Zitat des Tages von Edwin Catmull:
We have a whole industry which is gigantic: games. Games is very successful. It's its own art form, though, and it's not the same as a linear narrative.
Sometimes a leap of faith doesn't pan out.
It is only by trying new things that we can hope to create products that are original. Don't just say those words; act like you believe them.
In life,you're going to have risk, so you have to say, 'My attitude going forward is how to I fix the problem.' And it's not trying to cling onto the past. When I look around, most problems happen because people are trying to cling onto the past.
We have to evolve, we have to change, and in order to do that, we have to initiate the change.
After Pixar's 2006 merger with the Walt Disney Company, its CEO, Bob Iger, asked me, chief creative officer John Lasseter, and other Pixar senior managers to help him revive Disney Animation Studios. The success of our efforts prompted me to share my thinking on how to build a sustainable creative organization.
It is not the manager's job to prevent risks. It is the manager's job to make it safe to take them.
Communication needs to be between anybody at any time, which means it needs to happen out of the structure and out of order.
If you're a director presenting a new idea, and the person who can judge whether or not it goes ahead is in the room, that makes you somewhat defensive.
Programmers are very creative people. And animators are problem solvers, just as programmers are.
At Pixar, we believe strongly that filmmakers should develop ideas they are passionate about. This may sound like a no-brainer, but in fact in Hollywood, the big movie studios have whole departments devoted to acquiring and developing projects that will only later be paired with a director-for-hire.
I actually feel awkward being at the center of attention.
I liked the first 'Kung Fu Panda.'
What happened in the early days of Disney is that Walt Disney used all of the new technologies as they came out. When matting came out, they adopted it. They adopted sound and color and xerography. Walt did that. And then, when he died, people began to think that this is just about making films, so they stopped bringing in new technologies.
Virtual reality's been around for 40 years. People have been talking about storytelling in that world for all these years, and there have been experiments around of people trying to do that, and always excited about it.
I know that with most companies that have a lot of success, it tends to throw you off, and you can become more conservative. One of our questions is, How do we keep from being pulled into conservatism because we're afraid of not being successful again?
One reason for keeping Disney animation separate from Pixar was that by solving their own problems when they finished a film, Disney could say, 'Nobody bailed us out; we did it.' And it's a very important social thing for them to do that.
I apply the term 'creativity' broadly... it's problem solving. We are all faced with problems, and we have to address them and think of something new, and that's where creativity comes in.
I can't look at 'WALL-E' or 'Finding Nemo' or 'Up' and look at in the same way as people outside of the company would look at it. Each one of them had angst.
Look at the computer industry. I've watched a lot of companies come and go, some that were right at the pinnacle of their success.
The Braintrust developed organically out of the rare working relationship among the five men who led and edited the production of 'Toy Story' - John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and Joe Ranft.
Pixar is a community in the true sense of the word. We think that lasting relationships matter, and we share some basic beliefs: Talent is rare.
Creative ideas aren't like Jenga blocks, where they fall apart and you've got to start from scratch, though it can feel that way.
We encourage our people to build their ideas from scratch, and we give them the resources - and, crucially, the candid feedback - that are required to transform the first wisps of a story into a truly compelling film.
Believe me, sequels are just as hard to make as original films.
If you see a bad live action film, what are the conclusions you draw? Typically, it is that they made a bunch of mistakes, a bad script, wrong casting. You get into 2D, and you get a few films that are not strong films. And what is the conclusion? That it's 2D? I beg to differ. It's a convenient excuse, but it's just wrong.
We'll fund a project even if I'm skeptical because I'd rather be proven wrong by somebody on the inside than by somebody on the outside.
One term that's used in this industry a lot is this notion of 'feeding the beast.' You've got all of these people whose livelihoods are dependent on it. There are enormous pressures to keep material going into it, and the pressures to feed it are not irrational. They're the basis of your business.
As I look back on my career, I had a goal, which was to build the first feature computer-animated film.
One of Pixar's key mechanisms is the Braintrust, which we rely on to push us toward excellence and to root out mediocrity. It is our primary delivery system for straight talk.
The need to challenge the status quo is just more obvious when you're failing than when you're succeeding. But it's no less urgent.
If you put out 20 films, you hope that a number are successful. It's like human reproduction versus frog reproduction. Frogs produce thousands and hope a few succeed. Humans don't produce many babies but put a lot of energy into them, which is kind of where we are. They still don't always succeed, but you try a lot harder.
When I see a film, I'll remember that there was a time when it wasn't working, and there was some pain and angst in order to get it to work.
Everything's interconnected. That's the way life is.
When I was young, it was television that was taking off, and so you had people worried that people were spending too much time watching television.
The desire to avoid meltdowns actually is one of the things that screws up live-action films.