Upstairs in the headquarters is a gallery of often stunning
drawings and sculptures that have come out of these various
explorations. On one wall is a host of renderings of Woody, the
cowboy in Toy Story. In some of the drawings he looks a
little depressed and sad, in others he appears somewhat
hard-edged. None of these concepts became Woody, of course, but all
were vital in the process, a process that would be impossible
unless people felt comfortable taking risks.
Another important innovation tool Pixar has in its arsenal is the
short film. Pixar's first movies were, in fact, shorts, including
the precursor to Toy Story. You might think Pixar would
ditch short films now that they're focused on features. You'd be
wrong. Shorts, as Catmull explains, provide yet another
opportunity to push the envelope with technology and story; it's
another way to take risks without the worry that a mistake will
cost the company big at the box office. Sometimes, as in the case
with the short Geri's Game, the company will discover
something that can immediately be applied in a feature. "We tried a
new thing for cloth and for surfaces. And the surface technology
worked out so well that we immediately moved it into a feature, on
A Bug's Life. This stuff never gets easy. If you think it's
easy, you're not doing it right," says Catmull. "We're constantly
figuring it out. We don't have all the answers."
UNSETTLED? GOOD
In many ways, Brad Bird, the director of The Incredibles,
was a natural choice to become the first outsider to direct a Pixar
film. Before Bird, the company had always relied on in-house
talent, like the company's creative director John Lasseter, who
directed the Toy Story films. But Bird, who came to Pixar in
2000, was clearly a wildly talented filmmaker. At age 14, he got a
job in animation at Disney and was mentored by Milt Kahl, a legend
in animation who helped make Bambi and 101
Dalmatians; Bird also was an executive consultant on The
Simpsons and King of the Hill and directed the widely
acclaimed animated movie, The Iron Giant.