Inside Pixar's Leadership

Anyone who reads this blog knows I have the utmost respect for Ed Catmull and his approaches to leadership of a creativity company.  Ultimately he trusts the artists to do the right thing and he values people.

In this interview, I love that he talks about picking people and pushing them outside their comfort zone...so they will rise to it. I have been both sides of the picking and being picked and it's a great way to get creativity and innovation out of your employees.  

I also love how he handles post mortems.  First of all he values a post mortem as a tool to better production.  5 things you would do again vs. the 5 things you would not do again.  How awesome!  He speaks on protecting the dynamics of leadership you have built while listening to what is not working.  It's important to him to get the honest answers from his employees in order to fix the problems.  To do this, you need a safe environment or else the resentment and distrust will fester.

One of my favorite quotes from the talk is below:

"They don’t want to walk in and embarrass themselves, they don’t want to say anything stupid, they don’t want to offend anyone, so these personal pressures and responses start to emerge. So I do see it happen, and it happened fairly recently, and I walked out, and I knew they weren’t honest. So then you call them in, maybe two or three people, and say why didn’t you say what you thought. And it’s a personal thing. So we have to change the dynamic.  When we have something tricky and that’s holding things back, we have to have a four person or five person meeting, where the dynamics are different. And sometimes where things are actually going pretty well, then you want to have a room of 25 people, see how it works, and let them express themselves and have them grow. But if you have 25 people in the room some of them then start to perform, rather than participate. So there is this balance, what is the state of the thing… we need to have honesty, we want to have honesty, but honest is a buzzword. Its one of these things we hear, everyone nods their head on, ‘it’s all true’, [but] the gap between the abstractions and where people actually do it is enormous. And people fill it in with all sorts of crap."

Here are some more posts I have made of Ed's talks online

Pixar - A Human Story of Computer Animation

CG Talk at Stanford

Pixar's Superhero Shakes up Disney

I also found another quick interview with Mr. Catmull

Back to Hand Drawing for Disney

Just got back from lunch with friends and everyone is a BUZZ over more changes at Disney - Cinematical is reporting the story below...but doesn't cite a source...

Back to Hand Drawing for Disney

Posted Dec 19th 2006 9:00PM by Jennifer DeFilippo
Filed under: Animation, Disney, Newsstand

Pencil. Paper. Have you two met? I think the better question may be directed to the animator -- do you remember how to use them? I remember when Toy Story came out in 1995 -- it was huge! It broke barriers being the first full-length computer animated film. It was exciting and quickly became the thing to do; seemingly making hand drawing the thing of the past. Disney animation is now putting a stop to the CGI addiction and returning to a more traditional drawing plan.

This change, just announced today by John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, will take place in Walt Disney Co.'s Burbank studios, leaving Pixar to exclusively work onCGI projects. There isn't a specific answer to why the change happened, but one rumor centers around Chris Sanders who is responsible for Lilo and Stitch and the upcoming film American Dog. Lilo and Stitch, if you can remember, was hand-drawn -- and was a huge success. Perhaps they're hoping the same hand-drawn success with American Dog.

I do think it's nice to know that there is an effort being made in preserving this art form. I often times get worried with how great technology has become that we get further and further away from our origins. Being a bit of a technology dunce I don't understand the steps necessary in making a CGI film but I do fondly reminisce about the making of Steamboat Willie. I still vividly remember watching how they drew out the story to create the film. It was exciting seeing the characters come to life right off the page. I find relief knowing that there are many films to come made in that same historical way ... and I'm sure many animators are relieved too.

Layoffs for Disney

This is a week old but the Animation Guild's blog reports there may be some layoffs coming soon for artists at Disney Feature Animation. This is unfortunate seeing how work this summer and fall seems to be slow and lacking for all animators.

October 9th, 2006
Big meetings today at Disney Feature Animation. Ed Catmull, Andrew Millstein, and Ann Le Cam rolled out the animation division's new blueprint for feature animation employees in the hat building's first floor theatre, talking about changes that will be coming... Feature Animation will be undergoing some downsizing. When "Meet The Robinsons" wraps up, the division will be casting employees for "American Dog," the next animated feature on the production calendar. Some of the staff that doesn't roll onto that picture will be given sixty-day notices, and at the end of those two months, laid off. Artists who talked to me understand that some of their peers -- and maybe them -- will be looking for work other places after the first of the year. "It's kind of the way of the entertainment industry, isn't it" one sighed. "Nothing's forever." The mood around the hat building was subdued, but many staffers were glad that upper management called them into meetings and told them what was up. "What I like about Ed Catmull is he doesn't beat around the bush," another said. "He tells you what's going on, even when the news isn't great. It's better to know than not." A few employees told me they thought Feature Animation would be stronger after the layoffs were over. But wherever I walked on the first and second floors, things were, ahm, somber. And the oncoming changes were the prime topic of conversation.

thanks to the TAG blog

Frog Princess brings 2D back to Disney

Rumors have been spreading the past few months that Disney is starting up a new 2D division again with the help of John Musker, Ron Clements and Eric Goldberg.

The Frog Princess

Image is by Scott Gustafson and has nothing to do with the Frog Princess Production

Variety reports that the new project, "Frog Princess," will be overseen by John Musker and Ron Clements, who left the studio shortly after "Treasure Planet" bombed at the end of 2002, grossing just $38 million domestically. In their Disney heyday, Musker and Clements demonstrated their ability to spin a popular tale around a female protagonist with 1989's "The Little Mermaid." They also worked on such traditionally animated Disney musicals as "Aladdin" and "Hercules."

The question here is, can traditional animation draw the crowd lost to CG animated films these days. Will the medium stand up to the bombardment of eye candy driven CG films? Only if the story is tight. Pixar principals Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, who now run Disney's feature animation operations, are interested in exploring Disney's pioneering 2-D tradition. And thankfully with Lasseter at the helm of story development on this project, 2D might have a chance to return to Disney. One of Lasseter's first initiatives following Disney's acquisition of Pixar this year was to "woo" Musker and Clements back into the fold. However, Walt Disney Feature Animation is tight lipped these days and has adopted Pixar's PR strategy, refusing to comment on any projects until the studio is ready to announce them.

More on The Frog Princess can be found in this article

Ed Catmull: Pixar 's Superhero, Shakes Up Disney

Angie here...
I saw Ed Catmull speak at NATE (National Animation Technology Expo) in 1995 and he was all excited about this new thing called Nurbs. Crazy huh? I knew back then what he was talking about was going to be huge, but had no idea what a profound influence this man had and was going to have on animation.

Read this article in the LA Times about Ed Catmull!

Ed believes that you should always hire people who are smarter than you...
ummm, do these people exist in his case?