Pixar Brings the Magic of Walt Disney Back to Disney: Part 2 - True Love

by Bill Capodagli

President of Disney and Pixar Studios, Ed Catmull, and John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer of the Studios have scored the highest accolade for Disney Animation – Best Animated Feature Film – with their smash hit Frozen.  This is their first such award since it was created in 2001.

The overall message in Frozen is that an act of true love conquers all.  In the final moments of the film, The Snow Queen of Arendelle – Princess Elsa – accidentally freezes the heart of her younger sister, Princess Anna.  Sadly, unless Anna’s heart is thawed by an "act of true love", she will become frozen forever.

A few scenes later, Anna realizes that her beloved Prince Hans is ready to kill Elsa, and refuses to let this happen.  As she hurls herself between the two to save her sister Elsa, she instantly freezes solid.  Anna’s decision to sacrifice herself to save her sister is indeed an "act of true love."  At last, Elsa’s pain turns to joy as Anna begins to thaw right before her eyes! 

Early in Pixar’s history, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter had made a decision that may have sacrificed the very existence of Pixar.  During the creation of Toy Story, their partner, Disney (this was prior to Disney’s acquisition of Pixar in 2006) wanted Woody to be sinister and the movie to be darker.  Remember back…this was Pixar’s big break!  Until Toy Story, Pixar was struggling to keep its doors open.  The project was the opportunity of a lifetime…Disney would produce, co-finance, and distribute the film.  

Based on Disney’s demands, John and his team began to make the film darker and darker.  Then one-day, John said he realized that he wasn’t making the film of his dreams and that he was allowing the Disney executives to steal his passion.  Finally, John and his team decided to push back and challenge their demands.  When the Disney executives realized John’s indignation, they told him to pack up and move his entire team to Disney’s Burbank Studios.  But, John begged for just two more weeks to fix all the things that the Disney executives felt were wrong with the film.  John and his team literally worked around the clock, but they resurrected the original storyline.  Disney was truly amazed, and the results were magical! 

In the same spirit as Princess Anna, John threw himself in front of the Disney “bullies” in order to save the story of Woody and Buzz that he wanted to tell.  Without that act of “true love”, I doubt that Pixar would have been able to produce their string of phenomenal blockbuster hits, nor would they have had the opportunity to bring the magic back to Disney Animation with the Academy-award winning Frozen. 

Pixar Brings the Magic of Walt Disney Back to Disney: Part 1 - The Brain Trust

By Bill Capodagli 

In 2006, newly appointed Disney CEO Bob Iger bought Pixar for $7.4 billion.  Talk about risk taking! Rather than impose the stogy, top down, bureaucratic culture of Disney Animation on Pixar, he not only allowed Pixar to remain a separate unit but graciously handed the leadership of Disney Animation to Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, the executives behind Pixar’s phenomenal success.

So what’s the “secret sauce” of Pixar’s success?; how do they continue to catch lightning in a bottle?; and how did they begin to change the Disney culture?

One of the essential ingredients of Pixar’s success is collaboration.  Pixar president Ed Catmull said, “When technology and art come together magical things happen...Walt Disney understood this.”  One of the ways that Ed and John encourage collaboration is something they call the “Brain Trust.”  Typically, these sessions occur every 12 weeks or whenever the director wants to convene a meeting to make story suggestions as a project develops. After presenting the film in whatever form it may be in, directors, writers, and artists engage in a honest discussion about what they liked and didn’t like.  But the key to the Brain Trust is that there are no formal notes taken and no directives given to the director.  It is totally up to the director and his or her team to decide what to do with the input.

Prior to Disney’s formal acquisition of Pixar, a team from Disney visited  Pixar headquarters just to observe a Brain Trust in action.  The next day, that very same Pixar Brain Trust traveled down to Disney to observe Disney’s very first Brain Trust meeting! Even though it took two years for the Disney Brain Trust process to be totally integrated in the Disney culture, they loved the principle from their very first experience.

So, the Brain Trust groundwork was in place for the production of Frozen.  Collaboration – the heart of the process – was also in place.  When a problem arises, directors from various projects jump in and eagerly help one another.   The Disney culture has changed.  The magic of Walt Disney is back!

Pixar Way Keynote with Bill Capodagli

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1774610