[…] So when I saw that Ed Catmull, president of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios, had co-written a book called “Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration” (published April …read more […]

Scott, I just picked up this book today as well - my husband and I are dying to read it! Curious to hear about your thoughts once you finish... love Pixar and got a lot out of your class, so can't wait to dig in and see if more of those principles were expanded upon.

I've got it. Now I just need the time to READ it! Let me know what you think.

Absolutely, the cover is watching me from my bookshelf as we speak:). Look forward to reading it.

As an engineer by day, what's interesting to me is that Pixar have taken what's probably the single most seminal idea in product engineering and applied it to movie making: Bugs are easier and cheaper to fix the higher up the chain you are. Which is to say, the easiest place to fix a problem is during the design stage, then the development stage, then testing. The penalty between stages is something like 10X, so that fixing bugs when the product is in the customer's hands is at least 1000x more expensive than doing it during design. With regards to movies, Pixar spends a huge amount of time, up front, "designing" their movies and continuously refining their script/designs and vocal performances before they commit to even a single frame of animation. And then during the animation, they apply that same level of attention to detail, so that by the time a movie gets to a test audience and wide release, Pixar has relatively little work left to do. Pixar has had an astonishing level of success, and imho this approach is key.

[…] “Creativity, Inc.”: New book on Pixar […]

[…] “Creativity, Inc.”: New book on Pixar […]