Ed Catmull Quotes
-
Everything's interconnected. That's the way life is.
-
Creative ideas aren't like Jenga blocks, where they fall apart and you've got to start from scratch, though it can feel that way.
-
We have to evolve, we have to change, and in order to do that, we have to initiate the change.
-
When companies are successful or not successful, they almost immediately jump to the wrong conclusions about how they got there or why they got there.
-
A movie contains literally tens of thousands of ideas. They're in the form of every sentence; in the performance of each line; in the design of characters, sets, and backgrounds; in the locations of the camera; in the colors, the lighting, the pacing.
-
Communication needs to be between anybody at any time, which means it needs to happen out of the structure and out of order.
-
Virtual reality's been around for 40 years. People have been talking about storytelling in that world for all these years, and there have been experiments around of people trying to do that, and always excited about it.
-
One reason for keeping Disney animation separate from Pixar was that by solving their own problems when they finished a film, Disney could say, 'Nobody bailed us out; we did it.' And it's a very important social thing for them to do that.
-
We'll fund a project even if I'm skeptical because I'd rather be proven wrong by somebody on the inside than by somebody on the outside.
-
At Pixar, we believe strongly that filmmakers should develop ideas they are passionate about. This may sound like a no-brainer, but in fact in Hollywood, the big movie studios have whole departments devoted to acquiring and developing projects that will only later be paired with a director-for-hire.
-
The desire to avoid meltdowns actually is one of the things that screws up live-action films.
-
I don't think most of our films should be realistic, but you want that as an artistic possibility. Then, the artist can take the realism of the world and push it in ways that we can connect with.
-
After Pixar's 2006 merger with the Walt Disney Company, its CEO, Bob Iger, asked me, chief creative officer John Lasseter, and other Pixar senior managers to help him revive Disney Animation Studios. The success of our efforts prompted me to share my thinking on how to build a sustainable creative organization.
-
For me, one of the great tragedies is the conclusion studios have drawn about traditional animation. I believe that 2D animation could be just as vital as it ever was. I think the problem has been with the stories.
-
The Braintrust developed organically out of the rare working relationship among the five men who led and edited the production of 'Toy Story' - John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and Joe Ranft.
-
In life,you're going to have risk, so you have to say, 'My attitude going forward is how to I fix the problem.' And it's not trying to cling onto the past. When I look around, most problems happen because people are trying to cling onto the past.
-
Are the Simpsons cool? They are, and that is crude 2D animation.
-
When I was in high school in the early 1960s, I wanted to be an animator and even took art classes. But by the time I was in college, I realized I couldn't draw well enough.
-
Programmers are very creative people. And animators are problem solvers, just as programmers are.
-
When I see a film, I'll remember that there was a time when it wasn't working, and there was some pain and angst in order to get it to work.
-
Technical understanding should be a core competency of any company.
-
We encourage our people to build their ideas from scratch, and we give them the resources - and, crucially, the candid feedback - that are required to transform the first wisps of a story into a truly compelling film.
-
At heart, we believe that the films that work well are the films that do touch people emotionally.
-
One of Pixar's key mechanisms is the Braintrust, which we rely on to push us toward excellence and to root out mediocrity. It is our primary delivery system for straight talk.