WHYYYYY??????

I was watching a film on my DVD when I got a call from my brother who is in Mumbai.
"..I am perfectly alright, Please don't worry..don't panic...I am leaving for Colaba.." He said in the same hurry that he always is in when he is going to cover a news. (He works with a NEWS Channel)
I was shocked...asked him why is he telling me this.
"Check the News Channels...I am really in a hurry....will talk later"

I was shocked to see the News Alerts everywhere - BOMB BLASTS & FIRING IN MUMBAI!!!

How can this be possible. I mean..I was there last evening, just came back...everything was alright..in fact I stayed in South Mumbai at my best buddy's place.. we spoke about the beauty this part of the city has... its hardly 24 hours...and here we are..looking at one of the most ugliest visuals...

Bullets, Bombs, Grenades...Blood...Injuries...PANIC!!!

It's shamefully disgusting. I don't think I wanna give/gift this world to the coming generation. Full of hatred and madness.
Brother is there covering the news like many others who are there so that people like us can sit back safe at home, see the current news...write blogs...discuss things...blame people...and then again switch the TV on for more breaking news...I am proud of you BHAI!!!and I am really proud of the youngsters who came out of the comfort of their houses and helped the injured to get hospitalized...I am proud of our Police Force who are fighting these cowards...

I wasn't able to sleep...or think...normally in such conditions I try to find solace in the poem -

WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

...but last night even that proved to be a futile attempt....I was sleepless...How can we sleep????How???

Am I overreacting???

People are still there... there can be no negotiations with those Crazy Bastards as they don't even have any demands or agenda... to have a demand or agenda needs a sane mind... their poisoned minds and insane motives prove they don't have sound minds...How will we negotiate with these people who themselves don't know what exactly are they fighting for???

It's so shitty that it's scary...

Saluting the Martyrs of Mumbai- Brave Policemen, Officers, Civilians...

Saluting the Spirit of Mumbai... Show the cowards, what we are made of....

Flush'em OUT!!! No Negotiations...

PS. Where is Mr.Raj Thakre & his MNS????

Listening to this song:

Naam-aa-cool : Mera Asli Naam Ashok Sharma Hai

Hi this is Ashok Sharma...(and all this while we believed my name is Alok Sharma).
Thanks to a National Newspaper now all the misunderstandings and confusions are sorted out & here I am announcing my real name - ASHOK SHARMA!!

Surprised????

Even I was surprised when I read this 'interview' (check maadi its worth reading). First I was shocked, then surprised but later on realized that this Newspaper has years of research and experience, it can't be wrong..and I used to think I am Alok Sharma.
Anyway Kalidaas once said:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Shakuntala (143-420), Kaalidaas.


As this is not the Kalidaas era and Roses don't have to apply for passports; which I have to apply for very soon, I am left with lots of things to do, I have to get all my documents (like PAN Card, school/college records and certificates) reissued/corrected with my real name...I am just wondering if I am Ashok Sharma and Alok Sharma never existed, who is going to pay all the EMIs that Alok used to pay??? not me...right???

Keep Smiling and do read the interview.

- Alok.....I mean ASHOK SHARMA

Enjoy the song :

Taraano Ke Afsaaney : Bollywood Ka Sugam Sangeet

Actually I’d been thinking of writing this post for a while but before I go ahead…

DISCLAIMER: This post belongs to my Bollywood Blog, but I wanted to share this one with all of you, so I decided to publish it here.

Prologue: Year was 1998 when I got my 1st Radio and started listening to Vividh Bharti. This was my first interaction with Hindi Film Music (more or less). I was so addicted to Vividh Bharti that I used to switch my radio on with their Morning Broadcast and turn it off only after they went off air around 11:05 pm everyday. No matter if I am solving an accountancy sum, drawing cartoons for local news papers or reading a comic book, Vividh Bharti was always there with me. While listening to these melodies I discovered many beautiful songs which were not only composed on same tunes but were very similar in the way they sounded yet they always sounded different and unique. This was way before I got introduced to FM Radio and much later worked with couple of FM Radio Channels myself.

Here I am going to talk about 5 different songs based on the same tune which was composed by Maestro S.D.Burman first time in the movie Naujawan in 1951. Have a look:

1. Thandi Hawaein Lehra Ke Aayein (Naujawan, 1951)-
Music :S.D.Burman, Lyrics: Sahir Ludhiyanvi, Singer: Lata Mangeshkar

One of the musical gems created by SDB & Sahir - One of the best Musical Teams in 50s Bollywood, sadly they parted ways after Pyaasa (1957) and never worked together.

2. Tera Dil Kahaan Hai (Chandni Chowk, 1954)-
Music: Roshan, Singer : Asha Bhosle, Lyrics: (Edit)

There were 3 lyricists for the film : Majrooh Sultanpuri, Shailendra and Raja Mehdi Ali (who penned this song is unknown to me)

Roshan Sahab loved Thandi Hawayein song so much that he went to SDB and asked him if he can use the same tune with minor changes here and there in one of the films he was composing songs for, Sachin Da was so impressed with Roshan Sahab’s honesty and his love for music that he couldn’t say no to him (an anecdote I heard long back on Vividh Bharti) and Roshan Sahab created Tera Dil Kahaan Hai. The song wasn’t as successful as Thandi Hawayein.

3. Rahein Na Rahein Hum (Mamta, 1966)-
Music : Roshan Sahab, Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri, Singer: Lata Ji

Roshan Sahab created magic using the same tune for Mukhda (opening lines) for Rahein Na Rahein Hum in Mamta.

4. Humein Raaston Ki Zaroorat Nahin Hai (Naram Garam, 1981)-
Music : Rahul Dev Burman, Lyrics: Gulzar Sahab, Singer: Asha Bhosle

Year was 1981 and Pancham Da tried his hands on the same tune for the first time in Naram Garam, which was directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. It was actually a sequel to Golmaal (1979), the film’s opening credits have a Golmaal Song too but the film failed to recreate the Golmaal magic on Box Office. Amol Palekar& Utpal Dutt play Ram Prasad and Bhawani Shankar respectively ALA Golmaal, Ram’s love interest Kusum was played by Miss India (1979) Swaroop Sampat who later on became Mrs. Paresh Rawal. Naram Garam was her second film I have always found her lips-syncs quite funny. Just like the film the song went almost unnoticed. But it has a striking resemblance to the Title track of Saagar.

PS. If you haven't seen Naram Garam...It's a must watch. Original DVDs available on T Series at Rs.45 only.


5.Saagar Kinare Dil Ye Pukare (Saagar, 1985)-
Music : R.D.Burman, Lyrics: Javed Akhtar, Singers: Kishore Kumar & Lata ji

Pancham Da recreated magic this time with the same tune (but for the first time as a Duet) in Saagar with some wonderful lyrics by Javed Sahab and soulful singing by Kishore Da & Lata ji. Kishore went on to win Best Playback Singer - Male for the song.
_________________________________________________________________

Hope this time I am not gonna get the Hate Messages I got after posting Pixar Posts. Keep Listening, keep humming, keep commenting...

Kyunki Alok Bhi Kabhi Cartoonist Tha

Waise toh every Diwali is special but this one was special in other way. I was back from the hospital and on prescribed bed rest the whole day. Pune had an eternally long power cut that day (that means no DVDs...No movies). I was in no mood to read so the Khurafaati Khopdi that I am, planned to make some prank calls and surprise people whom I haven’t spoken to in ages.. Tried to sell credit cards, house loans, club memberships to most of the unsuspecting shikaars, posed as a psycho fan called all Kalakaar type old friends (to my delight none of them had my new no. and I was pretty successful in pester them all).

It was fun catching up with all the cartoonist friends with whom I started my cartooning career long back.…Diwali actually turned into a True Happy Diwali…Power cuts during bed rest aren’t that bad…are they??

Posting some of my old cartoons…and a pic (hope you can differentiate between the pic and cartoons)

-Alok

The Examination Special Cartoon for a Magazine while preparing for Exams myself (year 2000)

Deewar Ka Don : Freelance Assignment from an Ad Agency (Nov.2005)

Struggling with pencils @ Gotham Comics (Dec.2005)


B'day Bash Cartoon: RadioCity 91.1 FM, Bangalore (July 2007)
_____________________________________________________________________

PS. Listening to Requiem For A Dream soundtrack, brilliant music…awesome tracks by Clint Mansell.. I was listening to a track called- Winter: The Beginning Of The End, and was shocked to discover that the track Confidence (which used to be one of my most favorite instrumental tracks) from Johnny Gaddar was copied...err.. I mean…plagiarized... I mean ‘inspired by’- Winter: The Beginning Of The End…

I am Back : Random Stuff

Seems like I made a mistake by posting two ‘Pearls Of Wisdom by Pixar’ posts back to back on my blog. The visitors and comments count dropped like the sensex. My last post (an interview with Brad Bird) which was posted almost 2 weeks back saw the lowest no. of comments ever on my blog.

Anyway here I am, back after almost 1 month. Meanwhile there were times when I had lots to share and wanted to publish a new post here but sometimes work and deadlines and sometimes my infamous laziness kept me away from my blog.
Mind is as agitated as it can/should be and with so many things going on at the same time and I don’t see it getting unruffled soon.

Quick updates:

I celebrated my B’day on 11th October working till 11:30 on a Saturday.

Did my 1st paid Acting Gig for a Commercial on 12th October (it was a Glorified Extra Role for the Commercial of a Paani Tanki, but who cares as long as I get paid for it).

Had real fun working on some projects.

Saw couple of films. (disappointed by the story & Javed Jafferi’s over the top VOs in Roadside Romeo)

Made 2 quick trips to Mumbai.(Gonna write a Detailed post)

Contemplated & still Contemplating on many decisions (personal as well as professional).

Hospitalised on Chhoti Diwali ie. 27th but was discharged the same day by God’s grace celebrated Diwali at home with Family.

Got a huge no. of hate msgs and mails on posting Pixar stuff back to back.

Posting some of my illustrations here. Hope U gonna like them..Gonna visit all ur blogs soon…A Character done @ Disney

Freelance Character Designs for an Ad Agency

Brad Bird on Fostering Innovation

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.

This interview with Brad Bird was published in McKinsey Quarterly in April 2008. Bird is the two time Academy Award winner Animation film Director of Disney-Pixar's films The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatoullie (2007). He is writing and directing Pixar's live action film 1906 (slated to be released in 2009) based on1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

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 Pixar University. 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 Stanford University, 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.

Text Courtesy: McKinsey Quarterly

Images Courtesy : Pixar

7 Creative Principles Of Pixar by John Lasseter

Posting something I came across sometime back, it was Pixar's chief creative officer John Lasseter's interview with the German newsmagazine Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Lasseter talks about seven creative principles behind the highly successful Pixar Story. The English version of these principles was publilshed in two parts in Bangkok Post with comments and translation by Dr Detlef Reis, who is a university lecturer for Business Creativity and Innovation Leadership at the College of Management, Mahidol University.

I find these principles highly motivating and helpful for anybody who is in any manner involved with any sort of creative work. So here are the Seven Golden Rules by Mr.Lasseter sans Dr Reis' comments. (Text Courtesy: Bangkok Post, Images Courtesy : Pixar)
1. Never come up with just one idea. "Regardless of whether you want to write a book, design a piece of furniture or make an animated movie: At the beginning, don't start with just one idea - it should be three.
"The reason is simple. If a producer comes to me with a proposal for a new project, then usually he has mulled over this particular idea for a very long time. That limits him. My answer always reads: 'Come again when you have three ideas, and I don't mean one good and two bad. I want three really good ideas, of which you cannot decide the best. You must be able to defend all three before me. Then we'll decide which one you'll realise.'
"The problem with creative people is that they often focus their whole attention on one idea. So, right at the beginning of a project, you unnecessarily limit your options. Every creative person should try that out. You will be surprised how this requirement suddenly forces you to think about things you hadn't even considered before. Through this detachment, you suddenly gain new perspectives. And believe me, there are always three good ideas. At least."

2. Remember the first laugh. "A big problem in the creative process is related to the enhancement of your ideas," cautions Mr Lasseter. "Revising, retouching, refining is very important, but it carries a danger.
"If you have a story, a joke, a thought, which you write down, it loses its effect over time. It wears itself out. When you hear a joke for the second time you still laugh heartily, on the third or fourth occasion already less so, and when you hear it the hundredth time, you hate it.
"I say to my authors: 'Take notice of the first laugh, write it down if necessary.' This may at times be bothersome, but it is important. Many times, good things got lost because people could not remember anymore how it felt when they heard the idea for the first time."

3. Quality is a great business plan. Period. "There is a crucial rule: no compromises. No compromises on quality - regardless of production constraints, cost constraints, or a deadline. If you get a better idea, and this means that you have to start again from scratch, then that's what you have to do.
"In any creative industry, quality is the sole business plan that prevails in the long run. Many managers fail to understand that, but the spectators understand it. The process is only finished once the creative professional in charge says it's finished. That does not mean that there isn't to be any pressure - there's pressure all the time anyway - but the individual creator always needs to have the last word."



4. It's the team, stupid. "One of the most popular questions is always whether groups are more creative than individuals. My answer: In most cases, it's the team - provided you follow certain rules", says Mr Lasseter. "As a manager, it is my task to abolish hierarchies. It doesn't matter at all who has the idea; that's a very important rule for us. The group must be honest, direct, and endeavour to sincerely help the creative individual. But in the end, nothing that the group says is binding".

5. Fun invokes creativity, not competition. "There is this idea that you put two people, who cannot stand each other, into a room, hoping that all this negative energy leads to a creative result. I disagree. Co-operation, confidence and fun - that is the way", says Mr Lasseter. He emphasises the complex managerial challenge to successfully motivate creative employees, and to create a climate conducive for creativity. "Creative people must believe that all others support them in making a great movie. They need to believe that all people involved understand what they talk about. Creative people are easily bored, moody, a bit difficult to handle. You have to make it fun for them, care for them. Creative people only produce really good work if you creatively challenge them. They have to like what they're working on. They have to be damn proud of the fact that they're a part of a particular project. That is again the task of the manager. Each time, you have to give them creative challenges. That's difficult, but nobody said it is easy to lead creative people."

6. Creative output always reflects the person on top. "Poor managers harm the creative process," as John Lasseter knows from personal experience. After landing his dream job as animator at the Disney Animation Studios in the late seventies, his outspoken individuality and creative extravaganzas quickly made him enemies among mediocre middle managers at Disney. Within a few years, Mr Lasseter became a victim of internal politics and got fired.
Committed to go his own way, Mr Lasseter became one of the founders of Pixar in 1986. Twenty years later, following Pixar's acquisition by The Walt Disney Company, Mr Lasseter returned in triumph as chief creative officer of both animation studios.
"Laughter, being crazy, freaking out, behaving in ridiculous manner are hard work. A manager who spreads his bad mood and who forbids his employees to have fun impairs their creativity, and thus harms the enterprise. I would fire him. Animated movies are not least a bang-hard business. I cannot risk so much money, only because a manager indulging in his bad mood harms my business."

7. Surround yourself with creative people whom you trust. Being an accomplished creative leader, John Lasseter gives some direct advice to junior creative leaders in progress. "Bring only those new members into your creative team, whom you consider to be at least as talented as you. If they also have a pleasant and nice character - even better.
Most managers don't follow this approach, as they are insecure. Insecurity and creativity do not get along with each other well. Most managers surround themselves with yes-men, and in result, the audiences get bad films to see," explains Mr Lasseter.
These advices are priceless and can be translated into any position. It’s no surprise that Pixar makes such great films with a leader like John Lasseter.

PS. I hate copy-pasting somebody's work like this, but more often than not Bangkok Post moves all its old articles to its paid archives and it becomes difficult to access them after that.