I recently read a book called Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull, who is the co-founder of Pixar
Animation and currently the President of both Pixar and Disney Animation. This book is essentially
a collection of wisdoms and stories that Catmull has accumulated over his long career of establishing
and maintaining a successful creative company. While I don’t align with with every single
argument made in it, I definitely found some great ideas that I think could be useful for
anybody working in a creative field or environment. So here are a few things I've learned.
One of the first things that Catmull addresses in the book was what happened after they completed
Pixar’s first feature film - Toy Story. They basically did something that no one has
ever done before - created the first animated feature film completely from computer graphics
- one of Catmull’s childhood dreams, which also became an immediate box office success.
You’d think Ed would be ecstatic about this but instead he was faced with this “hollow
lost feelings" with "no sense of purpose” as he describes it. This may seem strange
but in reality that’s what happens to a lot of us when we’ve focused single-mindedly
on one goal for so long. You become lost and don’t know what to focus on next. And it
takes a lot of work to get back on track. Later Catmull references a similar metaphor
that he actually learned from George Lucas, whom he worked with, that went something like
this “Building a company was like being on a wagon train headed west, on the long
journey to the land of plenty the pioneers would be full of purpose and be united by
the goal of reaching their destination. Once they arrived, people would come and go and
that’s as it should be. But the process of moving toward something - of not having
yet arrived was what he idealized."
When many people think of successful creative outputs - whether it’s a movie or a product
- they think that some person must have come up with a great idea. While that may be true
in some circumstances Catmull’s perspective is that no idea exists independently in a
vacuum. He talks about how great ideas are seldomly spawned from just one person. And
it’s almost always many people adding onto an idea that eventually makes it great. I
think this is in general a healthy perspective to have. It can increase the value of teamwork
and collaborative approaches. It makes it counterproductive to compete against or be
jealous of a coworker. It make it easier to work with other people who are either smarter,
more skilled or more experienced than you - because in a team, those positive traits
in others are helpful to you instead of being threatening to you.
In a part of the book, Catmull explored how many of the films they made, the ideas in
the beginning were just plain terrible. I can definitely relate to this because my own
creative projects - whether they’re designs, art projects, or videos like the one you’re
watching right now - are just absolutely terrible in the beginning. I often have to rework an
idea like a bajillion times to make it better, or sadly sometimes abandon a bad idea entirely.
And that’s kind of why it’s important to not get so attached to your ideas. This
is hard of course, because it’s almost like having to throw out your own baby in the trash
can - which is of course something you should only do metaphorically, not literally. So
many of us get personally offended when someone else shoots down our idea, which is definitely
something I’ve been guilty of in the past. But we need to take a step back and realize
they are not attacking you as an individual - they are just making honest assessments
on the idea. And that it’s okay to defend an idea that you can back up with strong arguments,
but when you can’t - you need to be willing to let it go.
For many people who have not practiced drawing or painting, they may wonder how artists can
depict a scene or object so accurately. Catmull points out that the biggest differences is
that artists have been trained in careful observation. Basically, our brain has a tendency
to jump to conclusions, or fillling in the gaps in our visual field, instead of taking
in every single thing we see. Catmull gives the example of getting someone to paint a
picture of a lake. A person may be inclined to think that the lake must be blue and goes
to put down a field of blue on a piece of paper but then realizes it doesn’t quite
look right. Upon closer observation, the person realizes that the lake isn’t in fact actually
blue, it’s actually patches of green, yellow, black and flashes of white. A good artists
has learned to be aware of these preconceptions and suppress their minds’ tendency to jump
to conclusions. And in this sense - something like art classes isn't really about learning
how to draw, it’s about learning how to see. Thus, even if you are a person who doesn’t
aspire to be a painter, illustrator or animator, learning the skills of objective observation
and setting aside preconceptions are tools that can be beneficial for anyone.
So these are just a few great insightful ideas that I got from this book. And there are many
more where those came from. So if you found these ideas helpful, I’d definitely recommend
giving this book a read.
Thanks for watching and this is the first book review I’ve ever done. Let me know
if you guys like this kind of stuff and would like to see more. If so, please leave your
Art/Creativity book recommendations in the comments. Bye!