Building The Next Pixar

Some of Pixar's most illustrious alums, steeped for decades in Pixar's potent creative culture, reveal how they apply the company's philosophies of success to their own ventures--and you can, too.

While working as an animator in London in the late 1990s, Suzanne Slatcher spent her lunch breaks at the comics shop, reading a hardcover book on the making of Pixar's then-latest film, A Bug's Life. "It was like 40 pounds, and it was so expensive I couldn't possibly afford it. But at lunchtime I went and just pored over this beautiful artwork," she says. "The craft of this thing…it wasn't like movie effects, it was very much from a high quality tradition." Slatcher worked at a traditional 2D studio, but was teaching herself 3D animation, a skill that eventually got her hired at Pixar itself, where she worked for nine years as a modeler and layout artist.

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