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0e45f58
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My conclusion at the time was that finalizing the story before production began was still a worthy goal--we just hadn't achieved it yet. As we continued to make films, however, I came to believe that my goal was not just impractical but naive. By insisting on the importance of getting our ducks in a row early, we had come perilously close to embracing a fallacy. Making the process better, easier, and cheaper is an important aspiration, some..
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Ed Catmull |
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9869b45
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Randomness is a concept that defies categorization; by definition, it comes out of nowhere and can't be anticipated. While we intellectually accept that it exists, our brains can't completely grasp it, so it has less impact on our consciousness than things we can see, measure, and categorize. Here's a simple example: You leave late for work but still arrive in time for your 9 A.M. meeting. Congratulating yourself, you are oblivious to the f..
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Ed Catmull |
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6ca8c35
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As we try to learn from the past, we form patterns of thinking based on our experiences, not realizing that the things that happened have an unfair advantage over the things that didn't. In other words, we can't see the alternatives that might well have happened if not for some small chance event. When a bad thing happens, people will draw conclusions that might include conspiracy or forces acting against them or, conversely, if a good thin..
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Ed Catmull |
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a78d2da
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So what if we oversimplify in order to get through our days? So what if we hold tight to familiar ideas that give us the answers we crave? What does it matter? In my view, it matters a lot. In creative endeavors, we must face the unknown. But if we do so with blinders on--if we shut out reality in the interest of keeping things simple--we will not excel. The mechanisms that keep us safe from unknown threats have been hardwired into us since..
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Ed Catmull |
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51348c8
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The oversight group had been put in place without anyone asking a fundamental question: How do we enable our people to solve problems? Instead, they asked: How do we prevent our people from screwing up? That approach never encourages a creative response. 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 propos..
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Ed Catmull |
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f07cb1b
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Sometimes a big event happens that changes everything. When it does, it tends to affirm the human tendency to treat big events as fundamentally different from smaller ones. That's a problem, inside companies. When we put setbacks into two buckets--the "business as usual" bucket and the "holy cow" bucket--and use a different mindset for each, we are signing up for trouble. We become so caught up in our big problems that we ignore the little ..
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Ed Catmull |
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695d03b
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pulling focus away from a particular problem (and, instead, looking at the environment around it) can lead to better solutions. When we give notes on Pixar movies and isolate a scene, say, that isn't working, we have learned that fixing that scene usually requires making changes somewhere else in the film, and that is where our attention should go. Our filmmakers have become skilled at not getting caught up in a problem but instead looking ..
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Ed Catmull |
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c803a00
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Given that we all agree, in principle, that postmortems are good for us, I'm always struck by how much people dread them. Most feel that they've learned what they could during the execution of the project, so they'd just as soon move on. Problems that arose are frequently personal, so most are eager to avoid revisiting them. Who looks forward to a forum for being second-guessed? People, in general, would rather talk about what went right th..
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Ed Catmull |
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2a8bdde
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WHILE I THINK the reasons for postmortems are compelling, I know that most people still resist them. So I want to share some techniques that can help managers get the most out of them. First of all, vary the way you conduct them. By definition, postmortems are supposed to be about lessons learned, so if you repeat the same format, you tend to uncover the same lessons, which isn't much help to anyone. Even if you come up with a format that w..
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Ed Catmull |
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b43cdf9
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when you begin to grasp that big and little problems are structured similarly, then that helps you maintain a calmer perspective. Moreover, it helps you remain open to an important reality: If all our careful planning cannot prevent problems, then our best method of response is to enable employees at every level to own the problems and have the confidence to fix them. We want people to feel like they can take steps to solve problems without..
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Ed Catmull |
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ba51fc5
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I'm particularly struck by Byron's focus on speed--on "zipping through" complex problems of logic and storytelling--because it reminds me of what Andrew Stanton says about being a director. I've told you about Andrew's belief that we will all be happier and more productive if we hurry up and fail. For him, moving quickly is a plus because it prevents him from getting stuck worrying about whether his chosen course of action is the wrong one...
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Ed Catmull |
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5e0e0f8
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This is key to an idea I introduced earlier in the book: The director, or leader, can never lose the confidence of his or her crew. As long as you have been candid and had good reasons for making your (now-flawed-in-retrospect) decisions, your crew will keep rowing. But if you find that the ship is just spinning around--and if you assert that such meaningless activity is, in fact, forward motion--then the crew will balk. They know better th..
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Ed Catmull |
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1635c65
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The phenomenon I'm describing, rooted so firmly in that primal human drive for self-preservation, probably doesn't sound surprising: We all know that people bring their best selves to interactions with their bosses and save their lesser moments for their peers, spouses, or therapists. And yet, so many managers aren't aware of it when it's happening (perhaps because they enjoy being deferred to). It simply doesn't occur to them that after th..
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Ed Catmull |
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0b8afe6
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If you think, you stink.
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Ed Catmull |
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98001e0
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People want to hang on to things that work--stories that work, methods that work, strategies that work. You figure something out, it works, so you keep doing it--this is what an organization that is committed to learning does. And as we become successful, our approaches are reinforced, and we become even more resistant to change. Moreover, it is precisely because of the inevitability of change that people fight to hold on to what they know...
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Ed Catmull |
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730cbe5
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Pete has a few methods he uses to help manage people through the fears brought on by pre-production chaos. "Sometimes in meetings, I sense people seizing up, not wanting to even talk about changes," he says. "So I try to trick them. I'll say, 'This would be a big change if we were really going to do it, but just as a thought exercise, what if ...' Or, 'I'm not actually suggesting this, but go with me for a minute ...' If people anticipate t..
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Ed Catmull |
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29553da
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We need to think about failure differently. I'm not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren't a necessary evil. They aren't evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we'd have no originality). And yet, eve..
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Ed Catmull |
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e08420d
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no matter how intensely we desire certainty, we should understand that whether because of our limits or randomness or future unknowable confluences of events, something will inevitably come, unbidden, through that door. Some of it will be uplifting and inspiring, and some of it will be disastrous. We all know people who eagerly face the unknown; they engage with the seemingly intractable problems of science, engineering, and society; they e..
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Ed Catmull |
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48c2faa
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Those with superior talent and the ability to marshal the energies of others have learned from experience that there is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking.
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Ed Catmull |
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080e5eb
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It's extremely difficult to create something out of nothing, especially when you consider that much of what you're trying to realize is hidden, at least at first.
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Ed Catmull |
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They want to please, impress, and show their worth. They really don't want to embarrass themselves by showing incomplete work or ill-conceived ideas, and they don't want to say something dumb in front of the director. The first step is to teach them that everyone at Pixar shows incomplete work, and everyone is free to make suggestions. When they realize this, the embarrassment goes away--and when the embarrassment goes away, people become m..
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Ed Catmull |
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44dfd8b
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If fear hinders us even in grade school, no wonder it takes such discipline--some people even call it a practice--to turn off that inner critic in adulthood and return to a place of openness. In Korean Zen, the belief that it is good to branch out beyond what we already know is expressed in a phrase that means, literally, "not know mind." To have a "not know mind" is a goal of creative people. It means you are open to the new, just as child..
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Ed Catmull |
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4c3ab0c
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The good stuff was hiding the bad stuff. I realized that this was something I needed to look out for: When downsides coexist with upsides, as they often do, people are reluctant to explore what's bugging them, for fear of being labeled complainers. I also realized that this kind of thing, if left unaddressed, could fester and destroy Pixar.
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Ed Catmull |
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ec2b6b0
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As much as I admire the efficiency of the caterpillar in its cocoon, I do not believe that creative products should be developed in a vacuum (arguably, that was one of the mistakes we made on the film about blue-footed newts). I know some people who like to keep their gem completely to themselves while they polish it. But allowing this kind of behavior isn't protection. In fact, it can be the opposite: a failure to protect your employees fr..
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Ed Catmull |
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d6d95d5
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Completamos o inventamos mucho mas de lo que pensamos. De lo que estoy tratando de hablar aqui es de los modelos mentales, que desempenan un importante papel en la percepcion del mundo.
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Ed Catmull |
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179347d
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Instead, he favors being decisive, then forgiving yourself if your initial decision proves misguided.
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Ed Catmull |
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54f1418
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Dailies are designed to promote everyone's ability to be open to others, in the recognition that individual creativity is magnified by the people around you. The result: We see more clearly.
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Ed Catmull |
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8f4ba6c
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I can't help but think of one of my favorite moments in any Pixar movie, when Anton Ego, the jaded and much-feared food critic in Ratatouille, delivers his review of Gusteau's, the restaurant run by our hero Remy, a rat. Voiced by the great Peter O'Toole, Ego says that Remy's talents have "challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking ... [and] have rocked me to my core." His speech, written by Brad Bird, similarly rocked me--and, to this..
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Ed Catmull |
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826cd8c
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So my colleagues know more than I do about what's going on in any given department at any given moment. On the other hand, I know more about issues that people working in production do not: schedule requirements, resource conflicts, market problems, or personnel issues that may be difficult or inappropriate to share with everyone. Each of us, then, draws conclusions based on incomplete pictures. It would be wrong for me to assume that my li..
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Ed Catmull |
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5b21591
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When faced with complexity, it is reassuring to tell ourselves that we can uncover and understand every facet of every problem if we just try hard enough. But that's a fallacy. The better approach, I believe, is to accept that we can't understand every facet of a complex environment and to focus, instead, on techniques to deal with combining different viewpoints. If we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather th..
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Ed Catmull |
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7084fc6
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When we are making a movie, the movie doesn't exist yet. We are not uncovering it or discovering it; it's not as if it resides somewhere and is just waiting to be found. There is no movie. We are making decisions, one by one, to create it.
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Ed Catmull |
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1c675e6
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That couldn't have happened if the producer of the movie--and the company's leadership in general--hadn't been open to a new viewpoint that challenged the status quo. That kind of openness is only possible in a culture that acknowledges its own blind spots. It's only possible when managers understand that others see problems they don't--and that they also see solutions.
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Ed Catmull |
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b08506b
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When I say that the fate of any group enterprise, and the individuals within it, are interconnected and interdependent, it may sound trite. But it's not. What's more, seeing all of the interdependencies that shape our lives is impossible, no matter how hard or long we look. If we don't acknowledge how much is hidden, we hurt ourselves in the long run. Acknowledging what you can't see--getting comfortable with the fact that there are a large..
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Ed Catmull |
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3550e9a
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The models we have of our relationships at work, with friends, in our families, and in our society are all even more complicated than our visual models. These constructs--call them personal models--shape what we perceive. But they are each unique to us--no one can see relationships quite the way we do. If only we could remember that! Most of us walk around thinking that our view is best--probably because it is the only one we really know. Y..
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Ed Catmull |
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Story plays a role in the budget process when building reels.
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Ed Catmull |
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40a0451
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our models of the world so distort what we perceive that they can make it hard to see what is right in front of us. (I'm using model somewhat generally here to mean the preconceptions we have built up over time that we use to evaluate what we see and hear as well as to reason and anticipate.)
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Ed Catmull |
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f19d0f7
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As we forge ahead, while we imagine what might be, we must rely on our guiding principles, our intentions, and our goals--not on being able to see and react to what's coming before it happens.
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Ed Catmull |
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1426262
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just as individuals have biases and jump to conclusions because of the lens through which they view the world, organizations perceive the world through what they already know how to do.
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Ed Catmull |
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And in notes meetings, everyone was so afraid of hurting someone's feelings that they held back. We had to learn that we weren't attacking the person, we were attacking the project. Only then could we create a crucible that boils away everything that's not working and leaves the strongest framework.
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Ed Catmull |
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A management team brought in by George to restructure Lucasfilm seemed concerned mostly with cash flow, and as time went on, they became openly skeptical that our division would ever attract a buyer. This team was headed by two men with the same first name, whom Alvy and I nicknamed "the Dweebs" because they didn't understand a thing about the business we were in. Those two guys threw around management consulting terms (they loved to tout t..
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Ed Catmull |
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8515923
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To be honest, I was uneasy about Steve. He had a forceful personality, whereas I do not, and I felt threatened by him. For all of my talk about the importance of surrounding myself with people smarter than myself, his intensity was at such a different level, I didn't know how to interpret it. It put me in the mind of an ad campaign that the Maxell cassette tape company released around this time, featuring what would become an iconic image: ..
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Ed Catmull |
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As Joe Ranft said at the time, "Better to have train wrecks with miniature trains than with real ones."
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Ed Catmull |
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43f26b9
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But I do believe that Steve's focus on passion and quality will take us places that we cannot yet perceive. And for that I am truly grateful.
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Ed Catmull |
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bf89ce4
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The models of three-dimensional objects that we carry in our heads have to be general; they must represent all variations of the given objects.
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Ed Catmull |