Ed Catmull gave a keynote (well, not called that, but that's what it was) talk at Siggraph today. It was focused basically on how to manage a creative company, and was mainly a retrospective on Pixar's development, plus some discussion of the current state of things at Disney/Pixar. In the talk, he had a bunch of interesting points (some of which people might already know). Some of you might be interested, so some of the things he said that stood out to me were:
1) He talked about Toy Story 2. Evidently Pixar began the process fully intending it to be a direct to video release, including hiring a new team of animators for it. However, after working on it for a while, they found that the main problem was that they were effectively asking people to do "not so great" work, and that this was seriously damaging to morale/motivation/etc. So, when Pixar asked to have it made into a feature film, it was less about "discovering" it was better than they thought it would be (that's the story I have heard repeated before), but rather more about making sure that all of their employees were able to make their best effort on it.
2) Toy Story 2 had to go through a major rework of the story just a few months before it was released, as it was too "predictable" before that. The basic storyline was about the same, but the main (and key) thing added was the angle about how life changes (children growing up and abandoning toys), and the tension between holding on to the past vs. changing in the future. I didn't say that very clearly, but hopefully you know what I meant.
3) He discussed the merger with Disney, and how he intends to keep the Disney and Pixar studios very independent of one another. He said that so far the Pixar culture has not changed (which is good). He said that the Disney culture and morale did need to change, and has dramatically improved. He also discussed the need to be careful about implementing change and importing new ideas, because what seems like a general principle that worked well in one place might have only worked well because of the particular circumstances there.
4) A lot of the talk focused on more general things, such as decoupling management organization from lines of communication, flattening the "approval" process, getting people to be willing to give criticism (avoiding "yes men"), etc. One of his key points was that (in contrast to what others have said) good people are more important than good ideas - give mediocre people a good idea and you will get a mediocre result, while if you give good people a mediocre idea, they will either find a way to make it great, or get rid of it and come up with something better instead (his emphasis here was on "creative" endeavors).
5) Ed Catmull hated the whole "restart" on Toy Story 2, and said he wouldn't do it again, but decided to do it with at least one (he implied more than one) of the Disney Feature Animation movies (not yet released). I got the impression that "The Princess and the Frog" was one of these, but he never said specifically. If I remember correctly (might be confusing something here), a main reason for this is that he felt the previous ones had suffered from some of those management problems (too many layers of approval needed, and people not willing to give honest negative feedback during the process), and that aspect of the culture needed to change.
1) He talked about Toy Story 2. Evidently Pixar began the process fully intending it to be a direct to video release, including hiring a new team of animators for it. However, after working on it for a while, they found that the main problem was that they were effectively asking people to do "not so great" work, and that this was seriously damaging to morale/motivation/etc. So, when Pixar asked to have it made into a feature film, it was less about "discovering" it was better than they thought it would be (that's the story I have heard repeated before), but rather more about making sure that all of their employees were able to make their best effort on it.
2) Toy Story 2 had to go through a major rework of the story just a few months before it was released, as it was too "predictable" before that. The basic storyline was about the same, but the main (and key) thing added was the angle about how life changes (children growing up and abandoning toys), and the tension between holding on to the past vs. changing in the future. I didn't say that very clearly, but hopefully you know what I meant.
3) He discussed the merger with Disney, and how he intends to keep the Disney and Pixar studios very independent of one another. He said that so far the Pixar culture has not changed (which is good). He said that the Disney culture and morale did need to change, and has dramatically improved. He also discussed the need to be careful about implementing change and importing new ideas, because what seems like a general principle that worked well in one place might have only worked well because of the particular circumstances there.
4) A lot of the talk focused on more general things, such as decoupling management organization from lines of communication, flattening the "approval" process, getting people to be willing to give criticism (avoiding "yes men"), etc. One of his key points was that (in contrast to what others have said) good people are more important than good ideas - give mediocre people a good idea and you will get a mediocre result, while if you give good people a mediocre idea, they will either find a way to make it great, or get rid of it and come up with something better instead (his emphasis here was on "creative" endeavors).
5) Ed Catmull hated the whole "restart" on Toy Story 2, and said he wouldn't do it again, but decided to do it with at least one (he implied more than one) of the Disney Feature Animation movies (not yet released). I got the impression that "The Princess and the Frog" was one of these, but he never said specifically. If I remember correctly (might be confusing something here), a main reason for this is that he felt the previous ones had suffered from some of those management problems (too many layers of approval needed, and people not willing to give honest negative feedback during the process), and that aspect of the culture needed to change.
