The Pixar Touch by David A. Price

I liked it. It lost me about 20 pages before the end, mostly because I’m not interested in reading much about the making of Cars. The early parts of the book are really good, though. The development of the technology, the move from shorts to advertising to features… it’s fascinating stuff. Some thoughts:

The history of Pixar is tied up in the history of Silicon Valley: the company wouldn’t exist if Steve Jobs hadn’t taken it off George Lucas’s hands in the 80s and extended it a $50 million line of credit. (Jobs had just been thrown out of Apple at the time and was anxious that his next project be a success; he was so bitter that all his office computing at Pixar was done on a laptop running Windows.)

The book makes a clear case for Pixar president Edwin Catmull as the real intellect behind the development of computer animation. Interestingly, he first developed it in a lab funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a.k.a. ARPA, the computer technology arm of the Pentagon. Those guys get everywhere.

Why are Pixar films so consistently good? Mostly because of what isn’t involved in their development process. The greenlight guy at Pixar is John Lasseter, who is a director, animator and writer: he is used to working with ideas, so he knows a good one from a bad one. Pixar films often change a lot between conception and execution, but that’s because the staff work hard to create the best story and characters, not because some clueless executive demands they put a giant spider in the third act.

Brad Bird co-wrote *batteries not included, then spent a few years in the wilderness before returning with The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. At one point during that period he was in line to write and direct an adaptation of Will Eisner’s comic The Spirit. I believe there is a different adaptation due for release shortly, but I haven’t heard who the director is.

I thought reading this book would make me want to rewatch lots of Pixar movies but oddly enough, no. I may watch Finding Nemo again, because the author really raves about it and I didn’t think it was very good. (William H. Macy originally recorded the Albert Brooks part. I think I might have liked that version better.) The description of John Lasseter meeting Hayao Miyazaki made me want to watch Spirited Away again, and I think I’ll find my copies of Afterworks and Afterworks 2, but that’s about it.

autoposted from stuartwest.com