Pixar’s secret? Great people

Company chief stresses flexibility, teamwork in U. talk

While movies like "Toy Story," "Monsters, Inc. and "Finding Nemo" have proven to be entertainment hits with audiences, for Ed Catmull and others at Pixar Animation Studios, making each film has provided a bit of education about creativity, people and processes.

By Brice Wallace
Deseret Morning News

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595064672,00.html

Catmull, speaking at Thursday’s Edison Conference and Innovation Showcase at the University of Utah, talked about how crises were handled in the development and production of the films.

In one case, the original version of "Toy Story 2," planned as a made-for-TV production, was scrapped and key people were brought in to rework the movie. The story structure did not change; the people did.

"If you give a great idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up," said Catmull, president and co-founder of Pixar. "If you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they’ll fix it or they’ll throw it away and move on to something different.

"So the question abounds: what’s our central problem, ideas or the right people? There is no question about it. It really is the people and the way they worked together. There’s a difficult thing for people to understand, that people don’t get, and that’s there are millions of ideas. Ideas all over the place. . . . It wasn’t the idea that mattered, it was the people that followed through and put it together and made it happen. That’s how things happen."

Catmull, who earned both his computer science bachelor’s and doctoral degrees at the U., said the time to make changes in a film is before an audience sees it. However, he said, it takes discipline to be able to label it a crisis.

That’s what happened with "Toy Story 2," which ultimately became a better project than originally envisioned and, in some people’s eyes, better than "Toy Story," he said.

A different crisis plagued production of "A Bug’s Life." Having succeeded with "Toy Story," Pixar had troubles with unhappy production people who nonetheless did not complain. Success hides problems, he said.

"I maintain that this is actually one of the biggest problems that we see — with ourselves, with companies, with government, all over the place — that when things are going well, we don’t need to look at what’s not going well. And that’s a major, major mistake companies make," Catmull said.

Like "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc." underwent a major reworking. But with "Finding Nemo," Catmull found that having a script in place first did not make the process any easier. It eventually went through just as many changes as the other films.

"Realize that when you are crafting something with a lot of people and a lot of ideas, then it’s going to change," he said. "We need to be able to do that, and the worst thing you can do is reject the good ideas that come in."

E-mail: [email protected]