Edwin Catmull
Believe me, sequels are just as hard to make as original films.
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.
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.
It is not the manager's job to prevent risks. It is the manager's job to make it safe to take them.
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.
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.
I don't think most of our films should be realistic, but you want that as an artistic possibility. Then, the artist can take the realism of the world and push it in ways that we can connect with.
Lucasfilm has always had an openness to technology.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Are the Simpsons cool? They are, and that is crude 2D animation.
Every one of our films, when we start off, they suck... our job is to take it from something that sucks to something that doesn't suck. That's the hard part.
The trick is, in everything we do, there are things we love. And sometimes the things we love get us stuck. And it's only if we let go of some of those things that we free the movie up to become greater.
Everything's interconnected. That's the way life is.
When it comes to producing breakthroughs, both technological and artistic, Pixar's track record is unique. In the early 1990s, we were known as the leading technological pioneer in the field of computer animation.
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.
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.
A movie contains literally tens of thousands of ideas. They're in the form of every sentence; in the performance of each line; in the design of characters, sets, and backgrounds; in the locations of the camera; in the colors, the lighting, the pacing.
Outsourcing, in and of itself, isn't responsible for the erosion of America's high tech infrastructure. The short-term thinking that led to a lot of bad outsourcing decisions is the root cause. And short-term thinking isn't a problem confined to the executive suite. It's a problem in Washington and in our society as a whole.
Technical understanding should be a core competency of any company.
With every one of our films, we try to touch emotions, but we don't try to touch the same emotions each time.
If something works, you shouldn't do it again. We want to do something that is new, original - something where there's a good chance of failure.
I actually feel awkward being at the center of attention.
I love solving the problems of having groups work together and removing barriers. But to actually turn around and be in the center of that is an awkward place to be.
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.
Linear narrative is an artfully-directed telling of a story, where the lighting and the sound is all for a very clear purpose. You're not just wandering around in the world.
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 Pixar name means more than any other name. It's very important to us to keep that name at a high level.
I did like 'Despicable Me.' I thought it was quite good.
I liked the first 'Kung Fu Panda.'
I worked closely with Steve Jobs for twenty-six years. To this day, for all that has been written about him, I don't believe that any of it comes close to capturing the man I knew.
When I was in high school in the early 1960s, I wanted to be an animator and even took art classes. But by the time I was in college, I realized I couldn't draw well enough.
In the early 1970s, I headed to graduate school at the University of Utah and joined the pioneering program in computer graphics because I realized that's where I could combine my interests in art and computer science.
Programmers are very creative people. And animators are problem solvers, just as programmers are.
As I look back on my career, I had a goal, which was to build the first feature computer-animated film.
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.
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.
When companies are successful or not successful, they almost immediately jump to the wrong conclusions about how they got there or why they got there.
At heart, we believe that the films that work well are the films that do touch people emotionally.
If everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up.Collection: Errors
If you aren't experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.Collection: Mistake
If you give a good idea to a mediocre group, they'll screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a good group, they'll fix it. Or they'll throw it away and come up with something else.Collection: Ideas
You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.Collection: Ideas
Creativity doesn't follow titles. It just comes from where it comes from.Collection: Creativity
Art isn't about drawing; it's about learning to see. What organization doesn't need this ability?Collection: Art
We start from the presumption that our people are talented and want to contribute. We accept that, without meaning to, our company is stifling that talent in myriad unseen ways. Finally, we try to identify those impediments and fix them.Collection: People
For me, creativity includes problem-solving. That's the broad definition of it.Collection: Creativity