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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ed Catmull
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May 8 - May 13, 2019
We were so enamored, he felt, of the possibilities of reinventing the wheel that we underestimated the impact of making so many changes at once.
Instead of hoping that our director candidates would absorb our shared wisdom through osmosis, we resolved to create a formal mentoring program that would, in a sense, give to others what Pete and Andrew and Lee had experienced working so closely with John in the early days.
Getting middle managers to tolerate (and not feel threatened by) problems and surprises is one of our most important jobs;
The antidote to fear is trust, and we all have a desire to find something to trust in an uncertain world.
Leaders must demonstrate their trustworthiness, over time, through their actions—and the best way to do that is by responding well to failure.
Be patient. Be authentic. And be consistent. The trust will come.
The pressure to create—and quickly!—became the order of the day. To be clear, this happens at many companies, not just in Hollywood, and its unintended effect is always the same: It lessens quality across the board.
The key is to view conflict as essential, because that’s how we know the best ideas will be tested and survive. You know, it can’t only be sunlight.”
I could never fully explain how to achieve balance. That you learn only by doing—by allowing your conscious and subconscious mind to figure it out while in motion.
managers of creative enterprises must hold lightly to goals and firmly to intentions.
Negative feedback may be fun, but it is far less brave than endorsing something unproven and providing room for it to grow.
randomness is not just inevitable; it is part of the beauty of life. Acknowledging it and appreciating it helps us respond constructively when we are surprised.
The unpredictable is the ground on which creativity occurs.
Usually, soon into making the list, I find I can group most of the issues into two or three larger all-encompassing problems. So it’s really not all that bad. Having a finite list of problems is much better than having an illogical feeling that everything is wrong.”
“I feel like the only reason we’re able to find some of these unique ideas, characters, and story twists is through discovery.
Another trick is to encourage people to play. “Some of the best ideas come out of joking around, which only comes when you (or the boss) give yourself permission to do it,”
I’ve heard some people describe creativity as ‘unexpected connections between unrelated concepts or ideas.’
when I sense we’re getting nowhere, I just shut things down. We all go off to something else. Later, once the mood has shifted, I’ll attack the problem again.”
In general, we seek what we think are simple explanations for events in our lives because we believe the simpler something is, the more fundamental—the more true—it is.
when it comes to randomness, our desire for simplicity can mislead us. Not everything is simple, and to try to force it to be is to misrepresent reality.
When we put setbacks into two buckets—the “business as usual” bucket and the “holy cow” bucket—and use a different mindset for each, we are signing up for trouble.
working with change is what creativity is about.
we are usually not aware that when we look back in time, our penchant for pattern-making leads us to be selective about which memories have meaning.
Not only is writing time-consuming but writers also bring structural thinking to the development process—input that most directors really need.
balance is a dynamic activity—by which I mean, one that never ends.
Craft is what we are expected to know; art is the unexpected use of our craft.
copying what’s come before is a guaranteed path to mediocrity, it appears to be a safe choice, and the desire to be safe—to succeed with minimal risk—can infect not just individuals but also entire companies.
You’ll never stumble upon the unexpected if you stick only to the familiar.
when people go out on research trips, they always come back changed.
Research trips challenge our preconceived notions and keep clichés at bay. They fuel inspiration. They are, I believe, what keeps us creating rather than copying.
what we’ve found is that when we are accurate, the audiences can tell. It just feels right.
There’s something about knowing your subject and your setting inside and out—a confidence—that seeps into every frame of your film.
“Art challenges technology, technology inspires art.”
we can constantly change and improve our models by using technology in the pursuit of art, we keep ourselves fresh. The whole history of Pixar is a testament to this dynamic interplay.
“Better to have train wrecks with miniature trains than with real ones.”
that artists have learned to employ these ways of seeing does not mean they don’t also see what we see.
They just see more because they’ve learned how to turn off their minds’ tendency to jump to conclusions.
fundamental misconception that art classes are about learning to draw. In fact, they are about learning to see.)
It is a fact of life, though a confounding one, that focusing on something can make it more difficult to see.
The goal is to learn to suspend, if only temporarily, the habits and impulses that obscure your vision.
The real point is that you can learn to set aside preconceptions.
Just as looking at what is not the chair helps bring it into relief, pulling focus away from a particular problem (and, instead, looking at the environment around it) can lead to better solutions.
Companies, like individuals, do not become exceptional by believing they are exceptional but by understanding the ways in which they aren’t exceptional.
People find it easier to be candid if they balance the negative with the positive, and a good facilitator can make it easier for that balance to be struck.
I prefer to think of data as one way of seeing, one of many tools we can use to look for what’s hidden.
Creativity involves missteps and imperfections. I wanted our people to get comfortable with that idea—that both the organization and its members should be willing, at times, to operate on the edge.
the purpose of P.U. was never to turn programmers into artists or artists into belly dancers. Instead, it was to send a signal about how important it is for every one of us to keep learning new things. That, too, is a key part of remaining flexible: keeping our brains nimble by pushing ourselves to try things we haven’t tried before.
The fear of judgment was hindering creativity.
in Japanese Zen, that idea of not being constrained by what we already know is called “beginner’s mind.”
And people practice for years to recapture and keep ahold of it.
