Muhammad Amad

Pixar Studio: Established in 1986 by Steve Jobbs And Ed Catmull. Famous for its technological and artistic innovations. In 1990 it was the leading pioneer in animation. In 1995 Pixar made the worlds first animated feature film by the

name of “TOY STORY”. In the following 14 years it has made 9 other blockbusters like “ A

bug’s life, Toy story2, Monsters, INC, Ratatouille Wall-E, and Up. Never bought a story from outside all characters and stories were

created in house at Pixar. In 2006 Pixar was merged with Walt Disney Company.

What is Creativity? Creativity is large no: of people from different disciplines working

effectively together to solve a problem.

An animated movie takes on an average 4 to 5 years to complete and requires a great amount of creativity.

Creativity according to conventional thought is a one man show but in a project it should come from 250-300 people. Then it is the job of the leaders to organize all the ideas and give it one direction.

Creativity in animated movie is needed in the story-line, in every dialog, the design of characters, sets, backgrounds, colours, lighting, scenes etc……

Pixar’s USP is new innovative products and believes in taking high risks e.g. Wall-E and Ratatouille.

According to the president of Pixar studios “ a leader has act against his natural tendency of risk avoidance in order to be different and successful”.

Originality goes side by side with uncertainty and success. Key to creativity is to hire talented people and retain them.

Creativity Cont’d Pixar’s Dilemma: Is that every time when the audience go

to theater they expect something new and this is because of Pixar’s unique and new concepts e.g. Wall-E, Ratatouille.

Originality goes side by side with uncertainty and success. Key to creativity is to hire talented people who are difficult to

find and more importantly to retain them. And to make them willing to let go their ego and work with

other team members so as to make a collective creative effort.

This can be achieved by having an organizational environment that makes people part of a community with close bonds with each other and the project they are working on.

The Roots of Pixar’s Culture: Smart people are more important than good ideas.

And Smart people need freedom to express and materialize their ideas.

Right from the beginning Steve jobs gave an opportunity and created a conducive atmosphere for a number of students to pursue their dreams of making computer animated movies

The Making of Toy Story 2:

Deadline of 18 months was given by Disney To Pixar for Toy Story 2.

The original staff of Toy Story 1 was busy in the release of A Bug’s Life. The responsibility was given to a team of trainees and they failed to deliver. When 8 months were left to the deadline original team of Toy Story 1 was given

the charge. They put in extreme amount of effort and daily worked extra time to complete

the project. Due to their efforts Toy Story 2 was even a bigger success then is predecessor.

Lessons Learned from Toy Story 2: If we give a good story to a mediocre team they will screw it up. But if we give a

mediocre story to a great team they will make it work. There should be quality standard for every movie Pixar makes and to ensure

that work on other projects was stopped and people worked inhumane hours to ensure that Toy Story 2 did not become a mediocre movie.

Riaz Noor

Power to creativity: Power to creativity rests with each and every member at Pixar.• Pixar search for and hire creative people.• Ready to accept their unconventional/creative ideas.• Give them all the freedom and support.• Provide them an environment that supports creativity.

The Development Department's Role:• To make small teams(artists, director, writer and storyboard people) to refine new

ideas.• All the members pool in their ideas and than it is the job of the leadership to give it

direction.• A team’s performance is not judged by the material they are producing but by the

amount of coordination they have in solving problems and making progress.

The Director’s Role:• The are responsible for how to tell a story in the context of a film.• They turn the vision into clear directives that staff can implement.• They are good listeners and try to understand the thinking behind every suggestion.• They appreciate all contributions and use the best ones.

A Peer Culture: Everyone at Pixar is like a family and help one another. They believe in the

philosophy of “ All for one and one for All”.

The Brain Trust: The group consists of the president and the eight directors. Meeting is called when there is a problem of high level and also may have other

employees if their presence is important for the solution of the problem.

The brain trust has immense problem solving powers and their job is to fix the problem in advance rather than wait for the audience when its to late.

Meeting can have a clash between creative ideas and not personal attacks on one another.

The Brain Trust (Cont’d): After the session is over it is up to the director or the team of

the movie to implement the suggestions. However, the brain trust is not given a binding authority

because:• It liberated trust members to give open expert opinions.• It liberates director to seek help and fully consider the

advice.

The Dailies: Regular meetings of project supervisors and all the crew to comment on the overall

progress and have healthy critical reviews from all members. Benefits include: People know their short comings if any exist and this removes embarrassment and

develops creativity .

Saves time and money rather than waiting for audience response.

Inspires people to work and they learn from each other.

Directors or creative heads can guide the entire crew at the same time.

Shahid Rafiq

Technology+Art=Magic Getting people in different disciplines to treat one another as

peer is difficult because of barriers that arise because of lack of interaction between them.

In a creative business like movie making these barriers can be very dangerous.

At Pixar such barriers are over come by linking technology and art together and create something magical.

There is a saying at Pixar that

“ Technology inspires Art, and Art challenges the Technology”

Staying on Rails: Many Big computer companies failed because they did not

pay attention to evaluation process. Strong leadership is important to:• Make sure people follow organizational values.• Ensure effective communication.• Make sure that new employee’s observations and

suggestions are not ignored.

Postmortems: It is an evaluation process.

It is a healthy activity but people do not like it Because they have spend years on their project and they hate it when their efforts are criticized.

Leaders are responsible for the session and they change the format regularly to maintain interest.

Members of different teams are asked to list 5 things they would do again and 5 things they would avoid in the future.

Based on the suggestions in the meeting steps are taken to make things more easy and fruitful.

Fresh Blood: Successful organizations face two problems when bringing new people

with fresh perspectives;• Their fresh ideas which are not known/followed in their new organization.• Adapting to the new environment.

Because of open culture new ideas that new comers bring are embraced with open hands. The second problem is overcome in the orientation session of the new hire in which he is

told of the mistakes and the lessons learned by Pixar over the years of its operations. The intent is to persuade them that Pixar have still not figured it all and we are all in a constant state of evolution.

Ed Catmull’s ending word’s:

For 2o years the dream was to make a computer animated movie and that was achieved with Toy Story.

After that the new goal was to build and maintain a studio that has everything to keep on creating the magic of animated movies.

The challenge is after merger with Disney Animation Studios, we do not lose our creative and open Culture which is the main reason of our SUCCESS………

ThAnKs!!!!!!