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How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

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Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#51

Post by rythie »

topherjaynes wrote: post #14
vl wrote: post #7

I'm worried about future of Pixar, they always valued original and insightful stories. All of their early and recent productions were delightful to watch. Understandably, this approach left not so many space for sequels. They recently committed to making of Monsters 2 and Cars 2. Story outline for Cars 2 is just terrible. It seems that financial concerns under Disney leadership are prevailing and bits of integrity ar…

The Story outline for cars might seem "terrible," but think about every Pixar movie's outline before you actually saw it? A movie about Toys? A Movie entirely about Rats--whose going to watch that? A Robot who doesn't talk, for how long? And yet, each and everyone of those movies were astounding, at least in my opinion, but critics and box office receipts prove my point too. Yes, sequels have a tendency to be purely…

To say those movies are about "Toys" or "Rats", doesn't say anything about it, any more than saying a movie is about "People", and there are a far larger number of those.

Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#52

Post by jasongullickson »

vl wrote: post #7

I'm worried about future of Pixar, they always valued original and insightful stories. All of their early and recent productions were delightful to watch. Understandably, this approach left not so many space for sequels. They recently committed to making of Monsters 2 and Cars 2. Story outline for Cars 2 is just terrible. It seems that financial concerns under Disney leadership are prevailing and bits of integrity ar…

I think the key thing to note is that, even if you don't personally like some of Pixar's films you cannot deny the quality of filmmaking, which increases with each film in every quantifiable way.

There is a lot about film (as with any art) that is subjective but there are specific and measurable qualities of a film that can be measured and in each of these Pixar struggles (I say struggle because they set themselves a very high bar) to exceed the qualities of their previous work. In this way they are very different from the Disney of the 1980's/1990's where quality was liquidated as a way to increase the revenue of films who's value lies solely in brand and character recognition.

I agree that the level of merchandising associated with these films is absurd, but I don't know how much the filmmakers have to do with this and we could point to plenty of examples in the software sector who have a hard time saying no when a few million dollars are waved in front of their faces.

If you want to learn more about how Pixar will bleed for quality, research the story behind Toy Story 2; if you can find me another company willing to risk everything for the sake of preventing even one low-grade product from reaching the market, I'll be impressed.

Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#53

Post by JabavuAdams »

axod wrote: post #28
JabavuAdams wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, aside from some interesting landscape rendering, Cars isn't in the same league as the other Pixar films. It felt like a pure kids movie + merchandising extravaganza. > and box office receipts prove my point too This isn't saying much. The cost-structure of CGI and effects-heavy films is such that you have to essentially make something that will appeal to kids and/or teens, otherwise you're hosed financially.…

I liked Cars. I absolutely hated Up! and Wall-e with a passion. Cars is obviously a reasonably simple storyline, but it's a good movie with good characters. Kids like cars shrug it's a movie about toy cars... what's not to like? Better than an obese highly irritating boy scout kid hitching a lift on a house with an old guy :/

UP was strange. It was like two different movies that never quite came together. I like slapstick, but man, slapstick and cancer doesn't work. It's like there was a great and weird (good) movie in there but it got cheapened by the clowny Disney mascot kid thing.

I couldn't stand the kid and the bizarre dog voice, but I haven't thought enough about it to see a solution.

Wall-E had some nice moments -- mostly when it was trying to be Star Wars. The Eco-story and human characters were ludicrous.

I want to see what Brad Bird makes next. Incredibles and Ratatouille are by far my favourite Pixar movies.

Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#55

Post by JabavuAdams »

jasongullickson wrote: post #52
vl wrote: post #7

I'm worried about future of Pixar, they always valued original and insightful stories. All of their early and recent productions were delightful to watch. Understandably, this approach left not so many space for sequels. They recently committed to making of Monsters 2 and Cars 2. Story outline for Cars 2 is just terrible. It seems that financial concerns under Disney leadership are prevailing and bits of integrity ar…

I think the key thing to note is that, even if you don't personally like some of Pixar's films you cannot deny the quality of filmmaking, which increases with each film in every quantifiable way. There is a lot about film (as with any art) that is subjective but there are specific and measurable qualities of a film that can be measured and in each of these Pixar struggles (I say struggle because they set themselves a…

> the quality of filmmaking, which increases with each film in every quantifiable way.

It's funny, that sounds more like vague generalization than something quantifiable.

I'm impressed by the attention to craft at Pixar, but that doesn't mean that each movie is better than the last. Certainly not in "every quantifiable way".

Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#56

Post by JabavuAdams »

tomjen3 wrote: post #43
knowledgesale wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you people please stop trusting companies and politicians. It's a company and the only goal of it is to make profits for its investors and its employees. If you believe that making artistic movies and maintaining a company's good reputation is a good way to run their business, let it happen with starting up your company and risking your own money or career. My point is that commenting on how some company's busin…

How can the company get people to see their movies if they are not know for making good ones? Politicians can lie because you are not the target, cinemas have you as a target.

Yeah, but if you have good feelings about the brand, you'll excuse some not so great offerings. So, they can get away with it for a time.

This is a classic problem: to be really successful you need to create a kind of brand mythology. The problem is once you do that, people stop honestly appraising your work, until it's too late.

Ed Catmull (Pixar CEO) is a huge inspiration to me, and he seems to understand the importance of getting accurate feedback (especially negative feedback). The problem is that once you're Pixar/Disney, the audience isn't really providing you with accurate feedback on the time-scale of a single release.

If your quality is slipping, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt, until it's too late to ignore.

Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#57

Post by knowledgesale »

tomjen3 wrote: post #43
knowledgesale wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you people please stop trusting companies and politicians. It's a company and the only goal of it is to make profits for its investors and its employees. If you believe that making artistic movies and maintaining a company's good reputation is a good way to run their business, let it happen with starting up your company and risking your own money or career. My point is that commenting on how some company's busin…

How can the company get people to see their movies if they are not know for making good ones? Politicians can lie because you are not the target, cinemas have you as a target.

All I am saying is that they may have their own motivations and, well, they are more likely to know what they are doing than all of us as it is their primary occupation and business.

In general, we don't have strong opinions on how to run the chemical engineering companies but everyone is eager to tell Pixar what movies to produce. This is a good manifestation of the Bike shed rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bike_shed

Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#58

Post by pchristensen »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #56
tomjen3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can the company get people to see their movies if they are not know for making good ones? Politicians can lie because you are not the target, cinemas have you as a target.

Yeah, but if you have good feelings about the brand, you'll excuse some not so great offerings. So, they can get away with it for a time. This is a classic problem: to be really successful you need to create a kind of brand mythology. The problem is once you do that, people stop honestly appraising your work, until it's too late. Ed Catmull (Pixar CEO) is a huge inspiration to me, and he seems to understand the impor…

I'm very much a "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Pixar has never made a movie I didn't LOVE, so until they do, I'll see their movies sight unseen.

In contrast, the digital animated movies from other companies (Dreamworks, etc) have been so BAD that I won't even consider seeing them unless I hear great word of mouth.

Both companies (Pixar and ^Pixar) have earned the reputation they have.

Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#59

Post by pchristensen »

knowledgesale wrote: post #38
pchristensen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember being in the theater when I saw the trailer for Cars 2. First was the Pixar splash. I gripped the armrests and sucked in my breath with anticipation. Then I watched the trailer and was a little disgusted. My reaction afterwards was "I didn't like the look of that trailer one bit. If it was anyone but Pixar, I would have covered my kids' eyes so they wouldn't know it existed. Since it's Pixar, I'll see it o…

Will you people please stop trusting companies and politicians. It's a company and the only goal of it is to make profits for its investors and its employees. If you believe that making artistic movies and maintaining a company's good reputation is a good way to run their business, let it happen with starting up your company and risking your own money or career. My point is that commenting on how some company's busin…

I don't understand what you're saying. My business relationship is with Pixar is that I pay one of their distributors and I expect 90-120 minutes of good entertainment. They have help up their end of the bargain every time. If I accept their value proposition and trust based on history that they will continue to deliver, why would I not continue to do business with them?

Re: How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

#60

Post by scott_s »

dustingetz wrote: post #19
scott_s wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Times have not changed. This level of commitment of managers to their employees is rare now, and always has been.

i try not to be a cynic, but if they had even an inkling of their potential, their commitment was economically rational.

Potential is not a guarantee. Even if you see potential in someone, there is still a risk in investing in that potential - not all potential is realized.

Even if we assume the managers' motives were purely economical, it's still rare. Consider that they took a risk - their own jobs - based on their own belief that their team could deliver.

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