Recently saw Varun Badola mimicing Kishore Kumar in a Dairy Milk Ad. Thanks to the retro look created by the art directors, "Pehli Tarikh Hai" song has again become a rage like it used to be in the late 50s till early 70s. The original song was the most Farmayish-ed song on the 1st of every month on all the request shows on Radio Stations all over. It was kind of an unsaid programming policy (if we may call it) Radio Ceylon used to follow by playing the Pehli Tarikh Song on the 1st of every month.
The original song is my favorite because this is one of the songs which Papa ji used to sing for us, when we were kids. He always talk about this song and fondly remembers the good old radio days. So when this ad started airing on TV, it was kind of nostalgic for him and for all of us in different ways. I haven't seen the actual song ever in my life but as far as I remember the song is from the movie Pehli Tarikh (1954), Lyrics by Qamar Jalalabadi and music by Sudhir Phadke Sahab.
Qamar Jalalabadi not only wrote some real funny songs for Kishore Kumar (Remember Guni Jano Bhakt Jano from Aansoo Aur Muskan, 1970) but also wrote dialogues for many classic films. Phadke sahab was one of the pioneering music directors from Marathi Cinema. Phadke composed music for only two Hindi Films - Pehli Tarikh (1954) & Bhabhi Ki Chudiyaan (1961), which has one of my most favorite Lata Mangeshkar song-Jyoti Kalash Chhalke (which I think is one of her best songs too).
Anyway before I start my own Radio Show here, here is the Original Pehli Tarikh Song for you
Cadbury's Dairy Milk Version:
I really love the kid's Jhatkas and Ticket Blackiyas' expressions in this video. ___________ Chalte-Chalte- Pics from my Lucknow trip, where they invited me to speak* on Story Telling, Content Creation & Pre-Production in Animation.
(*Statutory Warning : Inviting/Asking Alok Sharma to Speak can be extremely dangerous...)
Last weekend I met Jaidev after almost three years. We went for Dev D, which IMHO is one of the best Indian Movies I’ve seen in a longtime. Only thing I disliked in the film was the interval. Adlabs, Pune was playing Delhi-6 songs in the interval, which started another very interesting (atleast for us) conversation on music. They were playing the 8 minute 42 seconds long Arziyaan from Delhi-6 sung wonderfully by Javed Ali & Kailash Kher.
“You know there is a glitch in this song, exactly at the 2nd second of 8th minute, which wasn’t corrected and the song is being released and played with the glitch,” He told.
I played the track as soon as I reached home to find this not so prominent glitch in the song exactly at 2nd Sec. of 8th minute of Arziyaan.
But this is not the first time when a glitch has passed from a music studio to the final released tracks. Swades, which is one of my most favorite A.R.Rahman Albums has one such glitch in the Shehnai Version of Ye Jo Des Hai Tera, if you have heard the track carefully the Shehnai player (if I remember correctly it’s the Great Bismillah Khan Sahab) caughs exactly at the 59th second of first minute, the cough never got edited or removed from the track (knowingly or by mistake, we don’t know). This cough is very prominent in the track.
Another song I remember with a glitch has a funny anecdote about it. The song is Piya Piya Piya Mora Jiya Pukare from 1955 Kishore Kumar film – Baap Re Baap. Music- O.P.Nayyar.Lyrics- Jaan Nisaar Akhtar (Javed Sahab’s Father). This song was recorded in 50s, the era of one track recording, when singers used to sing in a soundproof cabin and live music played by the orchestra was also recorded simultaneously. Asha ji & Kishore Kumar were recording for the song and by mistake Asha ji jumped in with an aalaap in Kishore’s lines. This was a massive mistake, O.P. Nayyar was just gonna stop the orchestra to re-record the whole song from scractch. Kishore waved from inside the recording cabin and recorded the whole song.
KK came out and laughed at restless Nayyar.
“I am the ‘Hero’ of the film and I know how I am going to cover this mistake, don’t worry,” He said.
Nayyar wasn’t convinced but the song was recorded and released with that one minor mistake on KK's insistence. This song became one of the most popular songs from Baap Re Baap. Film was released and when O.P. Nayyar saw how beautifully Kishore covered the mistake on screen, he just went to the 'Hero' and hugged him.
In the audio track the mistake comes around 20th Second of 2nd Minute. Check this video to see - Chand Usmani lip syncing Asha’s mistake around 8th second of 2nd minute and how Kishore saved the day?
Piya Piya Piya – Baap Re Baap (1955)
On a totally different note, here is Sintex Water Tank – Permanent Ho Gaya commercial, where yours truly plays a blink and miss role of the Dulha (thanks to an actor who ran away) in the begining of this commercial - My first PAID acting gig ;)
DNA Mumbai has a story on our latest...(or shall I call it second) 48 Hour Film - Adtalis Ghantey, which covers snippets of the troubles Team Limboo Mirchi went through while making the film. Read it here
I remember my mom loved to keep pet parrots and one of them used to repeat – Hari Hari Bolo! I must be around 4 and for a 4 year old, the beautiful green tail and red beaks of the parrots were far more fascinating than their ability to mimic. After getting bitten several times, I learnt never to play with their beaks, but the soft green feathers on their tails were totally harmless. Once I realized that I started pulling their tails mercilessly.
That way I killed a couple of parrots. My mom never tried to keep any other pet after that, to save me from the sin of Jeev Hatya.
She sometimes tells me about my first school entrance exam. She says I was much much faster than all other kids but my handwriting was too bad as compared to most of them.
She repeats the story whenever I am trying to do something very fast.
Well I always laughed when she told me this story.
“Being in IP business I need my handwriting to be as unreadable as possible, and whenever I need to express my thoughts I can type them.” I used to tell her until last weekend.
I was shooting another 48 Hour Film last weekend. The Genre I got was Horror.
Horror is one of my least favorite genres.
I never see, read or write anything that has got anything to do with horror. I don’t get scared or anything but feel uncomfortable and disgusted seeing/reading stories on – Horror, extra marital affairs (Silsila etc.), stories with prostitutes as central characters (films like Umrao Jaan or Memoirs of a Geisha are the films which disturb me a lot, no matter how much they romanticize it).
I wash my hands several times while reading horror stories/comics or watching a horror movie. I really find them very unhygienic.
I panicked as soon as I got this genre and I decided I’ll mix horror with some other genre to make the film. A horror spoof was the first thing that came in mind, and I was able to use all other elements that the competition needed in this funny story, but my team wasn’t sure about it. (I was working for the first time with most of them).
A brainstorming session went on for hours and I decided I’ll mix a thriller appeal to a horror story.
This time I wanted to go the bollywood way. My game plan was - I wont write a screenplay but decide the scenes and start shooting. I can always stitch them together to make a film on the Editing Table.
As we were already running out of time, I started doing what I am really good at – Hurry!
We started shooting the film, I mean the scenes. Thanks to Neeshank, our very talented Cinematographer, we managed to shoot some real cool scenes.
Sharib Bhai also joined the gang as an actor and said the only dialogue I had in the film.
Rest of us played the Zombies…
We shot for almost 24 Hours.
I reached the editing suite around midnight the next day. My editor was just going to start editing, when his stomach rumbled and before I could realize the poor guy was hospitalized for food poisoning. Getting an unpaid second editor at 2:00 am was impossible. (Besides the way we shot the whole film, we needed an editor who could understand what we wanna show in the film and edit the 3 hours footage into a 4 minute film.)
Next morning we started hunting for another Editor. I called up Devang, an editor friend and hijacked him while he was coming out of his studio after finishing his night long editing shift. Devang (who worked the whole previous night) edited our film the whole day, while our in-house musical jodi Dhirendra and Rishabh worked on the music.
After 48 Hours of complete madness, we were able to submit the film on time.
But as the screenplay/story boards were not done in the beginning, many things I feel went wrong with the film. The outcome of a hurried process can never be satisfactory. I am sure this version of the film looks exactly the way my handwriting would’ve looked like in that school entrance exam.
I am really unhappy with this cut of the film and going to re-edit the whole thing and redo the sound for some of the scenes soon. If I can try and make my handwriting better than what it used to be, I can improve the film and my habit of hurrying everything too.
“Slowdown Speedracer!” – SP always says, when I hurry things. Bro, wish you were there to say those magical words!
(This post was written yesterday (22nd Jan) evening, just before I left to see Slumdog Millionaire.)Oscar Nominations are out
And by now it's an old news that Rahman has got three nominations for Slumdog Millionaire
(Hans Zimmer has no nomination for TDK and is out of competition).
Rahman's Nominations-
One nomination for Best Music (Score) for which he is competing with - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Defiance, Milk (haven't heard scores of any of these films so can't comment) & Wall - E. I feel he is going to face a tough competition in eight times Oscar Nominee Thomas Newman (Shawshank Redemption, Little Woman, American Beauty, Road To Perdition, Finding Nemo, Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events & Good German).
Two Nominations for - Best Music (Song) - 'Jai Ho' & 'O Saya' here he is competing with Peter Gabriel (& Thomas Newman's) song Down To Earth (for which Peter has already won World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Song Written Directly for Film). IMHO looking at all the probabilities Rahman's songs have a much-much stronger chance to win in this category. (The only thing that can work against Rahman is the lyrics of the SM songs. Gulzar's lyrics are too poetic and can't be translated/dubbed on the other hand Peter's Lyrics which are in english will be easy for the Jury to understand).
Let's hope Rahman brings back the first Individual Oscar to India.
I saw Slumdog Millionaire and strongly felt - the film is over hyped. I feel its an okay okay film, with brilliant cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle (who was the DOP for wonderfully shot - The Last King Of Scottland as well), great performances by the slum kids and brilliant soundtrack by Rahman.
After a long long time last Sunday I spent the whole day at home. Saw four films back to back. All were great but two of them – A.I. & Oliver! touched my heart. My intention behind seeing these two films was something more than just seeing another film on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I wanted to see and learn how the character of a kid is being portrayed or explored as protagonists in such films. But once the movies started playing on my DVD Player, I forgot what I wanted to see or make a note of it and was completely lost in the fairytale-ish story telling. One was a period based story and other a Sci-fi fairy tale but both of them had the soul and innocence in place. Stories with heart I must say.
The minute detailing of the sets, the music, and wonderful cinematography, everything takes a backseat and compliment the wonderful performances of the teenage protagonists. The kids perform so well that you totally forget about the efforts of the directors, which actually propelled the performances to another level. Directing kids is fun but it takes very little to turn all the fun into a nightmarish experience.
Meri Kahani
I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to work with a Kid’s TV Channel Network, where I got many chances to direct children. Its sheer pleasure to work with kids who are experienced, but it’s a real pain when some non-actor kid surprises you with a brilliant take and then spoils everything by looking at you within a fraction of a mili-second (which spoils the whole take) after completing his/her lines for your approval. You can’t even shout at a 5 year old looking at you with those curious eyes. Don’t even try telling them s/he has spoilt the whole thing because of that, just tell them what s/he shouldn’t repeat in the next take and get ready for a next take.
Re-takes again is a pain, most of the time they are shaken when you tell them you going to need another take, some of them get so nervous that the following takes will become a series of disasters. Keep them interested, keep them motivated, keep them cheerful and never make them realize their last take was pathetic. Long shooting hours are again a pain while working with kids, there were a couple of late night shoots, which were painful for both, us as well as the kids.
But at the end of the day its real fun and trust me the kids will teach you a lot of things which they never teach you in Film Schools. Then there are fringe benefits- listening to their (nonsense) stories, (horribly boring) jokes and have lots of fun playing with them to keep them occupied and interested.
Confession - I distinctly remember this Sardar ji kid from Delhi who was all of 5 but gave me a lecture on SMS driven contests and how we channel-wallahs rob the viewers with such contests (he himself was a contest winner). I asked him who taught him all that, my guess was right; it was his father the Senior Surd, who was also present on the sets. I made sure the production guys kept him away, while I was shooting with his son.(the excuse I made was- kids get conscious with their parents around, the actual reason- I wanted to settle scores with the guy who is bhadkaao-ing his innocent son to not to send SMSes, come on Channel Kamayega Nahin Toh…Meri Salary Kahaan Se Aayegi…huh).
Anyway I wanted to talk about something else (rather than sharing my silly stories).
While seeing all these films I realized not every director can direct kids, but the ones who have done it and done it tastefully are actually the best of the lot. It’s not about the abilities of the director but his/her sensibilities and understanding which are put on a test while doing such films. Think about the best films with kids and their directors-
Steven Spielberg and the way he directs kids is simply brilliant, E.T., Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Jurassic Park Trilogy, A.I. and many other films where even if kids are not the central character Spielberg captures them so wonderfully that his films simply become study material.
Gulzar Sahab and his films like Parichay and Kitaab. He is the man who can write Chaddi Pehen Ke Phool Khila Hai and Dil Dhoondhta Hai Phir Wahi Fursat Ke Raat Din with the same ease.
Majid Majidi - Children of heaven, Color Of Paradise and many others.
Shekhar Kapur – The way he directed kids in Maasoom, Mr.India & Bandit Queen.
I strongly feel, the way these film makers have depicted a child’s story in an adult world and have achieved it so wonderfully that it is worth studying and learning. Their understanding of kids psyche is marvelous, which proves their mastery when it comes to understand and picturise human psyche. These are the things, which make them better and greater film makers even when they are not working with kids or working on a subject which sometimes can be inappropriate for kids…
I saw glimpses of Slumdog Millionaire and was amazed to see the way Danny Boyle has used the kids in his film. The stunts, the chase, the acting...everything is just superb...waiting eagerly for it's release in India...
(Wanna write more will continue some other time...may be)
The Begining Kick started Chitrakathaa with Mr.Aabid Surti. Meeting with Aabid Surti ji (creator of Bahadur, Indrajaal Comics and many other syndicated comic strips and highly popular Dhabbu ji series from Dharmyug) was an experience. Though I had an opportunity to meet him in my student days but this time it was more personal, he invited us to his residence in Meera Road and we had a long chat on Stories, Comics, Superheroes, his way of setting up a story (or Setting the chessboard as he calls it), creating a new comic book universe, creating new characters, his novels, collaboration with legendary comic book artists like Govind Brahmanya and Pratap Mulick, his fixation with the stories of Daakus of Chambal, his bollywood days, his association and experience with Raj Kapoor and Raj Khosla, his comics that were almost turned into films, his love for art and painting, his stories which were far matured and ahead of their time and current bollywood films.Saw his Short Films and a film made on him.
Can't explain the experience, the fun and the excitement. But this was THE WAY to kick start Chitrakathaa!
Have started a blog which will be updated on regular intervals, sometimes with the updates on Chitrakathaa: The Project and sometimes with some write ups on Indian Comics.
I am still confused whether I should/shouldn't post another great article I came across last weekend. I think motivational reads like these inspire me a lot and that’s why I would like to share this with the readers of my blog.
Innovation lessons from Pixar: An interview with Oscar-winning director Brad Bird
What does stimulating the creativity of animators have in common with developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs? A lot.
Hayagreeva Rao, Robert Sutton, and Allen P. Webb
April 2008
If there’s one thing successful innovators have shown over the years, it’s that great ideas come from unexpected places. Who could have predicted that bicycle mechanics would develop the airplane or that the US Department of Defense would give rise to a freewheeling communications platform like the Internet?
Senior executives looking for ideas about how to make their companies more innovative can also seek inspiration in surprising sources. Exhibit One: Brad Bird, Pixar’s two-time Oscar-winning director. Bird’s hands-on approach to fostering creativity among animators holds powerful lessons for any executive
hoping to nurture innovation in teams and organizations.
Bird joined Pixar in 2000, when the company was riding high following its release of the world’s first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, and the subsequent hits A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2. Concerned about complacency, senior executives Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull, and John Lasseter asked Bird, whose body of work included The Iron Giant and The Simpsons, to join the company and shake things up. The veteran of Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, and FOX delivered—winning Academy Awards (best animated feature) for two groundbreaking movies, The Incredibles and Ratatouille.
Ten days before Ratatouille won its Oscar, we sat down with Bird at the Emeryville, California, campus of Pixar, which is now a subsidiary of Disney. Bird discussed the importance, in his work, of pushing teams beyond their comfort zones, encouraging dissent, and building morale. He also explained the value of “b
lack sheep”—restless contributors with unconventional ideas. Although stimulating the creativity of animators might seem very different from developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs, Bird’s anecdotes should stir the imagination of innovation-minded executives in any industry.
The Quarterly: What attracted you to Pixar?
Brad Bird: One thing that was unbelievably different about this company was that they were worried about becoming complacent. When I came here, they had made three movies—Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Toy Story 2—that had all been big hits. I was coming off a film called The Iron Giant that was a highly regarded financial failure.
Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull, and John Lasseter said, in effect, “The only thing we’re afraid of is complacency—feeling like we have it all figured out. We want you to come shake things up. We will give you a good argument if we think what you’re doing doesn’t make sense, but if you can convince
us, we’ll do things a different way.” For a company that has had nothing but success to invite a guy who had just come off a failure and say, “Go ahead, mess with our heads, shake it up”—when do you run into that?
The Quarterly: How did your first project at Pixar—The Incredibles—shake things up?
Brad Bird:The Incredibles was everything that computer-generated animation had trouble doing. It had human characters, it had hair, it had water, it had fire, it had a massive number of sets. The creative heads were excited about the idea of the film, but once I showed story reels of exactly what I wanted, the technical teams turned white. They took one look and thought, “This will take ten years and cost $500 million. How are we possibly going to do this?”
So I said, “Give us the black sheep. I want artists who are frustrated. I want the ones who have another way of doing things that nobody’s listening to
. Give us all the guys who are probably headed
out the door.” A lot of them were malcontents because they saw different ways of doing things, but there was little opportunity to try them, since the established way was working very, very well.
We gave the black sheep a chance to prove their theories, and we changed the way a number of things are done here. For less money per minute than was spent on the previous film, Finding Nemo, we did a movie that had three times the number of sets and had everything that was hard to do. All this because the heads of Pixar gave us leave to try crazy ideas.
The Quarterly: What sorts of things did you do differently?
Brad Bird: There are purists in computer graphics who are brilliant but don’t have the urgency about budgets and scheduling that responsible filmmakers do. I had to shake the purist out of them—essentially frighten them into realizing I was ready to use quick and dirty “cheats” to get something on screen if they took too long to achieve it in the computer. I’d say, “Look, I don’t have to do the water through a computer simulation program. If we can’t get a program to work, I’m perfectly content to film a splash in a swimming pool and just composite the water in.” This absolutely horrified them. Or I’d say, “You can build a flying saucer, or you can take a pie plate and fling it across the screen. If the audience only sees the pie plate very briefly and you throw it just right, they will buy it as a flying saucer.”
I never did film the pool splash or throw the pie plate, but talking this way helped everyone understand that we didn’t have to make something that would work from every angle. Not all shots are created equal. Certain shots need to be perfect, others need to be very good, and there are some that only need to be good enough to not break the spell.
We also made superelaborate storyboards. We even emulated camera movement in them, so everyone knew that “We only need to make things work between here and there.” Once I was able to commit to the camera angles, we could be very specific about how we built things. Something would look beautiful from one position, but if you moved five feet to the right, the image would disintegrate. I gave up the flexibility to move within a set, but in exchange I bought size and scope.
The Quarterly: Do angry people—malcontents, in your words—make for better innovation? Can you be innovative and also happy?
Brad Bird: I would say that involved people make for better innovation. Passionate involvement can make you happy, sometimes, and miserable other times. You want people to be involved and engaged. Involved people can be quiet, loud, or anything in-between—what they have in common is a restless, probing nature: “I want to get to the problem. There’s something I want to do.” If you had thermal glasses, you could see heat coming off them.
The Quarterly: How important is team dynamics to innovation and creativity?
Brad Bird: Making a film, you have all these different departments, and what you’re trying to do is find a way to get them to put forth their creativity in a harmonious way. Otherwise, it’s like you have an orchestra where everybody’s playing their own music. Each individual piece might be beautiful, but together they’re crazy.
The Quarterly: How do you build and lead a team that collaborates in the way you’re describing?
Brad Bird: When I directed The Iron Giant, I inherited a team that was totally broken—a bunch of miserable people who had just gone through a horrific experience on a previous film that had bombed. When the time came for animators to start showing me their work, I got everybody in a room. This was different from what the previous guy had done; he had reviewed the work in private, generated notes, and sent them to the person.
For my reviews, I got a video projector and had an animator’s scenes projected onto a dry-erase board. I could freeze a frame and take a marker and show where I thought things should be versus where they were. I said, “Look, this is a young team. As individual animators, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, but if we can interconnect all our strengths, we are collectively the greatest animator on earth. So I want you guys to speak up and drop your drawers. We’re going to look at your scenes in front of everybody. Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together. If there is a solution, I want everyone to hear the solution, so everyone adds it to their tool kit. I’m going to take my shot at what I think will improve a scene, but if you see something different, go ahead and disagree. I don’t know all the answers.”
So I started in: “I think the elbow needs to come up higher here so that we feel the thrust of this action.” “I’m not seeing the thought process on the character here.” “Does anybody disagree? Come on, speak up.” The room was silent because with the previous director, anyone who dared to say anything got their head chopped off.
For two months, I pushed and analyzed each person’s work in front of everybody. And they didn’t speak up. One day, I did my thing, and one of the guys sighed. I shouted, “What was that?” And he said, “Nothing man, it’s OK.” And I said, “No, you sighed. Clearly, you disagree with something I did there. Show me what you’re thinking. I might not have it right. You might. Show me.” So he came up, and I handed him the dry-erase marker. He erased what I did. Then he did something different and explained why he thought it ought to be that way. I said, “That’s better than what I did. Great.” Everybody saw that he didn’t get his head chopped off. And our learning curve went straight up. By the end of the film, that animation team was much stronger than at the beginning, because we had all learned from each other’s strengths. But it took two months for people to feel safe enough to speak up.
The Quarterly: How does your experience with that team compare with your work leading creative teams at Pixar?
Brad Bird:When Pixar asked me to take over Ratatouille, the project had been in development for five years but was not in any shape to produce as a movie. There was a moment, at the very beginning of my involvement, when I was in a room full of about 30 people. At this stage, the rats in the movie had been articulated. Articulation is where they design how the muscles and controls work on the characters. Because people were worried about the audience’s reaction to rats, all of them were designed to walk on two legs.
I thought that was a mistake. I knew it would be an expensive use of resources, at that point in the process, to rearticulate the rats, but I said, “We have to get them so that they walk on all fours. And Remy, the protagonist rat, has to be able to walk not only on all fours but up on two legs.” Everybody said, “Ugh!” because they had spent a year making the rats look good walking on two legs. If you simply took those models, bent them over, and put them on all fours, their hips didn’t work and things just looked wrong. They were designed to be upright.
One of the guys challenged me. He said, “I want to know why you’re doing this.” Now, I had gone into this film reluctantly. It’s not what I was looking to do after The Incredibles. And there was a part of me that wanted to say, “Because I’m the director, that’s why. Do you want to take this problematic thing over?”
But I stopped and thought for a second. I thought, these guys have been sent down blind alleys for a couple of years. They want to know that I’m not doing anything lightly and that if I’m going to make them do a bunch more work, it’s for a reason. So I said, “This movie is about a rat who wants to enter the human world. We have to make that a visual choice for the character. If you have all of the rats walking on two legs, there’s no separation between him and the other rats. If we have this separation as a visual device, we can see the character make his transformation and choose to be on two legs, and he can become more or less ratty, depending on his emotional state. That brings the audience into the character’s mind.”
I spent six minutes saying all this and the guy was initially scowling. But gradually the scowl went away, and he said, “OK.” Once I gave that answer, everyone felt, “OK, we’re on this ship and we’re going toward a definite destination.”
The Quarterly: It sounds like you spend a fair amount of time thinking about the morale of your teams.
Brad Bird: In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget—but never shows up in a budget—is morale. If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.
Before I got the chance to make films myself, I worked on a number of badly run productions and learned how not to make a film. I saw directors systematically restricting people’s input and ignoring any effort to bring up problems. As a result, people didn’t feel invested in their work, and their productivity went down. As their productivity fell, the number of hours of overtime would increase, and the film became a money pit.
The Quarterly: Engagement, morale—what else is critical for stimulating innovative thinking?
Brad Bird: The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved. There was a point during the making of The Incredibles where we had a company meeting. We have them about twice a year, and anybody can bring up concerns. Somebody raised their hand and said, “Is The Incredibles too ambitious?” Ed Catmull said, “I don’t know” and looked over at me. I just said, “No! If there’s one studio that needs to be doing stuff that is ‘too ambitious,’ it’s this one. You guys have had nothing but success. What do you do with it? You don’t play it safe—you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail. That’s what gets you up in the morning.”
The Quarterly: If you ask most companies how they innovate, they’ll say, “Know your customer. Find out what your customer really wants you to do.” It sounds like you think about innovation differently.
Brad Bird: Our goal is different because if you say you’re making a movie for “them,” that automatically puts you on an unsteady footing. The implication is, you’re making it for a group that you are not a member of—and there is something very insincere in that. If you’re dealing with a storytelling medium, which is a mechanized means of producing and presenting a dream that you’re inviting people to share, you’d better believe your dream or else it’s going to come off as patronizing.
So my goal is to make a movie I want to see. If I do it sincerely enough and well enough—if I’m hard on myself and not completely off base, not completely different from the rest of humanity—other people will also get engaged and find the film entertaining.
The Quarterly:What does Pixar do to stimulate a creative culture?
Brad Bird: If you walk around downstairs in the animation area, you’ll see that it is unhinged. People are allowed to create whatever front to their office they want. One guy might build a front that’s like a Western town. Someone else might do something that looks like Hawaii. Steve Jobs initially didn’t like this idea, but John Lasseter said, “We’ve got to let it go a little crazy where the animators are.” John believes that if you have a loose, free kind of atmosphere, it helps creativity.
Then there’s our building. Steve Jobs basically designed this building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People who work on software code are here, people who animate are there, and people who do designs are over there. Steve put the mailboxes, the meetings rooms, the cafeteria, and, most insidiously and brilliantly, the bathrooms in the center—which initially drove us crazy—so that you run into everybody during the course of a day. He realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen. So he made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company.
The Quarterly: Is there anything else you’d highlight that contributes to creativity around here?
Brad Bird: One thing Pixar does—which is a knockoff of old-school, Walt-era 1940s Disney—is to have all kinds of optional classes. They call it “PU,” or PixarUniversity. If you work in lighting but you want to learn how to animate, there’s a class to show you animation. There are classes in story structure, in Photoshop, even in Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defense system. Pixar basically encourages people to learn outside of their areas, which makes them more complete. Sometimes, people even move from one area to another.
The Quarterly: On the one hand, you are a leader here. On the other hand, you sound like a bit of a subversive. How do you do both things?
Brad Bird: I think the best leaders are somewhat subversive, because they see something a different way. And I’m not leading by myself. My producer, John Walker, and I are famous for fighting openly, because he’s got to get it done and I’ve got to make it as good as it can be before it gets done. If you look at the extra materials on The Incredibles DVD, there’s a moment where we’re fighting about something, and John says, “Look, I’m just trying to get us across the line.” And I say, “I’m trying to get us across the line in first place.”
I don’t want him to tell me, “Whatever you want, Brad,” and then we run out of resources. I want him to tell me, “If you do X, we’re not going to be able to do Y.” I’ll fight, but I’ll have to make the choice. I love working with John because he’ll give me the bad news straight to my face. Ultimately, we both win. If you ask within Pixar, we are known as being efficient. Our movies aren’t cheap, but the money gets on the screen because we’re open in our conflict. Nothing is hidden.
The Quarterly: We’ve been talking a lot about how you promote innovation. What undermines it?
Brad Bird: Passive-aggressive people—people who don’t show their colors in the group but then get behind the scenes and peck away—are poisonous. I can usually spot those people fairly soon and I weed them out.
The Quarterly: What kinds of leaders inhibit innovation?
Brad Bird: When I first started at Disney, the old master animators were slowly leaving, and there was an animator in his 40s starting to direct films there; management was sort of grooming him to take over animation at the studio. Anyway, he had taken over a film and had a bunch of us meet in his office. The first thing that came out of his mouth was, “I’m here to teach you. I’m satisfied with what I do.” In that opening statement, he lost me because I had already worked with the old Disney masters—and they were never satisfied.
It’s surreal to think about now, but my first real, formal teachers in animation were the best animators in the world. I’d started a film when I was 11, and a friend of the family knew the composer of the Disney films, who took me into the studio. I met a lot of the great old master animators. Their worst animation was 1,000 times better than this new director’s best, yet they would get to the end of a film and say, “I just started to feel like I was understanding the character, and I want to go back and do the whole thing over. Can’t wait for next time!” They were masters of the form, but they had the attitude of a student. This guy taking over the studio had only done a few pieces of pretty good animation, and he was totally satisfied. Could not have been less inspiring.
The Quarterly: How would you compare the Disney of your early career with Pixar today?
Brad Bird: When I entered Disney, it was like a classic Cadillac Phaeton that had been left out in the rain. It was this amazing machine that was beautiful but old and getting a little decrepit. Still, they had the best system on earth at that time. They had the best talent. The movies were still well executed, if uninspired.
But Disney at this time was pared down. They were making one film every three years rather than a film every year or year and a half, as they had at Disney’s height. Walt had been gone for more than a decade, and the old guys were leaving. The company’s thought process was not, “We have all this amazing machinery—how do we use it to make exciting things? We could go to Mars in this rocket ship!” It was, “We don’t understand Walt Disney at all. We don’t understand what he did. Let’s not screw it up. Let’s just preserve this rocket ship; going somewhere new in it might damage it.”
Walt Disney’s mantra was, “I don’t make movies to make money—I make money to make movies.” That’s a good way to sum up the difference between Disney at its height and Disney when it was lost. It’s also true of Pixar and a lot of other companies. It seems counterintuitive, but for imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus.
Speaking personally, I want my films to make money, but money is just fuel for the rocket. What I really want to do is to go somewhere. I don’t want to just collect more fuel.
About the Authors
Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton are both professors at StanfordUniversity, where Rao is a professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business and Sutton is a professor of management science and engineering in the School of Engineering. Allen Webb is a member of The McKinsey Quarterly’s board of editors.
Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless – Calvin
When it comes to weekends, I think I am one of the biggest followers of Calvin. But this weekend wasn’t that great, as I spent it doing few things that weren’t ‘completely’ pointless.
After a long long time I spent sometime sketching, it was great to be back (after almost six months) to my otherwise ignored sketchbook and doodle. (I am planning to upload some of my recent sketches here someday despite a friend suggesting me not to do so.)
Besides sketching I saw two great movies over the weekend.
It was a pleasant surprise to find a DVD of T.P Agrawal’s 1996 Classic- ‘Return Of Jewel thief’ in Mumbai’s Landmark (they have an amazing collection of films, not so long back I bought Joginder’s Masterpiece Pyasa Shaitaan from Landmark).
The cheap looking poster on the DVD Cover made me nostalgic (as a school boy I had seen ROJT in New Basant Theater, Bhilai),this rare DVD is my prized possession now.
Return of Jewel thief, directed by Ashok Tyagi is a sequel to Dev Sahab’s film Jewel thief (1967) directed by late Vijay Anand Sahab. The story of ROJT starts exactly 27 years after its predecessor, when Jewel thief Prince Arjun comes out of the jail and we are astonished to see a well organized gang waiting for the boss after 27 years. (looking at the gang you can easily make out most of the gang members must be toddlers when Prince Arjun was sent to jail)
Evergreen Dev Sahab plays Vinay Kumar once again, Vinay is still ‘young’, ‘dashing’, ‘charismatic’ ‘energetic’ and ‘SINGLE!!!!!’ (whatever happened to Tanuja and Vyjayantimala from Jewelthief) Vinay is still one of the ‘MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORS’ which is proved with this brilliant scene in which Rajkumari Vishakha (Anu Aashiqui Agrawal) tries to seduce him further after a seduction song, and Dev Sahab says in his inimitable style ‘Humne Ye Dil Abhi Tak Na Jaane Kitni Hasinaaon Se Bacha Kar Rakkha Hai Raajkumari, Agar Aapne Isey Churane Ki Koshish Ki To Kahin Aisa Na Ho Ki Haseenaaon Ke Beech Third World War Shuru Ho Jaaye..
It was a treat seeing three “self-proclaimed” evergreen superstars, (who have refused to age eons ago)- Late Evergreen Star Ashok Kumar, Everyoung Dharam Paaji, and Main Solah Baras Ka Dev Sahab together on screen and then there were Shilpa Shirodkar (looking at her in the film one can make out what blown out of proportion actually means) and Main Nashe Mein Hoon Jaggu Dada dancing to ‘Hum RD Burman Banna Chahte Hain’ Jatin-Lalit songs like – Aye Meri Jaanam Pyaar Karein Hum..Mausam Bada Hai Chulbula…Gulgula Gulgula Gulgula..
As the film is called Return Of Jewel thief, there are gems scattered all over, whether its the performances by the legends or the music or the dialogues, they all are gems… classic in every sense.
Some dialogues deserve a special mention so here they are-
Drunk Dev Sahab to a drunk Dharam Paaji – ‘Main Ab Se Tumhe Tuffy Bulaunga Tuffy…’
Dharam gives him a confused look…
Dev clarifies himself further – ‘TOUGHHH….Tum Toughhh ho Isliye Tuffy…’
Ashok Kumar (His men have abducted Jackie’s Girl Friend)to Jackie – Agar Tum Chahte Ho Ki Tumhari Ladki (??) Sahi Salamat Rahe Toh…..Chup Chap Baith Jaao…Waise Naam Kya Hai Uska…
Jackie – Soni
Ashok – Aur Tumhara Naam Mahiwal?
Jackie – Nahin Mera Naam Johnny Hai..Johny Mera Naam……(He plays Johnny ALA Dev Sahab’s Johny in Johny Mera Naam)
I was really impressed when Villain Jukasso (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) is introduced in the Adalat as a jewel thief ‘Jiski Talaash 34 Mulkon Ki Police Kar Rahi Hai’ (Don se poore 23 Mulk Zyada, its an achievement)
His Waqil knocked me for six again by giving a daleel in the Adalat that his Muwaqqil Jukasso can’t be put up in the jail as he is suffering from…Hold your breath - LYMPHOSARCOMA of the INTESTINE (the most trendiest disease in Bollywood since its debut in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1970 classic Anand).
Ashok Tyagi deserves a round applause for making this multi starrer unforgettable by casting Ram Sethi (he has a page dedicated to him on wikipedia), as the sleeping Bar Manager in Gulgula song. Sethi sahab (commonly called Pyare Laal ji) was one of the most glorified extras from 70s & 80s Amitabh Bachchan Films. Remember him singing Kaun Kisi Ko Bandh Saka in Kaalia..Kaalia..Kaalia (1981).
I’ll highly recommend this film to all you TRUE Bollywood Fans out there. Do watch ROJT and trust me Gulgula song is gonna top the play count on your iTunes and iPods like it has topped mine. Click here for THE song.
Second Film I saw was Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969) – After seeing Return Of Jewel thief..I find nothing worth mentioning or remarkable in this Paul Newman, Robert Redford starrer. The film has won 4 Oscars (including one for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced)..It has wonderful cinematography, brilliant performances, great dialogues, amazing editing...and Ranks 147 in IMDB’s Top 250...so what?? Can it beat the Bollywood classic ROJT?
NO...Never!!! LONG LIVE BOLLYWOOD!!!LONG LIVE DEV SAHAB
Anyway by the time I finished watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Sunday was over.
Edit: Paul Newman passed away on 26th Sep. RIP Mr.Newman
(*Statutory Warning : Inviting/Asking Alok Sharma to Speak can be extremely dangerous...)
