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The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.
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Ed Catmull |
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To ensure quality, I believed, any person on any team needed to be able to identify a problem and, in effect, pull the cord to stop the line. To create a culture in which this was possible, you needed more than a cord within easy reach. You needed to show your people that you meant it when you said that while efficiency was a goal, quality was the goal. More and more, I saw that by putting people first--not just saying that we did, but prov..
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Ed Catmull |
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In many ways, the work of a critic is easy," Ego says. "We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic tru..
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Ed Catmull |
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Here's what turns a successful hierarchy into one that impedes progress: when too many people begin, subconsciously, to equate their own value and that of others with where they fall in the pecking order. Thus, they focus their energies on managing upward while treating people beneath them on the organizational chart poorly. The people I have seen do this seem to be acting on animal instinct, unaware of what they are doing. This problem is ..
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Ed Catmull |
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What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems,
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Ed Catmull |
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Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. If you get the team right, chances are that they'll get the ideas right.
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Ed Catmull |
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As director Brad Bird sees it, every creative organization--be it an animation studio or a record label--is an ecosystem. "You need all the seasons," he says. "You need storms. It's like an ecology. To view lack of conflict as optimum is like saying a sunny day is optimum. A sunny day is when the sun wins out over the rain. There's no conflict. You have a clear winner. But if every day is sunny and it doesn't rain, things don't grow."
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Ed Catmull |
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The overplanners just take longer to be wrong (and, when things inevitably go awry, are more crushed by the feeling that they have failed).
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Ed Catmull |
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The definition of superb animation is that each character on the screen makes you believe it is a thinking being. Whether it's a T-Rex or a slinky dog or a desk lamp, if viewers sense not just movement but intention--or, put another way, emotion--then the animator has done his or her job. It's not just lines on paper anymore; it's a living, feeling entity. This is what I experienced that night, for the first time, as I watched Donald leap o..
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Ed Catmull |
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If you're sailing across the ocean and your goal is to avoid weather and waves, then why the hell are you sailing?
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Ed Catmull |
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I often say that managers of creative enterprises must hold lightly to goals and firmly to intentions. What does that mean? It means that we must be open to having our goals change as we learn new information or are surprised by things we thought we knew but didn't. As long as our intentions--our values--remain constant, our goals can shift as needed.
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Ed Catmull |
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aaf7a91
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Don't Let Resentments Fester Many things that go wrong are caused by misunderstandings or screw-ups. These lead to resentments that, if left unaddressed, can fester for years. But if people are given a forum in which to express their frustrations about the screw-ups in a respectful manner, then they are better able to let them go and move on. I have seen many cases where hurt feelings lingered far after the project, feelings that would have..
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Ed Catmull |
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This is not a call for working faster or doing more overtime or making do with fewer people," he said in one town hall forum."
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Ed Catmull |
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Find, develop, and support good people, and they in turn will find, develop, and own good ideas. In
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Ed Catmull |
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There is no growth or success without change. For
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Ed Catmull |
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Getting the team right is the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right. It is easy to say you want talented people, and you do, but the way those people interact with one another is the real key. Even the smartest people can form an ineffective team if they are mismatched. That means it is better to focus on how a team is performing, not on the talents of the individuals within
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Ed Catmull |
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Aunque Woody elija finalmente a Andy, lo hace consciente de que con ello se garantiza una tristeza futura. <>
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Ed Catmull |
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My rule of thumb is that any time we impose limits or procedures, we should ask how they will aid in enabling people to respond creatively. If the answer is that they won't, then the proposals are ill suited to the task at hand.
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Ed Catmull |
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John coined a new phrase: "Quality is the best business plan." What he meant was that quality is not a consequence of following some set of behaviors. Rather, it is a prerequisite and a mindset you must have before you decide what you are setting out to do. Everyone says quality is important, but they must do more than say it. They must live, think, and breathe it."
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Ed Catmull |
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When Brad Bird was directing The Incredibles, he had a recurring anxiety dream. In this dream, he was driving down a winding and precarious stretch of highway in a rickety old station wagon, with no one else in the car. Apparently, it was up to him to pilot the vehicle. "But I was in the backseat!" he says. "For some reason, I still had a steering wheel, but my visibility was terrible because of where I was sitting. Basically, all I could d..
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Ed Catmull |
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Being confident about the value of our innovation was not enough. We needed buy-in from the community we were trying to serve.
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Ed Catmull |
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In this talk, I tell the story of how, when I was first a manager at New York Tech, I didn't feel like a manager at all. And while I liked the idea of being in charge, I went to work every day feeling like something of a fraud. Even in the early years of Pixar, when I was the president, that feeling didn't go away. I knew many presidents of other companies and had a good idea of their personality characteristics. They were aggressive and ex..
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Ed Catmull |
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To understand this first event, you need to know that we rely on Unix and Linux machines to store the thousands of computer files that comprise all the shots of any given film. And on those machines, there is a command--/bin/rm -r -f *--that removes everything on the file system as fast as it can. Hearing that, you can probably anticipate what's coming: Somehow, by accident, someone used this command on the drives where the Toy Story 2 file..
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Ed Catmull |
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This set Brad off. "A lot of us in this room have not grown up--and I mean that in the best way," he said. "The conundrum is how to become mature, how to take on responsibility and become reliable while at the same time preserving your childlike wonder. People have come up to me many times, as I'm sure has happened to many people in this room, and said, 'Gee, I wish I could be creative like you. That would be something, to be able to draw.'..
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Ed Catmull |
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want to stress that you don't have to work at Pixar to create a Braintrust. Every creative person, no matter their field, can draft into service those around them who exhibit the right mixture of intelligence, insight, and grace.
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Ed Catmull |
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cuando se piensa que la experimentacion es algo necesario y productivo y no una frustrante perdida de tiempo, la gente disfrutara de su trabajo, aunque les resulte desconcertante.
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Ed Catmull |
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La siguiente (Fig. 2) representaba donde podriamos llegar en tres meses mas (y observaran que no se correspondia con los limites del plan a dos anos de Ann). Lo mas probable es que terminemos en algun lugar que no sea la cima de la piramide que ella habia imaginado, dije yo. Y asi era como deberia ser (Fig. 3). En lugar de fijar un rumbo <> para lograr metas en el futuro (y aferrarse a ellas firmemente), queria que Ann estuviera d..
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Ed Catmull |
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Si hay un miedo, hay una razon, y nuestro trabajo es encontrar la razon y ponerle remedio. La tarea de dirigir no es evitar los riesgos sino crear la capacidad de subsanar los problemas.
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Ed Catmull |
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No lo puedo evitar, pero de todas las peliculas de Pixar uno de mis momentos favoritos es aquel en que Anton Ego, el hastiado y temido critico gastronomico de Ratatouille, entrega su resena del Gusteau's, el restaurante dirigido por nuestro heroe, la rata Remy. Con la voz del gran Peter O'Toole, Ego dice que el talento de Remy <
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Ed Catmull |
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It isn't enough merely to be open to ideas from others. Engaging the collective brainpower of the people you work with is an active, ongoing process. As a manager, you must coax ideas out of your staff and constantly push them to contribute.
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leadership
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Ed Catmull |
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Cuando eres consciente del problema del asa y la maleta lo ves por todas partes. La gente se aferra a las palabras y las historias, que no son mas que sustitutos de la accion real y el significado. Los publicistas buscan palabras que implican el valor del producto y las utilizan como sustitutos del valor mismo. Las empresas nos hablan continuamente de su compromiso con la excelencia, implicando que eso quiere decir que solo van a fabricar p..
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Ed Catmull |
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Hasta que no termine de dirigir Monstruos S. A. no me di cuenta de que el fallo es una parte saludable del proceso --me dijo--. Durante la realizacion de esa pelicula yo me lo tomaba como una cuestion personal; creia que mis errores eran debidos a carencias personales y que si fuera mejor director no los cometeria.>> Hoy en dia, dice, todavia <
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Ed Catmull |
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For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn't matter if you are getting the story right. I
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Ed Catmull |
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Ese fue mi primer encuentro con un fenomeno que iba a comprobar una y otra vez a lo largo de mi carrera: por mas cuidado que pongas en lo artistico, la elegancia visual carece de importancia si estas contando la historia como debe ser.
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Ed Catmull |
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The story has been told and retold about how, as a young filmmaker, in the wake of American Graffiti's success, he was advised to demand a higher salary on his next movie, Star Wars. That would be the expected move in Hollywood: Bump up your quote. Not for George, though. He skipped the raise altogether and asked instead to retain ownership of licensing and merchandising rights to Star Wars. The studio that was distributing the film, 20th C..
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Ed Catmull |
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Lo cual me trae a la memoria una carta escrita por uno de nuestros animadores, Austin Madison, que encontre particularmente reveladora. A quien pueda inspirar --escribio Austin en el encabezamiento--. Yo, como muchos de los artistas de esta empresa, me muevo constantemente entre dos estados. El primero (y mucho mas preferible de los dos) es el modo creativo explosivo e instintivo. Sucede cuando coges la pluma y las ideas empiezan a fluir co..
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Ed Catmull |
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sucede el 3 por ciento de las veces, aproximadamente. El 97 por ciento restante me siento frustrado, apurado, como un papel arrugado y tirado en una esquina. Lo importante es seguir luchando sin tregua para salir de ese atolladero de desaliento y desesperacion. Escuche comentarios e historias de profesionales que han hecho cine durante decadas y pasado por las mismas adversidades causadas por tremendos problemas de produccion. En una palabr..
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Ed Catmull |
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Pero la facilidad no es la meta; la excelencia si lo es.
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Ed Catmull |
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nosotros mismos acerca de nuestro papel en nuestro exito. Franqueza, seguridad, investigacion, autoevaluacion y proteger lo nuevo son todos mecanismos que podemos utilizar para enfrentarnos a lo desconocido y mantener el caos y el miedo bajo control. No es que estos conceptos faciliten necesariamente las cosas, pero nos pueden ayudar a descubrir problemas ocultos y, por lo tanto, nos pueden permitir solucionarlos. Es de lo que nos vamos a o..
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Ed Catmull |
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A juzgar por lo que aplaudian los empleados de Disney, deduje que nuestras palabras --tal como Steve nos habia pedido-- no les hicieron sentirse como si hubieran perdido la batalla. Anos mas tarde pregunte al director Nathan Greno, que llevaba una decada en Disney Animation cuando nosotros llegamos, que penso aquella manana cuando se anuncio la fusion. <
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Ed Catmull |
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If I start on a film and right away know the structure--where it's going, the plot--I don't trust it," Pete says. "I feel like the only reason we're able to find some of these unique ideas, characters, and story twists is through discovery."
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Ed Catmull |
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A quien pueda inspirar --escribio Austin en el encabezamiento--. Yo, como muchos de los artistas de esta empresa, me muevo constantemente entre dos estados. El primero (y mucho mas preferible de los dos) es el modo creativo explosivo e instintivo. Sucede cuando coges la pluma y las ideas empiezan a fluir como el vino de una copa maravillosa. Esto sucede el 3 por ciento de las veces, aproximadamente. El 97 por ciento restante me siento frust..
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Ed Catmull |
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Hay algo mas que merece ser repetido: para que surja la creatividad debemos aflojar los controles, aceptar el riesgo, confiar en nuestros colegas, trabajar para allanarles el camino y prestar atencion a cualquier cosa que les de miedo.
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Ed Catmull |
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I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don't know can we ever hope to learn it. This
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Ed Catmull |