Change And Evolution Of The Creation Process Of Pixar Movies Since Toy Story

Question No.1

Outline The Creation Process Of Pixar Movies, And How This Process Changed And Evolved Since Th First Movie From Pixar, Toy Stoy.

Pixar is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio is best known for its CG!-animated feature films. Pixar began as a division of George Lucas film studios, which made digital effects on computers. Lucas is the director of the legendary science fiction film Star Wars, known as the ‘father of Star Wars’. Later, because of financial problems, Lucas sold the unit to jobs, who was about to be ousted from apple. Under jobs, Pixar changed the history of animated movies with toy story, came into the market, and was acquired by Disney. Typically, acquired companies lose their independence. However, after being acquired by Disney, Pixar not only maintained its independent operation, but also used its own culture to influence Disney, transforming many of Disney’s production processes and norms. (Cunningham 2017)

Much of Disney’s work is based on classic fairytales, and while the audience knows what’s going on with their eyes closed, Pixar was determined from the start to do its own story. That is the reason why Pixar have strong creativity. Pixar understands that if they want to be original, they have to accept uncertainty, this is high risk. Which makes many animation films company afraid to do in this way. A piece of work in Pixar include many people’s ideas. People may consider creativity is action by individual, Pixar think creativity is result of cooperation and exchange of ideas. In the early year, before the creation of Toy Story 1, Pixar was somewhere people purse their dream of making animation film. They never consider business model an idea. Until the creation process of Toy Story 2.

The evolution of creation began during the creation process of Toy Story 2, because it met some difficulties. As a startup, Pixar had little revenue and an unclear strategy before its first movie was released. The creativity organization began to be specific. While they were create Toy Story 2 story board. They were creating a movie “A Bug’s Life” as well. People who create Toy Story 1 were creating A Bug’s life. Therefore, they need new blood to come in and participate into the creation of Toy Story 2. However the beginning of Toy Story 2 creation is not that smoothly. People wants to see something new every time. Their secret is not to produce ideas, but to create a mechanism for managing creative teams so that everyone can complement and collaborate. They finally realized each movie they made have to have a creativity standard, it cannot always be free all the time. The creative teams system was formed during the Toy Story 2 creation time. Pixar brought brainy, passionate people together, let them explore and solve question, and encourage everyone to speak up.

After Toy Story 2, the task of development department of Pixar was changed. Normally, the development department is responsible for coming up new ideas for animation film company. However it is used to assemble small teams to provide help. Pixar really focus on the balance between business and creativity. The released Toy Story 1 movie made Pixar became famous. As long as, a company starts to grow. They easily become a focus on quantity over quality. However Pixar ensuring that commercial animated films are launched at a reasonable cost and at a reasonable frequency. The growth and change of Pixar began based on the birth of Toy Story. Pixar not only was taught a lesson about the creation, but also about company management.

Question No.2

How Does Pixar Successfully Foster Innovation And Creativity In Teams?

The continued success of Pixar’s products is not primarily due to luck, but to a set of principles and practices that govern creative talent and risk. In film production and other similar compact product industry, creativity is the effective collaboration of a large number of people from different academic backgrounds to solve a large number of problems. Facing of Customer’s need, company have to resist the tendency to avoid or minimize risk, since customers love original things. The key to taking risks and being able to recover from failure is talent. It is not easy to find such talent. What executives need to do is create an environment that fosters trust and mutual respect, unleashes the creativity of everyone, and works to create a vibrant community.

Good ideas do not have to be free and unconstrained to come into being. They can also be created through management and mechanisms. The secret of Pixar can do well is create a corporate culture that encourages creativity and innovation, and then practice that culture on a daily basis. Measures which were used to encourage employee’s creativity.

The first measure is eliminate the hierarchy. Which means there is no difference between top management, middle management and normal employee. They could communicate their ideas with any people in this company. Pixar has a big conference room with a big conference table. This table is very beautiful, it is a long table, 30 people can sit face to face in two rows to discuss together. Generally, making a movie is the most important thing for the director and producer, they sit in the middle, the others sit nearby. They used this table for more than ten years. For more than a decade, management has been repeating at the company that it’s not your position that matters, it’s the ability to communicate. But it took him more than a decade to discover that the table was the ultimate satire on their culture. Because once you set the seating order, you send a signal that the opinion of the person in the middle is important and the opinion of the person on the side is not. Top management notice that, so they throw away the beautiful long table. Now they always discuss ideas on a square table, people will feel much more comfortable to sit there to talk about their thought with others. Pixar is always making change to try to eliminate the hierarchy, making everyone feel their option is as important as all directors. ((Olly 2015)

Another thing is Pixar never judge others opinion. Pixar believes good ideas will not come out directly, companies need to protect these fragile ideas and wait for them to take root. There is a system in Pixar called braintrust. This is a committee of key Pixar employee, their duty is gather in a room at a certain stage of each movie and give advice to the director while watching a demo. The most important thing about this measure is to be honesty. Everyone should be able to speak freely, no need to worry about the conflict, wit fear of embarrassing themselves or others. As we all know, good ideas need to be revised repeatedly, and even have to be overturned at the end, so it is normal to have any problems in the process. The criticism and suggestions are directed at the work itself, not the director .Eventually the company can build a culture where everyone speaks up and foster good ideas. (Olly 2015)

Question No.3

Describe The Corporate Culture And Values Of Pixar

There are too many animation studios around the world, but since the heyday of Disney, no animation company has been able to create as many films as Pixar, which can feel the company’s unified tone. Each animator has enough freedom to create their own dreams, but there is a bond and artistic unity between them. So the animation we see is both new and bold, and at the same time, it’s easy to see: it’s a Pixar product. The reason is because Pixar company have its unique keyword for corporate culture and value.

The first group of Pixar culture keywords are passion and freedom. And when you get a bunch of really passionate, dynamic people together, it’s a beautiful atmosphere, and at Pixar you see all kinds of cool people who are incredibly creative, and you can say there are no rules here. The passion here is because people really love what they are doing. Most of employee are group people love watching cartoon. The word freedom exists is because the Pixar corporate culture. There is not that much limitation in Pixar, because creativity will be influenced by limitation. Therefore, staff is allowed to do everything in company.

Another culture keyword is anti-traditional. People love to see something new on animation film. The uniqueness in Pixar becomes extremely important. The anti-traditional culture was originated from Steve Jobs. He encourages anti-tradition culture. It influenced Pixar to think in a different way. For Pixar, making a movie that just looks great is not enough. Getting the narrative clear and making sure the characters’ experiences resonate with the audience. Pixar worked hardly to experiment and improve. They have a rigorous testing program to delete the elements that make the audience feel bad based on the response to their work each year. ((None 2016))

Inclusiveness and openness are also Pixar’s culture keywords. Pixar Brain Trust is a well known organization. This amazing organization, it refers to the creative team at the top of Pixar, who oversee the production of almost all of Pixar’s movies. In Pixar culture, mistakes and imperfect are all integral part of the creative process.

In the process of Pixar film creation. They wii encourage traveling and observation. Especially at some time, they met difficulties. The top management will encourage staff don’t rush to get the job done. They abandon what they know and explore unknown territory, go out and do some more research. During the creation of “A bug’s story” many producers keep observing a bug’s day.

The value of this corporate is focus on keep learning. Pixar was a technology department, technology is always changing. The creation industry is changing as well. So Pixar hopes every staff like a child, they should keep acquiring knowledge from the outside world. When starting a new business, the founders need to have a beginner’s mind. They have to be open to everything. As companies grow, however, many leaders tend to leave this initial mindset behind because they think they have mastered the key to success, which means they don’t want to be a beginner anymore. Focus on the present. Don’t let your thoughts and ideas about the past and the future interfere with you. ((None 2016)

Pixar’s corporate culture is quite different with any of other company in the world. Because of its culture, Pixar can rank the top of animation film company.

Question No.4

What Have Been The Factors Behind Pixar’s Success To This Point? Think Of Your Opinion From The Perspective Of Organizational Management.

In the world of animated movies, works have a great deal of uncertainty, it is likely that this one will be popular, the next one will not be popular, the volatility is very high. However Pixar can continue to produce popular animation for more than 20 years. Many factors support the succeed of Pixar.

Factor 1: ‘The story is everything’ became the motto of the entire Pixar staff. Three quarters of the time a Pixar animated film takes to make is spent on the story: it often takes years to complete the process from the original idea to the drawing and finishing of the script. Pixar has a panel make up of top directors and producers, and only stories that are unanimously approved by the panel are officially approved.

Factor 2: There is jury in Pixar. The jury includes directors, screenwriters, story directors, etc. Anyone with expertise in storytelling can join. The purpose of the review board is to prevent directors and producers from getting stuck in an over confidence situation, hearing different voices and making fewer mistakes. There is no such thing as authority on a review board. Film directors are under no obligation to listen to anyone. After the review meeting, it is up to the director to decide what to do with the feedback. The director will not be forced to accept other members’ opinions. In the seminar, they will point out the film where mistakes, holes are, what is not clear, what is not reasonable. (Samatha 2019)

Factor 3: There is a system in Pixar, allowed members of the department two days a month to work on any project they liked, using Pixar’s resources if they would like to. This system effectively mobilizes the enthusiasm and creativity of the team.

Factor 4: From the building to the office, Pixar strives to create an environment where there is no hierarchy and free communication between different departments, so as to encourage the generation of group creativity and ensure the continuous creation of ideas. Pixar believes creativity comes from teamwork, or the ability to get people from different backgrounds to work together. Pixar hired talented animators and inventive computer scientists in an effort to get these new employees to interact with each other and with older, more experienced employees. Knowledge and creativity need to blend and cross boundaries, so good communication is essential.

Factor 5:The human resource department is quite interesting in Pixar. When hiring, Pixar carefully evaluates three traits: a sense of humor, an ability to tell a story, and an ability to excel in one area. Pixar does not focus on specific areas of excellence — cooking, sports, music, etc. — but on levels of excellence, whether they meet a high standard. To be a Pixar employee, you have to understand what excellence is and how to achieve it. Pixar would like to give everyone a chance to experience Pixar, and everyone fail together, and correct mistakes together. (None 2016)

Factor 6: At the first beginning, Pixar’s team has been working to create the perfect computer animation. From Pixar birth to today, Pixar has focused on computer animation, from the beginning of the animation clip to the animated feature, has never changed.The main idea of Pixar is making the best computer animation. Through the enterprise culture and management mechanism into Pixar, deeply engraved in each employee’s mind, become all consistent pursuit of dreams. Pixar was driven by passion. Pixar’s journey is like that of the main character in its animated films. Like Buzz Lightyear, who follows his dreams without fear of failure.

Those are all factors push Pixar to such a lead position in animation film. The successful of Pixar is because technology, art and management.

Reference

1. Cunningham, J. (2017). Pixar Animation Studios. Available from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pixar-Animation-Studios Accessed on 17 March 2020.
2. None, N. (2018). A Brief History of Pixar Animation Studios. Available from https://www.skywaytowonderland.com/a-brief-history-of-pixar-animation-studios/ Accessed on 17 March 2020.
3. Olly, R. (2015). Best idea wins’: how Pixar grew up. Available from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/what-to-watch/pixar-history-good-dinosaur-toy-story/ Accessed on 17 March 2020.
4. Samatha, C. (2019). Communicate should no boundary. Available from https://www.fastcompany.com/3029587/pixars-ed-catmull-on-why-communication-should-know-no-boundaries Accessed on 17 March 2020.
5. None, N. (2016). Pixar Wiki. Available from https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Culture Accessed on 17 March 2020.
6. Essays, UK. (November 2018). The company culture of Pixar Animation Studios. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/business/the-company-culture-of-pixar-animation-studios-business-essay.php?vref=1