Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

by Ed Catmull

Luckily, Brad had a producer, John Walker, who came up with a system (in collaboration with a department manager, Laura Reynolds) that would help the crew see what was possible given the available resources. John’s system consisted of popsicle sticks stuck to a wall with Velcro. Each stick represented a person-week, which, as I’ve said, is the amount of work a single animator could accomplish in a week’s time. A bunch of sticks would be lined up next to a particular character for easy reference. A glance at the wall would tell you: If you use that many popsicle sticks on Elastigirl, you’ll have less to spend on Jack-Jack. And so on. “Brad would come to me and say: ‘We’ve got to have this done today,’ ” John recalls. “And I could point to the wall and say, ‘Well, you need another stick, then. Where are you going to take the stick from? Because we only have so many.