7 ms·

What people don't realise about Pixar is how much iteration goes into their stories - they're very comfortable with taking some idea and working on it from diff

What people don't realise about Pixar is how much iteration goes into their stories - they're very comfortable with taking some idea and working on it from different angles until it's good. And there's a process there that can be taught. I think that's contrary to the way some people imagine storytelling - it's almost never the case that some creative person has a brilliant story come out perfect in the first draft. Storytelling requires creativity but it isn't magic. You can also see the lack of this process in so so many films - George Lucas famously drafted out the Star Wars prequels under pressure, no one had the nerve to challenge him and they just ran with the his early drafts every time. Those drafts should have been a starting point, not the end product. And you can say this for many films that come out - there are good ideas somewhere in them, they just had to work on the story a bit more and that's often at odds with studio pressures, release date deadlines etc. This course looks lovely. It's great for KA to have this kind of material and not just calculus tutorials (as much as I personally appreciated the calculus).

ekianjo 6y ago
> they're very comfortable with taking some idea and working on it from different angles until it's good. Except when their stories end up not being very good at all. There's a lot of variability in what they produce, to be honest, so I am not sure if their "process" is a robust as they would like us to believe.
- m4tthumphrey 6y ago
  I can't think of any original Pixar stories that were "not good at all". Brave is probably the only one I might put close to that category. Which ones would you include? Edit: Added "original"; some of the sequels are not great
  - mkl 6y ago
    I also think most of their originals are good. I thought The Good Dinosaur was awful though, and can't understand how it could have come out of this kind of long process of iterative refinement.
    - RobertKerans 6y ago
      Maybe studio just got caught up in it, lost objectivity? Or they just hit a point of no return and hey, it's a Pixar film, it's not going to lose money even if it's very average, is just a possible hit to reputation. It's just not a great subject or story, but I bet the initial tests they did for it looked fantastic. Everyone loves dinosaurs, right? And story is dead simple to understand (too simple? There's nothing there imo), so probably an easy sell at first. Once committed, past a certain point just need to finish it because sunk cost, can iterate and refine a turd forever and it'll still be a turd.
    - rocmcd 6y ago
      I don't think The Good Dinosaur was a very good "children's movie" in the typical sense, but I'd recommend taking a second look at it if you haven't recently. I watched it again after seeing it when it first came out, and I found it to be a pretty good movie - even if it doesn't fit the typical kids movie mold. It's ironic because The Good Dinosaur would be a good example of them taking a bet on a somewhat unique vision (a dinosaur spaghetti western?) with a more mature outlook, and then getting shit on by reviewers because it wasn't as funny or charming as Inside Out.
  - samzer 6y ago
    I guess it's subjective. I found brave quite decent and there were some moving moments. Worst for me would be Cars 2 and in the context of general films, it's still okay.
    - jedimastert 6y ago
      > Worst for me would be Cars 2 TBH I keep forgetting that movie exists. It was such a weird moment for them.
      - kop316 6y ago
        I may have to rewatch it, but I recall that movie being fairly entertaining, even as an adult. I also will say I went to watch it without having seen the original Cars, so perhaps I really had no expectations for the film (other than it was a Pixar film)?
        jedimastert 6y ago
        I've not had any interest in it, so I haven't really say through it. The weird thing is that Cars has this emotional center around facades and regret and abandonment and the differences between the journey and the destination and it's this beautiful look into a town that got bypassed. And more to the point it has this emotional weight that was still really accessible to a young me that a lot of other kids studios didn't really trust kids with (except for like Miyazaki films and stuff). And then Cars 2 was a mistaken-identity spy movie a la Johnny English or Get Smart. I don't doubt it was an entertaining movie or something, but it felt so outside the Pixar brand, like something Disney or Dreamworks or any other studio would make. It was also the first sequel outside of the Toy Story series, from a studio that somewhat famously refused to do sequels if the world didn't have more story to tell. Like I said, it was just such a weird departure to do seemingly do a sequel just because the world was popular enough.
        kop316 6y ago
        > but it felt so outside the Pixar brand, like something Disney or Dreamworks or any other studio would make. Maybe that's why they wanted to do it, to try something different? I have always found the Pixar Shorts to be some of their best story telling. They don't have a lot of time, and don't seem to be afraid of trying new ways to tell a story, or a different type of story.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    Toy Story has been on a very slid downhill after the second episode. 3 and 4 were both unnecessary and not very good. The same can be said for the Cars sequels, and the more recent Pixar productions in general - they had much better ideas in the very first years.
    - EricE 6y ago
      Look at Pixar before and after John Lasseter.
kinghtown 6y ago
I feel that Pixar’s mastery of storytelling is overrated. Coco was lovely but I find their movies to be needlessly sad and curiously episodic in form. In “UP”, each sequence was very well crafted but they fit together randomly as though each scene was brainstormed by a group. They lack a singular vision in their films, there are no auteurs at Pixar: just art by committee. This isn’t to say that their stories are bad, though they are sometimes lukewarm. Except for the Pixar level of excellence in the visuals and animation, which to be clear are admirable on their own, I feel that their movies lack identity. I wouldn’t want their model to become adopted by everyone. They love and study Miyazaki but don’t seem to trust any one person to direct a film. Everything must be put through a committee. I would very much prefer a CG animation course by them. Or a full overview of their pipeline, asset management, USD implementation. Their technical chops are probably best in the world. Maybe they could do something like release a public version of Presto. Or help out with animation and rigging code with the blender foundation.
- NikolaNovak 6y ago
  Interesting; I feel it depends on the movie - they have a large portfolio now so some sort of averaging is inevitable. I feel e.g. Cars franchise has limited vision. They're "allright", but not spectacular. I'm OK never seeing any of them again, even the first one. On the other hand, I find Monsters Inc. a unique movie with a unique premise, and I can rewatch it regularly - with or without the kids 0:-). I also don't find it particularly sad. Inside out does indeed have a large dose of melancholy, but again I feel is a unique idea taken quite far without dilution. (there are absolutely movies that are way more avant garde or quirky or surreal or even "creative" inasmuch as that can be objectively compared - but Pixar has two distinct audiences to cater to and they HAVE to be entertaining and attention-occupying to children; while inserting content that also keeps adults interested and even thoughtful - that's a specific set of constraints that e.g. "Love Death + Robots" does not have) And if we look at their entire portfolio, the Pixar Shorts again have some absolutely brilliant, touching, "single idea executed to perfection" entries.
  - kinghtown 6y ago
    Around the time of Wall-E and The Incredibles, I was very much a fan of their work and felt like they could do no wrong. Now I’m not so sure- I did love Coco but they have been absorbed by Disney at this point and are satisfying investors. Also, I find the low key arrogance about having mastered storytelling more than a little obnoxious. You can see a bit of this in Andrew Stanton’s Ted talk. Before they sold to Disney, they were going to start making more mature films alongside their children’s entertainment. I was very curious about Ray Gunn. I think if Disney wanted it then Pixar could definitely make an incredibly compelling animated movie with mature themes. I mostly find myself disappointed with them these days. (I find whenever I bring this up online quite a few people come at me with this idea that they are making mature films, and that the line between children’s entertainment and adult is imaginary, as though most kids could sit through something like The Rules of the Game or Tokyo Story.) But to be clear, I’m still mostly a fan of their work but mostly for their technical mastery.
onion2k 6y ago
Pixar does this iteration using a technique called "plussing". When you see someone's work you accept it regardless of whether you think it's good. You're encouraged to do what you can to make your colleagues look good. Work is always a starting point for the next iteration. When you do need to be critical of something you should always add something about how to make it better. There's a good video on YT about it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhXJe8ANws8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhXJe8ANws8
- lostsoul8282 6y ago
  This single comment sent me on a hour long search of Randy Nelson and the interesting world of story telling from writters at pixar and disney.
- Taylor_OD 6y ago
  This skill, or at least the ability to consider pulsing, is so valuable. A lot of things in life are not good. Even more are just okay. Very few are good and almost none are perfect or great. Having the ability to be in a situation or see something that is just okay and go, "Okay well it's not perfect but that is okay. Can I make it a little better?" is really helpful. It also makes life a lot less frustrating.
  - jtr1 6y ago
    Agreed. I'd almost go so far as to say that it's an essential tool for aggregating intelligence. Sifting for and refining ideas just strikes me as so much more efficient than attacking and defending them.
  - bennysonething 6y ago
    Yep, it's pretty much the key to be able to work with people
- NortySpock 6y ago
  Sounds similar to the improv skit mantra of "Yes, and...", where any improvisation ("and then I found the cat on the shelf!") must be accepted and built on. (e.g. "Oh BooBoo, how did you get on the shelf you silly cat?") If an actor instead said "No, the cat wasn't on the shelf, the cat wasn't even in the room" the skit ends awkwardly.
grawprog 6y ago
>it's almost never the case that some creative person has a brilliant story come out perfect in the first draft. I've got a book i ended up getting in a free box of books. It's some fantasy novel. It's probably the worst book i've ever seen in print. Everything from the description on the back to the font choices, sometimes four or five in different sizes on one page, to the actual writing reads like something a child would write. Curious about how such a thing could exist, i looked into it more. Turns out it was a self published book edited by the author's wife. Now this next part is speculation... But you can almost picture his wife trying to edit this thing and the author just being like, nope we'll keep it my way. Like, basic spelling and grammar mistakes, terribly worded sentences, a story that made absolutely no sense. The thing is, getting past it all, there were some good ideas in there and likely, in the hands of a good editor and publisher, it could maybe have been turned into an alright, if still not that great of a book rather than, i'm not actually exaggerating here, literally the worst book i've ever seen. Another example that just kind of popped into my head while writing this, the original drafts of star wars. https://old.reddit.com/r/StarWarsCantina/comments/afvlzk/links_to_every_scanned_star_wars_screenplay_that/ https://old.reddit.com/r/StarWarsCantina/comments/afvlzk/lin... I've read some of them and honestly, they were pretty bad, like scyfy movie bad. Without the team of screenwriters and editors that worked through those drafts, we'd probably have no idea what 'Star Killers' was other than some weird cult scifi b-movie with a dedicated fan base of a few hundred people that get together once a year, get drunk, dress up as their favourite characters and complain about how nobody understands just how great George Lucas and Star Killers is. And then Spaceballs would never have been made and that just woulda sucked a whole lot.

ekianjo 6y ago

> they're very comfortable with taking some idea and working on it from different angles until it's good. Except when their stories end up not being very good at all. There's a lot of variability in what they produce, to be honest, so I am not sure if their "process" is a robust as they would like us to believe.

m4tthumphrey 6y ago
I can't think of any original Pixar stories that were "not good at all". Brave is probably the only one I might put close to that category. Which ones would you include? Edit: Added "original"; some of the sequels are not great
- mkl 6y ago
  I also think most of their originals are good. I thought The Good Dinosaur was awful though, and can't understand how it could have come out of this kind of long process of iterative refinement.
  - RobertKerans 6y ago
    Maybe studio just got caught up in it, lost objectivity? Or they just hit a point of no return and hey, it's a Pixar film, it's not going to lose money even if it's very average, is just a possible hit to reputation. It's just not a great subject or story, but I bet the initial tests they did for it looked fantastic. Everyone loves dinosaurs, right? And story is dead simple to understand (too simple? There's nothing there imo), so probably an easy sell at first. Once committed, past a certain point just need to finish it because sunk cost, can iterate and refine a turd forever and it'll still be a turd.
  - rocmcd 6y ago
    I don't think The Good Dinosaur was a very good "children's movie" in the typical sense, but I'd recommend taking a second look at it if you haven't recently. I watched it again after seeing it when it first came out, and I found it to be a pretty good movie - even if it doesn't fit the typical kids movie mold. It's ironic because The Good Dinosaur would be a good example of them taking a bet on a somewhat unique vision (a dinosaur spaghetti western?) with a more mature outlook, and then getting shit on by reviewers because it wasn't as funny or charming as Inside Out.
- samzer 6y ago
  I guess it's subjective. I found brave quite decent and there were some moving moments. Worst for me would be Cars 2 and in the context of general films, it's still okay.
  - jedimastert 6y ago
    > Worst for me would be Cars 2 TBH I keep forgetting that movie exists. It was such a weird moment for them.
    - kop316 6y ago
      I may have to rewatch it, but I recall that movie being fairly entertaining, even as an adult. I also will say I went to watch it without having seen the original Cars, so perhaps I really had no expectations for the film (other than it was a Pixar film)?
      - jedimastert 6y ago
        I've not had any interest in it, so I haven't really say through it. The weird thing is that Cars has this emotional center around facades and regret and abandonment and the differences between the journey and the destination and it's this beautiful look into a town that got bypassed. And more to the point it has this emotional weight that was still really accessible to a young me that a lot of other kids studios didn't really trust kids with (except for like Miyazaki films and stuff). And then Cars 2 was a mistaken-identity spy movie a la Johnny English or Get Smart. I don't doubt it was an entertaining movie or something, but it felt so outside the Pixar brand, like something Disney or Dreamworks or any other studio would make. It was also the first sequel outside of the Toy Story series, from a studio that somewhat famously refused to do sequels if the world didn't have more story to tell. Like I said, it was just such a weird departure to do seemingly do a sequel just because the world was popular enough.
        kop316 6y ago
        > but it felt so outside the Pixar brand, like something Disney or Dreamworks or any other studio would make. Maybe that's why they wanted to do it, to try something different? I have always found the Pixar Shorts to be some of their best story telling. They don't have a lot of time, and don't seem to be afraid of trying new ways to tell a story, or a different type of story.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Toy Story has been on a very slid downhill after the second episode. 3 and 4 were both unnecessary and not very good. The same can be said for the Cars sequels, and the more recent Pixar productions in general - they had much better ideas in the very first years.
  - EricE 6y ago
    Look at Pixar before and after John Lasseter.

kinghtown 6y ago

I feel that Pixar’s mastery of storytelling is overrated. Coco was lovely but I find their movies to be needlessly sad and curiously episodic in form. In “UP”, each sequence was very well crafted but they fit together randomly as though each scene was brainstormed by a group. They lack a singular vision in their films, there are no auteurs at Pixar: just art by committee. This isn’t to say that their stories are bad, though they are sometimes lukewarm. Except for the Pixar level of excellence in the visuals and animation, which to be clear are admirable on their own, I feel that their movies lack identity. I wouldn’t want their model to become adopted by everyone. They love and study Miyazaki but don’t seem to trust any one person to direct a film. Everything must be put through a committee. I would very much prefer a CG animation course by them. Or a full overview of their pipeline, asset management, USD implementation. Their technical chops are probably best in the world. Maybe they could do something like release a public version of Presto. Or help out with animation and rigging code with the blender foundation.

NikolaNovak 6y ago
Interesting; I feel it depends on the movie - they have a large portfolio now so some sort of averaging is inevitable. I feel e.g. Cars franchise has limited vision. They're "allright", but not spectacular. I'm OK never seeing any of them again, even the first one. On the other hand, I find Monsters Inc. a unique movie with a unique premise, and I can rewatch it regularly - with or without the kids 0:-). I also don't find it particularly sad. Inside out does indeed have a large dose of melancholy, but again I feel is a unique idea taken quite far without dilution. (there are absolutely movies that are way more avant garde or quirky or surreal or even "creative" inasmuch as that can be objectively compared - but Pixar has two distinct audiences to cater to and they HAVE to be entertaining and attention-occupying to children; while inserting content that also keeps adults interested and even thoughtful - that's a specific set of constraints that e.g. "Love Death + Robots" does not have) And if we look at their entire portfolio, the Pixar Shorts again have some absolutely brilliant, touching, "single idea executed to perfection" entries.
- kinghtown 6y ago
  Around the time of Wall-E and The Incredibles, I was very much a fan of their work and felt like they could do no wrong. Now I’m not so sure- I did love Coco but they have been absorbed by Disney at this point and are satisfying investors. Also, I find the low key arrogance about having mastered storytelling more than a little obnoxious. You can see a bit of this in Andrew Stanton’s Ted talk. Before they sold to Disney, they were going to start making more mature films alongside their children’s entertainment. I was very curious about Ray Gunn. I think if Disney wanted it then Pixar could definitely make an incredibly compelling animated movie with mature themes. I mostly find myself disappointed with them these days. (I find whenever I bring this up online quite a few people come at me with this idea that they are making mature films, and that the line between children’s entertainment and adult is imaginary, as though most kids could sit through something like The Rules of the Game or Tokyo Story.) But to be clear, I’m still mostly a fan of their work but mostly for their technical mastery.

onion2k 6y ago

Pixar does this iteration using a technique called "plussing". When you see someone's work you accept it regardless of whether you think it's good. You're encouraged to do what you can to make your colleagues look good. Work is always a starting point for the next iteration. When you do need to be critical of something you should always add something about how to make it better. There's a good video on YT about it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhXJe8ANws8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhXJe8ANws8

lostsoul8282 6y ago
This single comment sent me on a hour long search of Randy Nelson and the interesting world of story telling from writters at pixar and disney.
Taylor_OD 6y ago
This skill, or at least the ability to consider pulsing, is so valuable. A lot of things in life are not good. Even more are just okay. Very few are good and almost none are perfect or great. Having the ability to be in a situation or see something that is just okay and go, "Okay well it's not perfect but that is okay. Can I make it a little better?" is really helpful. It also makes life a lot less frustrating.
- jtr1 6y ago
  Agreed. I'd almost go so far as to say that it's an essential tool for aggregating intelligence. Sifting for and refining ideas just strikes me as so much more efficient than attacking and defending them.
- bennysonething 6y ago
  Yep, it's pretty much the key to be able to work with people
NortySpock 6y ago
Sounds similar to the improv skit mantra of "Yes, and...", where any improvisation ("and then I found the cat on the shelf!") must be accepted and built on. (e.g. "Oh BooBoo, how did you get on the shelf you silly cat?") If an actor instead said "No, the cat wasn't on the shelf, the cat wasn't even in the room" the skit ends awkwardly.

grawprog 6y ago

>it's almost never the case that some creative person has a brilliant story come out perfect in the first draft. I've got a book i ended up getting in a free box of books. It's some fantasy novel. It's probably the worst book i've ever seen in print. Everything from the description on the back to the font choices, sometimes four or five in different sizes on one page, to the actual writing reads like something a child would write. Curious about how such a thing could exist, i looked into it more. Turns out it was a self published book edited by the author's wife. Now this next part is speculation... But you can almost picture his wife trying to edit this thing and the author just being like, nope we'll keep it my way. Like, basic spelling and grammar mistakes, terribly worded sentences, a story that made absolutely no sense. The thing is, getting past it all, there were some good ideas in there and likely, in the hands of a good editor and publisher, it could maybe have been turned into an alright, if still not that great of a book rather than, i'm not actually exaggerating here, literally the worst book i've ever seen. Another example that just kind of popped into my head while writing this, the original drafts of star wars. https://old.reddit.com/r/StarWarsCantina/comments/afvlzk/links_to_every_scanned_star_wars_screenplay_that/ https://old.reddit.com/r/StarWarsCantina/comments/afvlzk/lin... I've read some of them and honestly, they were pretty bad, like scyfy movie bad. Without the team of screenwriters and editors that worked through those drafts, we'd probably have no idea what 'Star Killers' was other than some weird cult scifi b-movie with a dedicated fan base of a few hundred people that get together once a year, get drunk, dress up as their favourite characters and complain about how nobody understands just how great George Lucas and Star Killers is. And then Spaceballs would never have been made and that just woulda sucked a whole lot.