A Review of Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace (Random House 2014)
We live in a golden age of animation, an age arguably more dazzling and innovative, more populated with great stories and lovable characters, than any other in history. And what’s remarkable is that two of the most successful animated movies in recent years, the Oscar-winning Toy Story 3, which grossed over 1 billion worldwide, and the Oscar-winningFrozen, which just surpassed Toy Story 3 to become the highest grossing animated movie of all-time, were spearheaded by two of the same people: John Lasseter, chief creative officer of both Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, and Ed Catmull, president of both Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.
Ed Catmull’s is a name that will be unknown to all but the most avid fans of computer animation and digital graphics. Holder of a PhD in computer science from the University of Utah, Catmull was at the forefront of the creation of the computer graphics industry in the 1970s. He eventually went to work for a unit doing computer-generated graphics for George Lucas at LucasFilm, but it was only when Lucas decided to sell that unit that Catmull’s career took the turn which eventually earned him, among many other honors, the Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancements in the art or industry of animation. For Catmull’s unit, which by 1986 included a talented young animator named John Lasseter, was bought by none other than Steve Jobs, after which Catmull and Lasseter began to pursue their dream of creating the first digitally animated feature film. Pixar Animation Studios was born. After an unprecedented string of box offices successes with which we’re all familiar, Jobs sold Pixar to Disney in 2006, after which Lasseter and Catmull established themselves as the heads of the animation studios at both entities.
In his new book, Creativity, Inc., engagingly written with journalist Amy Wallace, Catmull distills the lessons he has learned throughout his forty-year career. The book, above all, is about the art of collaborative creativity, about how to keep a business enterprise on the cutting edge of creative productivity. But the book is more than that. It’s also a history of Pixar; a detailed look into the management practices Catmull has employed to keep Disney and Pixar a double gold standard in the field of digital animation; and, especially in one of its appendixes, something of a counter-weight to the portrait of Steve Jobs found in Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography.
I found Creativity, Inc. riveting, provocative, inspiring. As someone working in the family entertainment space who, like both Catmull and Lasseter, dreamed as a kid of being a Disney animator, this is perhaps not especially surprising. But I was just as compelled by Catmull’s discussion of the management practices he has helped develop as I was hearing behind-the-scenes stories about the making of various Disney-Pixar films. And what I find so compelling in these practices is Catmull’s unflagging vigilance in identifying and rooting out all that would infect the environment needed for a collaboratively creative enterprise. From the famous Pixar Braintrust to the innovation of Notes Day, Catmull has made an art out of what keeps people at their creative best.
But here is what impressed me most about Catmull’s book, which I highly recommend to anyone involved in any kind of collaboratively creative endeavor, whether professional or not. As Catmull takes us through various management strategies designed to foster or reinvigorate creativity, what comes through is that the best creative practices are also the best human practices. That is, exercises designed to enhance creativity seem to be successful insofar as they bring out important human virtues: virtues such as trust, candor, humility, generosity, loyalty, perseverance, good humor, and respect. And this makes perfect sense, because creativity is not a discrete skill like the ability to speak French or ride a bike. Creativity is a complex expression of the very essence of human nature–one that involves the mind, will, emotions, imagination, and even certain physical attributes. Thus it stands to reason that creativity will flourish when human nature itself is allowed to flourish in virtuous activity.
