Ed Catmull Quotes

I can't look at 'WALL-E' or 'Finding Nemo' or 'Up' and look at in the same way as people outside of the company would look at it. Each one of them had angst.

- Ed Catmull

If you see a bad live action film, what are the conclusions you draw? Typically, it is that they made a bunch of mistakes, a bad script, wrong casting. You get into 2D, and you get a few films that are not strong films. And what is the conclusion? That it's 2D? I beg to differ. It's a convenient excuse, but it's just wrong.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

I worked closely with Steve Jobs for twenty-six years. To this day, for all that has been written about him, I don't believe that any of it comes close to capturing the man I knew.

- Ed Catmull

Are the Simpsons cool? They are, and that is crude 2D animation.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Our decision-making is better when we draw on the collective knowledge and unvarnished opinions of the group.

- Ed Catmull

Sometimes a leap of faith doesn't pan out.

- Ed Catmull

If you put out 20 films, you hope that a number are successful. It's like human reproduction versus frog reproduction. Frogs produce thousands and hope a few succeed. Humans don't produce many babies but put a lot of energy into them, which is kind of where we are. They still don't always succeed, but you try a lot harder.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

My best advice came by examples. A supportive environment at home, school, and grad school. Support at the New York Institute of Technology, then George Lucas, Steve Jobs, and Bob Iger. The examples meant that I should support other people, even when things aren't going well. It will pay off.

- Ed Catmull

The skill of a good creative leader is being comfortable with blowing up an idea and knowing it will get better.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

Candor is the key to collaborating effectively. Lack of candor leads to dysfunctional environments.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

In the early 1970s, I headed to graduate school at the University of Utah and joined the pioneering program in computer graphics because I realized that's where I could combine my interests in art and computer science.

- Ed Catmull

If something works, you shouldn't do it again. We want to do something that is new, original - something where there's a good chance of failure.

- Ed Catmull

I've really thought a lot about why other companies fail or succeed. I had to be a student of failure and find out why things went off the rails. I did that at a fairly deep level, and it's still something I do.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

When it comes to producing breakthroughs, both technological and artistic, Pixar's track record is unique. In the early 1990s, we were known as the leading technological pioneer in the field of computer animation.

- Ed Catmull

I apply the term 'creativity' broadly... it's problem solving. We are all faced with problems, and we have to address them and think of something new, and that's where creativity comes in.

- Ed Catmull

If you're a director presenting a new idea, and the person who can judge whether or not it goes ahead is in the room, that makes you somewhat defensive.

- Ed Catmull

One term that's used in this industry a lot is this notion of 'feeding the beast.' You've got all of these people whose livelihoods are dependent on it. There are enormous pressures to keep material going into it, and the pressures to feed it are not irrational. They're the basis of your business.

- Ed Catmull

We need business leaders who have a respect for technical issues even if they don't have technical backgrounds. In a lot of U.S. industries, including cars and even computers, many managers don't think of technology as a core competency, and this attitude leads them to farm out technical issues.

- Ed Catmull

The problem is some of our riskier films just don't make as much money. But if you only make films that will just be commercially successful, then you can also sink yourself as a studio.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

Outsourcing, in and of itself, isn't responsible for the erosion of America's high tech infrastructure. The short-term thinking that led to a lot of bad outsourcing decisions is the root cause. And short-term thinking isn't a problem confined to the executive suite. It's a problem in Washington and in our society as a whole.

- Ed Catmull

I liked the first 'Kung Fu Panda.'

- Ed Catmull

Programmers are very creative people. And animators are problem solvers, just as programmers are.

- Ed Catmull

I did like 'Despicable Me.' I thought it was quite good.

- Ed Catmull

We have to evolve, we have to change, and in order to do that, we have to initiate the change.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

When I was young, it was television that was taking off, and so you had people worried that people were spending too much time watching television.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

What happened in the early days of Disney is that Walt Disney used all of the new technologies as they came out. When matting came out, they adopted it. They adopted sound and color and xerography. Walt did that. And then, when he died, people began to think that this is just about making films, so they stopped bringing in new technologies.

- Ed Catmull

The trick is, in everything we do, there are things we love. And sometimes the things we love get us stuck. And it's only if we let go of some of those things that we free the movie up to become greater.

- Ed Catmull

I know that with most companies that have a lot of success, it tends to throw you off, and you can become more conservative. One of our questions is, How do we keep from being pulled into conservatism because we're afraid of not being successful again?

- Ed Catmull

Communication needs to be between anybody at any time, which means it needs to happen out of the structure and out of order.

- Ed Catmull

Every one of our films, when we start off, they suck... our job is to take it from something that sucks to something that doesn't suck. That's the hard part.

- Ed Catmull

The need to challenge the status quo is just more obvious when you're failing than when you're succeeding. But it's no less urgent.

- Ed Catmull

I love solving the problems of having groups work together and removing barriers. But to actually turn around and be in the center of that is an awkward place to be.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

Pixar is a community in the true sense of the word. We think that lasting relationships matter, and we share some basic beliefs: Talent is rare.

- Ed Catmull

We have a whole industry which is gigantic: games. Games is very successful. It's its own art form, though, and it's not the same as a linear narrative.

- Ed Catmull

It doesn't even matter how successful a movie like 'Up' is: you'll never sell a lot of toy walkers. But that's the way we spread out the risk.

- Ed Catmull

Look at the computer industry. I've watched a lot of companies come and go, some that were right at the pinnacle of their success.

- Ed Catmull

Linear narrative is an artfully-directed telling of a story, where the lighting and the sound is all for a very clear purpose. You're not just wandering around in the world.

- Ed Catmull

I started off life at Pixar with interesting technical problems. But as time has moved on, I found that the social and management problem was far more complex and interesting.

- Ed Catmull

As I look back on my career, I had a goal, which was to build the first feature computer-animated film.

- Ed Catmull

At heart, we believe that the films that work well are the films that do touch people emotionally.

- Ed Catmull

I actually feel awkward being at the center of attention.

- Ed Catmull

Everything's interconnected. That's the way life is.

- Ed Catmull

Technical understanding should be a core competency of any company.

- Ed Catmull

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.

- Ed Catmull

The desire to avoid meltdowns actually is one of the things that screws up live-action films.

- Ed Catmull

Encourage people to mingle, meet, and communicate.

- Ed Catmull

Lucasfilm has always had an openness to technology.

- Ed Catmull

Believe me, sequels are just as hard to make as original films.

- Ed Catmull

The Pixar name means more than any other name. It's very important to us to keep that name at a high level.

- Ed Catmull

It is only by trying new things that we can hope to create products that are original. Don't just say those words; act like you believe them.

- Ed Catmull

It is not the manager's job to prevent risks. It is the manager's job to make it safe to take them.

- Ed Catmull

With every one of our films, we try to touch emotions, but we don't try to touch the same emotions each time.

- Ed Catmull