How He Built Creativity
A Reflection on Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unforeseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
Throughout his memoir, Ed Catmull details the many unseen forces that halted creative flow at Pixar Animation and how he learned to hurtle over these obstacles. Creativity Inc. follows Catmull through his creative career, first as a student at the University of Utah creating a computer-animated film inspired by his left hand, at his first managerial position at New York Institute of Technology, through working with Alvy Ray Smith at Lucasfilm, and finally meeting John Lasseter and Steve Jobs and turning the Pixar Image Computer into Pixar Animation Studios. Catmull’s book outlines a variety of principles for a variety of problems, but some of the most important ones were the development of the Braintrust, the importance of a Great Team, and seeing the opportunities in Failure.
Leading Creativity
One of Pixar’s greatest mechanisms for developing a creative culture was a feedback process known as the Braintrust. Through continuous meetings, Pixar staff quickly identified and solved problems. The Braintrust produced quality solutions to creative problems due to the principle of candor and lack of hierarchy. Catmull stressed to the creators to be candid with one another, as opposed to being “honest,” as this term often carries heavy moral baggage. Being candid allows all creators to solely focus on the film at hand. A lack of a hierarchal system ensures that all directors can take suggestions from anyone, but they are free to take those suggestions or free to ignore them.
The importance of a great team is mentioned several times. Ed Catmull writes, “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.”
After trying out a new team for Toy Story 2, the film was disastrous. This new crew had no confidence in each other. The crew from the original Toy Story had to take over and completely redo the movie.
Catmull says, “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 in it. A good team is made up of people who complement each other.”
Another great principle Catmull writes about is failure. He says, “Failure isn’t a necessary evil. In fact, it isn’t evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.” During the development of Monster’s Inc., the team had several failed attempts at creating a great story. This was part of the story discovery process. Each failure brought the team closer and closer to the great story we all know of today.
Catmull says when a team fails, instead of asking “Whose fault was this?” come together and problem solve. In fear based culture, people will avoid risk,which causes them to repeat something safe that has been done before. Their work will not be innovative.
Although these principles in the book related to making movies, they can easily be translated to software design.
Steve Jobs
Catmull’s book ends with an homage to Apple Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios founder Steve Jobs. Many recognize Jobs for his innovations with Apple, but many do not realize how influential Jobs was on Pixar. In fact, Steve Jobs even designed Pixar’s headquarters, and it is appropriately named “The Steve Jobs Building”. Jobs had an idea to design the building to enhance collaboration. Its well-thought-out design encourages employees to mingle with one another and foster creative brainstorming.
Jobs’ purchase of Pixar was the company’s last hope, as Pixar was very close to going under. However, his original goal for the company was not to make films. He wanted Pixar to compete with his former company, Apple.
It was under Jobs that Pixar was able to strike a picture deal with Walt Disney and go on to create Toy Story. Jobs knew what Pixar was doing was a big deal. He knew that Toy Story would change animation forever. Steve Jobs loved Pixar, and it was his playground.
Steve even said that Apple products would one day end up in landfills, but Pixar movies would live on in our hearts forever.
If you would like to read Creativity Inc., follow this link: http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412690027&sr=8-1&keywords=creativity+inc
