Adrian’s Microblog

Posting just because I like this. :)

Okay, you may have noticed I’ve been on a Pixar kick lately. ;) In this 27m interview released just over a week ago, Pixar and Disney Animation Studios President Ed Catmull gives some insight into the thinking and habits that have helped them release a string of successes. Some of the things I found particularly interesting:–Pixar has taken as its aim, the bold goal, of being original. (Refreshing for a movie studio actually.) But they’re not pretentious about this, and Ed comes right out to say: they realize it means they’ll always have a good chance of failure whenever they make a movie. And when asked about their process, he describes it as failing all along the way of making each one.–This “humility before the creative process”, and human-centric focus, permeates their approach. They go with the person first, not the idea – persons who have enthusiasm. As Ed says, “we’re always riding on the people.” They have the director work up three story arcs the director is excited about, and then they chose the one that the director is the most passionate about. They gather a small team of six or so around that person for two years as they flesh out that story. The first draft always sucks; always. And they know they’re working towards that “click” moment when the pieces fall into place. They realize it may never come: it’s a very real possibility to them, and they have mechanisms for resets. Resets are painful to the people, and resets are costly to the studio, but they’ve accepted that. A handful of the movies have had major restarts, often with different directors, and one movie never saw the light of day (Newt).–Within the studio, the leadership knows they’re dealing with the two sides of failure: academic and emotional. While we know academically that failure is necessary to learning and doing something new, we still have to overcome the internal angst that comes from feeling we’ve done something wrong, we’ll prove we’re not smart enough, or we didn’t work hard enough. Ed sees his job of helping the team take risks, and making it safer to be creative, by removing the barriers of fear from the creative process.–Ed describes the process of risk taking in three phases: (1) identify and accept the level of risk intended: high, low, etc.; (2) work out the consequences of that risk through internal iterations feeling your way through the process, (3) lock and load once it “clicks”, and don’t intentionally introduce new risk to the process.–Lastly, Ed cautions against drawing the wrong conclusions about success. It’s not as simple as we might like to think – don’t gloss over the messiness. Journalists writing about the success necessarily have to simplify the story, but don’t fall into the trap of believing them. Because it’s an organic system, there’s always something out of view that’s headed out of balance that you need to be alert to, and not blinded by a sense that you’ve got it all figured out now.At the beginning of the video, they share the trailer for the new Pixar movie coming out this fall, The Good Dinosaur. At the time of the video, the trailer hadn’t been publicly released and is hidden from the camera, but it’s available now online, and I’d check it out.

The art of speaking, without something to say. :)(via Ed)

I’ve been an Apple user from around 2002 when I got my first iBook. One of the things that drew my to the brand was the seamless digital life that ‘just works’, and the quality of the hardware that would last. To me, it was worth the price premium for that.This held true for at least a decade, but over the last few years I’ve had an increasingly a different experience. With my new iPad, MacBook Air, and iPhone 4S, I’ve noticed they’ve taken more effort on the software side to get talking to each other, my iPad and iPhone have both had to be restored more than once, the USB port on my MacBook Air is glitchy, the wires fray, etc.I sincerely hope it’s not an indicator of a trend, because Apple has done so much to make computing ubiquitous, and I like that part of it. :)

Sometimes you just gotta dance. ;)(via katykelley)

Uncertainty and change are life’s constants. And that’s the fun part. The truth is, as challenges emerge, mistakes will always be made, and our work is never done. We will always have problems, many of which are hidden from our view; we must work to uncover them and assess our own role in them, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable; when we then come across a problem, we must marshal all our energies to solve it…There’s something else that bears repeating here: Unleashing creativity requires that we loosen the controls, accept risk, trust our colleagues, work to clear the path for them, and pay attention to anything that creates fear. Doing all these things won’t necessarily make the job of managing a creative culture easier. But ease isn’t the goal; excellence is. —

Ed Catmull, as the closing paragraph of his book, Creativity, Inc.

I can’t help but to think his words have wider applications too. :)

George Gilder on economy, learning, EFT’s, etc.

Ryan T. Anderson shares a very articulate 8m recap of why SCOTUS got it wrong on the marriage issue in the Obergefell case.

John Lasseter dedicating an exhibit on the movie-making of Pixar.In it, he shares three keys to a great film:–A compelling, but unpredictable, story,–Connectable characters, and–A believable, but not necessarily realistic, world.He also shows one of the tools Pixar developed to help them tell great stories: a “color script”. In it, panels are drawn of key parts in the movie, showing the color tones to be used, which set the emotional tone. I sorta like thinking of it as a “color score”, almost like a musical score that charts the ups and downs of the emotional arc.Bonus videos if you’d like to delve deeper:–A Day in the Life of John Lasseter–Charlie Rose interviews Steve Jobs and John Lasseter a few months after the first Toy Story was released–John Lasseter gives the 2015 SCAD Commencement Address–Ed Catmull talks about his recently published book on creating creative cultures: Creativity, Inc.

We begin life, as children, being open to the ideas of others because we need to be open to learn. Most of what children encounter, after all, are things they’ve never seen before. The child has no choice but to embrace the new. If this openness is so wonderful, however, why do we lose it as we grow up? Where, along the way, do we turn from the wild-eyed child into the adult who fears surprises and has all the answers and seeks to control all outcomes? — Ed Catmull, President of Pixar & Disney Animation, in his book Creativity, Inc.

When to Doubt a Scientific Consensus | The Stream

(via Reason and Emotion - YouTube)

Andy Greenwald interviews Pete Docter, Director of Pixar’s new movie, Inside Out.Aside from adding to my already keen interest to see this movie, this interview was great to hear craftsman and critic really tease apart the story telling and creative process.Among the tidbits shared:–Three years into the five year writing process, Pete made a massive change to the script, substituting different main characters. The willingness to pivot, the openness to follow where the creative process goes, the giving something enough space to breathe out what’s inside, these all seem core.–The editing process is critical too. Eight scripts and screenings trying to get the story right. Multiple feedbacks collected, thousands of little decisions, tradeoffs, etc. Nothing falls from the sky fully formed.–There is no formula to the creative process.–How the audio is recorded first, then the animators look to bring to life the soul of the voice actor. (Although they didn’t mention it here, I imagine they both audio and video record the voice actors, for visual inspiration too.)–’The story is discovered, not made.’(via austinkleon; related article)

by yours truly; quote from book entitled Boys to Men

He says we should stop talking about ‘addiction’ altogether, and instead call it 'bonding.’ A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn’t bond as fully with anything else.

So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

So here you are. Standing at a place that is ‘Not Amazing’ and you’re trying to get over there to 'Amazing’. There is no shortcut except to go through the mud of 'Not Yet Amazing.’

I want to have more bad ideas, more terrible first drafts, more embarrassing design mock ups, more failures, and more awkward moments.

While that may sound like the worst Christmas List ever, what it actually means is that I want to try harder and have less fear of failure. More bad ideas, more terrible first drafts, and more failed attempts, means more work created.

Too much attention on the big, long-term goals and we despise the little daily steps needed to make progress. But too much focus on the granular, and it can be easy to feel like the ‘urgent’ things are most important. — Shawn Blanc, in his latest e-mail: Living Without Regret in the Age of Distraction

This video has been out for a bit, but wanted to post here: Brene Brown, qualitative researcher, on the importance of vulnerability. So, so critical.If you’re interested in more, I’ve also heard good things about her book, Daring Greatly.

austinkleon:

How to graciously say no to anyone“There is no money in answering letters.” —Groucho MarxA couple of years ago, I was getting sent this article, “Creative People Say No,” at least twice a day. The idea was that creative geniuses say “no” to a lot of requests (like, a psychology professor researching processes of creative genius) in order to get their work done, so if you want to be a creative genius, you have to say no a lot so you can get your work done.A bunch of people asked me what I thought about it, and I said, “It’s good advice for the rich and famous. Creative people say yes until they have enough work that they can say no.”Ian Bogost explains it nicely, here:[Y]ou have to say ‘yes’ for a long while before you can earn the right to say ‘no.’ Even then, you usually can’t say ‘no’ at whim. By the time you can say ‘no’ indiscriminately, then you’re already so super-privileged that being able to say ‘no’ is not a prerequisite of success, but a result of it.There was a little index card in the back of Steal Like An Artist that didn’t make it into the book that sums up my own point of view: “Be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get your work done.”Of course, sometimes you just have to say no for whatever reason. For that, Alexandra Franzen suggests this format in her piece, “How To Graciously Say No To Anyone”:Hey [name],Thanks for your note. I’m so proud of you for ___—and I’m flattered that you’d like to bring my brain into the mix.I need to say “no,” because ___.But I would love to support you in a different way. [Offer an alternative form of support here]Thank you for being such a wonderful ___. I am honored to be part of your world.[A few closing words of encouragement, if you’d like][Your name here]

Images above from The Ransom Center, Tim Ferriss, @maudnewton, and my letters archive.

I’m not fully able to articulate why, but this space is really appealing. Maybe it’s the mixture and good balance of basic materials. There’s both a warmth, but a simplicity. It’s tidy, but there’s also a natural lived-in-ness to it. And there’s some surprise, creativity, and unrevealed-ness to it. Okay, enough made up words. Here it is. :)nonconcept:

archatlas:Loft 9b Dimitar Karanikolo“After several years living and working in London architect Dimitar Karanikolov and interior designer Veneta Nikolova moved back to Sofia, where they found a small but interesting attic apartment in a newly built development.They spent the next two years reconstructing the place,  designing furniture and experimenting with details, and finishes.”

Pretty much amazing.