What are the necessary skills to obtain a job doing computer animation for one of the big computer companies in California? Who are the top three production houses?

Many different skills are needed to pursue a career doing computer animation for any type of situation. Our group reviewed numerous websites as well as talked with a few graphic designers. After this research, we discovered that the number one thing that most companies are looking for is lots and lots of experience. The experience differs from job to job. Most look for anywhere from 3-10 years of programming/3D design experience. Most of the companies we checked into focused more on real world experience instead of which school you attended or your GPA. Most asked for skills involving MAYA, 3D Studio Max, Renderman, Photoshop, After Effects, and other packages, however they stressed that they do not hire based on what software you know. The first and most important part of an application to a 3D animation job is your demo reel. This has all your best work featured on it, and it is what these companies look at first and foremost. After our research we came to the conclusion that the three biggest animation studios are: Pixar, makers of Monsters Inc., Dreamworks, creators of Shrek, and Industrial Light and Magic, the magicians behind the magic of the new Star Wars Movies. For Monsters Inc. Pixar's RenderFarm, was comprised of 250 Sun Enterprise 4500 servers running Solaris. Each server use 14 UltraSPARC processors. 14 gigs of Ram and 196 gigs of Disk space (hard drive space). This brought the Farm total to 3,500 processors using about 4 terrabytes of main memory. It's this kind of power that puts Pixar in its rank. At DreamWorks, the renderfarm used to create Shrek had around 1,100 processors. In addition to a large supply of processor power, a colossal amount of storage space is needed. Shrek used 6 terrabytes of disk space. Industrial Light and Magic brought us Star Wars Episode II, what else do you need to put them in the top three?
   So, to summarize, to get a job at one of these powerhouses you need a solid demo reel and a resume with plenty of programming and 3D experience. Any software packages you know are bonuses but not usually required.