for digital entertainment. In my opinion, the future of this industry has two directions, the first is to merge the production of large companies. Such companies set up production bases around the world based on tax policies of different countries, mobilizing global resources to reduce production costs and get large orders. Another interesting trend is the change in production patterns. Now using cloud computing, individuals from different locations can work together. Just like a virtual production organization, it only exists when the project is over and the organization is dissolved. It is still difficult to achieve such a mode of production, but also need to resolve how members communicate, how to track the progress of work, how to effectively discuss new ideas and so on. But I believe the future will come true. We hope to see effective, high-quality, Low-cost solutions in the future, and preferably provide a good quality of life for practitioners.

Q: What industries in the 1980-year-old computer graphics production industry are similar in 2014? How long do they need to grow up?

Carl: There's a lot of technology now similar to the state of a computer image in the 1980: You can imagine it, but it's not going to happen. For example, there are more than 40 years of augmented reality in the novel (Augmented Reality): In a fantasy world, you wear a pair of glasses, what you see is not a pure virtual world, but a digital analog information of the real world. Google Glass is in the early stages of the concept of adding data and information to the real world. In the future, we will not only overlay text messages, 2D maps in the real world, we'll eventually see and communicate with virtual characters--that's what makes me excited. But not yet, we have no way to see the 3D image with glasses, computer computing power is not enough to store so much 3D data in enough portable devices, battery life is not enough. But technology will solve everything, and ultimately these will come true, and it is important how to accumulate technology and innovative ideas.

Q: 2000 years or so you have experienced the bursting of the dotcom bubble as an investor. In recent years, the global focus on Silicon Valley has even surpassed that of bubbles, and is the current environment of Silicon Valley making it easier or harder to succeed?

Carl: Success has never been easier. But one thing: now the entrepreneurial team, if done well, can use a shorter time to find out if they can survive. The experience of the past is that a team needs to survive for 3 years before there is a greater hope of success. But now the observation time has been shortened a lot. Overall, despite the huge number of entrepreneurial teams in Silicon Valley, few of them have been able to achieve real success. There is a lot of resemblance to what happens before the first bubble burst, as everyone talks about startups. But there's a big difference: In 2000 we were thinking about what the Internet was, and now the pattern of making an Internet product is completely different. The first round of the internet bubble formation, the development of a website also need to invest a lot of financial resources, human resources, including the construction of e-commerce sites when everyone scratching their scalp in the hope that credit card how to brush money online. Now the mechanism for developing an internet company is quite different, and there are already a lot of off-the-shelf software that helps entrepreneurs build prototypes in a very short time. Now the start-up companies are small, very fast, the cost of testing the feasibility of the product is very low.

Q: Will the number of such large startups bring the next bubble?

Carl: God, I don't think I have seniority to answer this question. I can casually say: Of course, is now, right in front of. But it is quite possible that this is the wrong conclusion. I felt a bubble myself because sometimes I saw some ideas and thought, "This is really bad, and I don't think I can get a raise at all." But it is possible that my view is wrong, because the mode of entrepreneurship that is now and the first round of bubbles has changed too much. And now the cost of failure is very small, you can get up immediately, of course, the prerequisite is that you are smart enough, if not smart enough to be a big somersault.

Q: Now you have left your company and come to college to teach entrepreneurship. Why do you make such a choice?

Carl: Actually, I always thought that teaching would be a great thing, ETC when I gave this opportunity, I was thinking: am I qualified? But a few weeks later I have been in the classroom, so it is almost an instant decision. I set up a company at the age of 23, and I was younger than many students in the classroom, and I remember clearly that I had come out of college with some novel ideas to realize that excitement. Now I have the opportunity to be with these young people who want to create new things at such an age, and somehow help them to realize their dreams, which is very interesting to me.

And I can also work with them to explore the latest technology, which is much more interesting than the way investors look at business. The difference between the two roles is that, as the founder of the company, you have to be responsible for all aspects of the company at any time, not 24 hours a day breathing, even if there are many very interesting and incredible feedback. Teaching is of course not so oppressive, but equally interesting. There is the company's boss needs to make a lot of decisions, for the following people decorate very detailed tasks. But teaching is in the opposite way, I need students to learn something, and they need to try to make their own decisions, whether right or wrong.

Sometimes I see a student choosing a path that I think is obviously going wrong, but I'm not going to stop it, and I ask, "Do you think that's going to work?" Do you think that's a good idea? Why do you think so? Sometimes they react. This is a hint, but others insist on their opinions. Just stick to it and let him try. Sometimes it is possible to succeed or fail, but it does not matter, because they can realize that some methods are not workable. In a corporate environment you don't want to give your men too many chances to make mistakes because the cost of the mistake is too great. But what if a student makes the most mistakes in school? We'll clap for him/her. Because he/she gets smarter in the process of making mistakes. That's one of the big reasons I love education.

Q: I heard you still very much like handmade, or a maker (create), create a culture to your life and work to bring what kind of inspiration?

Carl: Look around people who like to do things, their hands often combine technology, art and innovation. This is the original intention of my PDI: I want to use a variety of computer software technology, to produce the past can only hand-made animation. What an interesting thing it is! The whole culture of creation is such a mode of thinking. It's a wonderful process to make something you can touch with your own hand, and it's very fulfilling in the end. When my son was a little boy, I used to watch a TV show with him that made handmade furniture. Once we decided to make a cabinet, buy all the materials, he picked up a saw saw a few wood, suddenly turned his eyes and said: "The taste of wood crumbs how fragrant!" If you often do carpentry, you will know that when sawing wood, you will smell the fragrance. When he finally had the chance to do it himself instead of watching it on TV, he could feel the beauty of the real world and all his senses could be mobilized and entertained. The interesting thing about culture is that we use technology in the digital field to make real objects, such as 3D printing, and the models on the computer can become real objects. We've done a lot of work before to bring the real world into the digital world, and now we're restoring the digital stuff to the real world.

Interview PostScript: In the dilemma of innovators, the author Christensen The emergence, brilliance and decline of an emerging industry by using the short life cycle of the floppy disk manufacturing industry. So did Carl's personal experience. We describe the life cycle of an industry. His mention of Open, self-organizing collaboration is a trend towards the future of many mature industries. I deeply lament Carl's patience, flexibility and independence as he waits for the industry to mature in his start-up. In today's rich resources, technology maturity, a large influx of funds in the entrepreneurial environment, an entrepreneur may not have to spend 15 years to wait for such a long time, also do not rely on their own operating profits to maintain the company's development, but then the entrepreneur to their own vision and goals of perseverance, and dare to walk the courage to go solo, still exciting.