The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

re: Pixar Success Secrets Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 03:58:56 GMT

I expect about a million more comments that say the same thing will follow... "The Pixar Rules" are far closer to old-school Disney than Disney has been in years. And for those who note that the model is different because Walt was a "studio exec" I always got the sense his role was far closer to Lasseter's at Pixar... sort of a stick that stirs the coffee, empower the artist style of management. Great stuff, Sean! Thanks!

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 08:10:47 GMT

"No songs
No happy village song
No love story
No villain
No "I want" moment / song"

Of course Pixar broke their "no villain" rule with their first movie (Sid), and they've had some great villains ever since. And, they haven't had a traditional romantic love story, but Woody & Bo Peep, eventually Woody & Buzz, Flik & Atta, Marlin & Coral, Marlin & Nemo, etc.- all of those relationships had love, eventually, anyway.
And, on a side note, that list of "no's" reminds me of "Beauty and the Beast"- that has a song that is actually sang by real village people, and a song that actually says "I want"...

Great article, Sean! Can't wait for the rest of the series!

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 08:12:45 GMT

Yeah, that's a great 'concept' to work with, but as time has told, eventually these basics will be broken because there are two things a growing studio will need: direction and identity. They think that they can go on like this without studio execs, but eventually they will need more leadership than just the bunch of writer-directors walking around there. Pixar also thinks that they have set their identity to the outside world, but there is a concept that will break that too: change (and according to the article they love that, so). People don't want to see film after film of the same studio identity. They also want change.

Why I think everything will eventually (wow, how many times have I said that word) change? Because I am placing Pixar in the Greiner management model, and in that model they are at phase 1/2 (of the 7). They are growing because of their outspoken creativity (phase 1), but eventually they will get a management crisis. After that crisis they will step into phase 2, were they will begin growing through organized growth. At some point being creative isn't enough anymore, because when the competition sees the possibilities of successfully connecting management and creativity, they will advance at a much faster rate dan you.

Maybe it works for now, but eventually it will all change. And if they've got some good leaders within the company, the change will not be a bad one.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:04:48 GMT

I don't think Pixar's culture is as lassaiz faire (sp?) as empoor suggests... I think management exists (Jobs/Lasseter) but it is far less overt than what goes on at a lot of studios and companies. I believe that the coaching philosophy used on Michael Jordan in basketball was the famous "give the ball to MJ and get the hell out of the way." Managed leadership exists at Pixar in far more of "power to" rather than "power over" format, at least this article suggests it to be so.

I do expect that this model won't sustain itself forever (that's a fact of life). But it certainly has worked far longer than the Eisner-era culture of synergy, top-down, micromanagement.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:21:50 GMT

"But it certainly has worked far longer than the Eisner-era culture of synergy, top-down, micromanagement."

That's for sure :D (and has worked far better too)..

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:15:25 GMT

Am I the only one who finds those Pixar rules worrying? Going out of your way to say there are certain things that can't appear in a film really limits the amount of things you can do. I mean, no love story? No villain? What happens if someone came up with a great love story? Would they just ignore it? Do you think Walt Disney would have come up with a list like this?

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:47:23 GMT

I also are not sure about the "No Villian Rule", while they villians have not been as front and centre as in some of the traditional Disney flicks, most of their films have some great villians...Syndrome, Sid, the Prospector etc.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:53:37 GMT

"Frankenollie said:
Am I the only one who finds those Pixar rules worrying? Going out of your way to say there are certain things that can't appear in a film really limits the amount of things you can do. I mean, no love story? No villain? What happens if someone came up with a great love story? Would they just ignore it? Do you think Walt Disney would have come up with a list like this?"

I don't worry about it ... Why? Because they've already broken all their own rules.

No Songs - I can't think of many Pixar movies with no song. I'm not sure if Nemo had any, but the Toy Stories certainly did, as did Cars.

No Love Story - A big part of Cars was definitely a love story, and on many different levels, really. Lightning and Sally, Sally and Radiator Springs, Lightning and Mater ... there was lots of love going around in that movie.

No Villain - As someone already mentioned, Sid was a villain. And I would certainly quantify Al of Al's Toy Barn as the villain in TS2. Bugs Life had villains ... there have been plenty of villains in Pixar films.

No "I want" Moment / Song - How about Jessie's "When Somebody Loved Me" song? To me that's a classic "I Want" song. Ditto for the "Our Town" moment in Cars. I'm quite sure there are others I'm missing, but two's enough.

No Happy Village Song - Okay ... I can't come up with a happy village song (although the Shh Boom segment from Cars might qualify).

Point is, Pixar is smart enough to know that they needed to break their own rules.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:55:23 GMT

"Surfer_Ed said:
I also are not sure about the "No Villian Rule", while they villians have not been as front and centre as in some of the traditional Disney flicks, most of their films have some great villians...Syndrome, Sid, the Prospector etc."

*SMACKS FOREHEAD!*

Sheesh! I missed some of the biggest, baddest villains in Pixar's films, didn't I?

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:01:52 GMT

As far as I know, ever Pixar movie has always included a love story. Oh what I would give for movies NOT to have love stories. Predictable and they hardly ever add anything to a story when it comes down to it.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:52:20 GMT

I was at the Expo, too. Andy Stanton's Rules were particularly for Toy Story, and how they wanted to make their first feature different from the mold (not about hard and fast rules for Pixar forever). He brought up Sid (and Darla), but considered them more like obstacles rather than pure villians. And the "no songs" rule refered to characters breaking out into song, a la Ariel, Belle & Aladdin.
They beauty of the discussion was not about the rules, though. It was the idea that "The idea in the room wins" (a Lassiter quote). It's not about politics in the Pixar story rooms. It's about ideas. One particular young woman on the panel told how she was a Production Assistant and happen to unconciously make a face at an idea while she was taking notes in a story meeting. Lassiter noticed her grimace and asked what she thought. Very scared, she gave her opinion. John asked her to write some pages over the weekend. Now she is a writer working on an un-named Pixar project.
(Sorry if I am revealing things that will appear in later posts)

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 14:06:25 GMT

About them "Pixar Rules":

"PIXAR RULES

1. No politics

Maybe that's what you saw and heard but Pixar has been littered with politics by plenty of small minded folks in all kinds of places.

2. No studio execs

Right. Just look how Disney got involved in every project and tell me that again.

3. Director driven studio

Hoo-boy! Only if John likes it.

4. In-house original ideas ONLY

Anyone remember Brad Bird bringing his project to Pixar. Somekind of film about heros?

Sounds to me like you all got the cleaned up for company coming over version of Pixar rules.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:10:30 GMT

CapnSkip, you're stretching things a little out of proportion from what Andrew Stanton was trying to convey.

1) "No politics" means that if someone has a great idea, that idea shouldn't just be tossed out simply because they aren't a "writer" or "director". I'm sure Pixar has politics, but they try to not let it interfere with their story telling.

2) "No studio execs" means that people who have no movie making experience shouldn't have mandatory say over what goes into your movie. Walt Disney was a "studio exec", but he was also a story teller and creative genius. Combining #1 with #2 also says that if a studio exec has a great idea it shouldn't be dismissed just because he is an exec. There just can't be mandatory notes with an exec telling the director how to make his movie.

3) "Director driven studio". Yes, John Lasseter is head of creative, but his main role is to push boundaries. To tell the director when things aren't working, and to make sure that they are making the best movie that can be made. Ultimately it is the director who makes the decision because the movie is his (or her) vision and responsibility.

4) "In house ideas only". Brad Bird's story was his own idea, and he was hired to create it. He wasn't pitched the story by a Hollywood screenwriter, or handed the story by a famous actor who had read the story with his children. He created the idea from his own head.

It is true that Pixar has broken a lot of their own rules, and that is part of adapting. It think the goal is to try and create a deeper movie than a simple hero-villian with romance type of story, and to try and avoid cliched story telling devices such as songs.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:46:17 GMT

I'd agree with FnO, the Pixar Rules started out with "No interference from management", but started to sound a lot like what we were -all- whining in 1994: "All Disney movies are Katzenberg musicals--And we don't want Katzenberg musicals, poo!"
And like everyone else at the time, they were throwing the baby out with the bathwater--Disney was making faux-Broadway musicals on Jeff's assembly line, but that doesn't mean that villains or musicals themselves were evil just because of "Hunchback". (Or, in the case of Disney's later "soundtrack" musicals, that just because your stories had songs meant they had to have characters singing them.)
What if we were to claim the new Pixar CGI Rules, based on everyone else's overextended-formula mistakes?: 1) No animals, 2) No black-comic voices, 3) No scenes where somebody winces "Oo...That's gotta hurt.", etc. :)

The secret to some of the great Disney movies (Aladdin springs to mind) happened when somebody at the back looked at the current in-house storyboards and said "Are you kidding??", which forced the writers to come up with a more fun and natural rewrite idea--
That can happen with musicals OR Pixar-style comedies, the moment things get a little -too- in-house and start writing the audience out of the discussion meetings.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:09:10 GMT

Of course there are SONGS and BAD characters in every Pixar movie, but stop scruitinizing every little bit of the syntax here.

Dude, the "No songs" rule just means that they never have the CHARACTERS singing the songs. Jessie wasn't the one singing "When She Loved Me," it was Sarah MacLachlan. Similarly, neither Sally nor Mater sang "Our Town," because it was James Taylor's narrative singing that made the impact so much greater.

And the "No villains" rule... Obviously there must be some kind of conflict for the movie to have a purpose (otherwise you just end up with that static "Oooh, pretty!" feeling from Soarin' Over California). That being said, I think BaldMelonTim hit it on the head when he pointed out that the Pixar villains are more "obstacles" than villains. The only ones who come close (at least in a "Disney" sense) are Syndrome and Hopper because they are around throughout the movie... but Sid and Al both have minor roles and Darla is around for ONE scene.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:49:02 GMT

TweedlDum9 said:
"The only ones who come close (at least in a "Disney" sense) are Syndrome and Hopper because they are around throughout the movie... but Sid and Al both have minor roles and Darla is around for ONE scene."
---
Most Pixar movies are about a "message" (Toys are fun! Old highway stops are fun!), and "obstacles" like Sid, Al and Chick are just greedy people who never learned what our good characters know...

But yes, when Pixar does have villains, they're bad, BAD baddies:
Katzenberg gave us six years of the exact same sniffy-gay Jafar/Scar/Ratcliffe/Frollo/Clayton/etc. clones plugged in, whiny Dr. Smiths who seemed to act more out of inadequacy/self-insecurity than evil, and ooh, just -hated- those good guys getting more attention, time to frame them!...
While the villains in Pixar were the engines of their stories--Syndrome, Randall and Hopper wanted what they wanted, and they didn't care -who- they had to step on to get it, just so long as whoever was stepped on knew it...As Mrs. Incredible said, these were NOT your safe, corny Saturday-morning villains.
Which's a little thing that comes out of investing some emotional appeal into what happens in the story, and not just plugging in a formula...Disney could do it too (Shan Yu from "Mulan" was a change of pace), but Pixar doesn't happen to own the monopoly on it.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 08:34:56 GMT

Even if you argue that all of the other bad guys in Pixar films are "obstacles", there's no way that you could say that Hopper or Syndrome aren't villains, because they just are. I'd put Randal up there.

Bald Melon Tim said:
"Andy Stanton's Rules were particularly for Toy Story, and how they wanted to make their first feature different from the mold (not about hard and fast rules for Pixar forever)."

That makes sense...Pixar has evolutioninzed (??) and have worked with some of those previous no-nos and have had some great success. The singing thing has mainly stayed, though: I can think of Weezy singing "You've Got a Friend in Me", and Mike and Sully singing "Put That Thing Back Where You Found it or So Help Me", and that's it.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 11:49:57 GMT

I think Pixar was defining "villian" as a single character who battles the hero at the end of the story. (Scar, Hopper, Gaston, etc.) Every story must have conflict for the plot to progress. But the negative force doesn't have to be embodied in a single entity.

Take "Dumbo" for instance. Dumbo didn't battle another character, he was simply fighting against intolerance and ignorance (from others and his own ignorance of himself). The Matriarchal Elephants, the clowns, the cruel kids were all obstacles and various facets of the larger conflict.

Similarly, "Toy Story", like most buddy movies, is a story about self discovery, and two unlikely people who become friends (yeah, it's a love story). Woody's villian was his own insecurity. Buzz's was self ignorance. It's the same as a cop buddy movie like "Lethal Weapon" - there's a bad guy, but the story is about Mel & Danny learning to trust each other.

And after all, the title of the Pixar talk was "What We Didn't Know", which should tell us all that Pixar folks are always learning... sometimes that they can't write rules in stone.

What I took away from the lecture was not to try and follow the Pixar rules, but to find out what will allow me to be the best artist I can be, and to create that environment, not sit around and wait for it to happen.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 12:14:24 GMT

"weedlDum9 said:

Dude, the "No songs" rule just means that they never have the CHARACTERS singing the songs. Jessie wasn't the one singing "When She Loved Me," it was Sarah MacLachlan. Similarly, neither Sally nor Mater sang "Our Town," because it was James Taylor's narrative singing that made the impact so much greater."

That's true ... you do make a good point. I can't think of a single Pixar film where one of the characters actually sings a song (although I'll admit I may just be missing one).

"When She Loved Me" is probably the closest they've ever gotten. It may have been Sarah MacLachlan's voice, but it was clear to me it was sung very much from Jessie's POV.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:08:44 GMT

Characters singing songs is what made Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Lion King, etc...

All about change, then find someone else besides Randy Newman....

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:14:13 GMT

Ptindy: true, true, true about the Newman case.. But I think Lasseter has a good and familiar feeling when it comes to scores written by Newman, and I think that's the point, and the feeling where "change" gets shifted in second place. He likes working with Newman, and never change a winning team. But I'm all for a change of composer when it comes to Lasseter movies. (maybe he'll use Menken for Toy Story 3.. yeah right, like that's ever going to happen...)

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:54:08 GMT

Pinocchio is another classic Disney film that's full of bad guys, characters that act as obstacles to the protaganists original goals, but no single villian with an evil plot that has to be stopped. Notice how in Pinocchio none of the bad guys are even punished for their bad behavior. I always thought that this made Pinocchio one of Disney's most complex storylines, it's so easy for a writer to just kill off a bad guy and then make everything okay, in Pinocchio the message was that the bad guys are everywhere, you have to learn how to identify them and avoid them.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:02:01 GMT

Basically, the other Pixar Rules beyond ("no management") weren't saying "We don't want to make Disney films"--
They were saying "We don't want to make those exact same cheap, cynical fairytale-formula wannabe knockoffs that Fox and Warner are[/were] already making too many of, otherwise we'll just be part of the problem, and real-Disney will still eat us for breakfast."
Ie., not that they didn't want songs or villains, they just didn't want to make "Swan Princess" and "Quest for Camelot". Unfortunately, like everyone else at the time, they were blaming it on Disney.

Which's one of the problems with trying to "punish" someone in the past with a wide brush of New Rules (certain world politics from history comes to mind), rather than try to adopt What Worked and cure What Didn't--
Pixar's people had good instincts for what a story appealing, but that doesn't come from "Not doing what the Bad People are doing"...

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:34:56 GMT

I just wanted to thank BrerArtist for the nice comment on Pinnochio. I had never thought of it that way, but it really is a good life lesson movie. Evil is around and doesn't always die at the denoument - sometimes we have to identify and learn to avoid it ourselves, even when it's Pleasure Island. :)

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 02:02:44 GMT

I guess I am the odd man out here, but I LOVE the fact that the Disney films in the 90's were musicals that had the characters singing. Yes, over time the films had elements that got too similar and repeatitive, but overall, from mermaid to Tarzan, I think they were all great films. And they truly hold a very special place in my heart. I enjoy Pixar, but their films don't give me the same 'feeling' I get from those disney musicals. For me, Monsters Inc. was the one that gave me that good ole' Disney animation feeling, but none of the other Pixar films do. I still enjoy all of them though and think that they are some of the best animated films ever made. I just miss the days of the real good old 'Disney musical'. I know Pixar doesn't quite want to do that for themselves, but I really hope they can bring that back to the Disney side- not for every film, of course, but for some.

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 04:02:34 GMT

Tcsnwhite: the upcoming film, The Frog Princess ;)

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 16:45:33 GMT

Pixar wasn't (although they maybe didn't realize it) balking at Disney-musical songs, they were objecting to the 90's-musical songs that "had" to be in the script--
They mention the "I Want" song, and the "Happy Village" song (what ARE those, anyway?--"Belle"-style establishing opening numbers, or what?)...And, if their finger-pointing had bothered to do a little more homework about Katzenberg-Formula, they'd have probably also made cheap jokes about the "Villain's Plan" song and the "We're Buddies" sidekick song, which also got to sound more and more time-killer forced into their movies by the time of Hunchback and Hercules.

Yes, TS2 and Cars had their Sniffly-Moment songs (although I thought they looked like the exact same one)--But what -did- get us all sniffly about them was that they were used to cover backstory montages that explained large portions of the script...
In other words, "The song was used to propel the story", which was something we also heard during the "good" early-90's Disney musicals, back when the musical ideas were more fun and intuitive and less forced.
As we kept saying all along, there are No Bad Fairytale Musicals, only Bad Producers who think it's too easy to fake if you follow some pre-programmed written agenda.

Another rewrite weekend… » The Unknown Screenwriter - screenwriting tips, tricks, rants, and observations...

Sean Kennelly — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 01:13:24 GMT

PingBack from http://www.unknownscreenwriter.com/2006/11/25/another-rewrite-weekend/

re: The Pixar Way -- Part I: "What We Didn't Know" or "My Journey of Pain"

Sean Kennelly — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:47:29 GMT

Great article, Sean! Looking forward to future parts in the series.

> no layers of middle managers, creative executives or corporate bureaucrats itching to put their thumbprint on every project that comes their way

Of course, this is what we know happened with Michael Eisner's micromanagement of 'Treasure Planet' -- a good movie that could've been great.

I'll be curious to see how John L treats Ron n John now that he's boss -- I can see why some are worried by Lasseter's move of switching music composers on the new film.

> If you had some idea you wanted to submit to Pixar for their next film…you're out of luck.

That's too bad. There are a few established family entertainment brands that it'd be cool if Pixar would look at -- 'Adventures in Odyssey' for one.

Thanks for the insight,

-joshMshep

The Pixar Way -- Part II: Lessons Learned

Sean Kennelly — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:03:03 GMT

JHM contributor Sean Kennelly is back with the second installment of his three part series, which details the info that the folks from Pixar Animations Studios revealed at this year's Screenwriting Expo