Day 21 & 22: Imagine Your Life As A Twelve Hour Day Series: Wes Anderson part 1

I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson's movies for those who don't know me. I discovered Wes during a visit to the local video rental place on an early date night with my wife back in 1998; the movie Rushmore. We ate Chinese food and talked about how funny the film was in telling the story of adolescent love. The next day I re-watched the film alone and discovered that the film was more than just a coming-of-age love story, but an experience similar to going to the theater.

Over the past 18 years since that date, I've gotten married and grown in my knowledge of cinema. However, I'm always impressed... scratch that dazzled by what Wes comes up with. I love the quirky characters and stories, the distinctive cinematography, and the unique visual style. Most of all are his abilities to transport the viewer directly into the worlds that he imagines. 

I can go on for days talking about his body of work so far, so I plan on covering his films during the first month of classes this autumn; because I feel there's a lot we as animators can learn for the worlds Wes has created in his films. As a result I hope to bring some of the same magic to the screen in my own films.

In the meantime, below are a series of video essay's by Matt Zoller Seitz. He gives viewers an in-depth looks into Wes' process and should be used as motivation for those working on this group project.

“I have a way of filming things and staging them and designing sets. There were times when I thought I should change my approach, but in fact, this is what I like to do. It's sort of like my handwriting as a movie director. And somewhere along the way, I think I've made the decision: I'm going to write in my own handwriting. That's just sort of my way.” – Wes Anderson Music: The New Lobby Boy by Alexandre Desplat http://kogonada.com

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION by Matt Zoller Seitz. http://www.abramsbooks.com/Books/The_Wes_Anderson_Collection-9780810997417.html Written & Narrated by Matt Zoller Seitz Edited by Steven Santos

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION by Matt Zoller Seitz abramsbooks.com/Books/The_Wes_Anderson_Collection-9780810997417.html Written & Narrated by Matt Zoller Seitz Edited by Steven Santos

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION by Matt Zoller Seitz abramsbooks.com/Books/The_Wes_Anderson_Collection-9780810997417.html Written & Narrated by Matt Zoller Seitz Edited by Steven Santos

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION by Matt Zoller Seitz abramsbooks.com/Books/The_Wes_Anderson_Collection-9780810997417.html Written & Narrated by Matt Zoller Seitz Edited by Steven Santos

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION by Matt Zoller Seitz abramsbooks.com/Books/The_Wes_Anderson_Collection-9780810997417.html Written & Narrated by Matt Zoller Seitz Edited by Steven Santos

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION by Matt Zoller Seitz abramsbooks.com/Books/The_Wes_Anderson_Collection-9780810997417.html Written & Narrated by Matt Zoller Seitz Edited by Steven Santos

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION by Matt Zoller Seitz abramsbooks.com/Books/The_Wes_Anderson_Collection-9780810997417.html Written & Narrated by Matt Zoller Seitz Edited by Steven Santos

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION: THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL by Matt Zoller Seitz http://abramsbooks.com/Books/The_Wes_Anderson_Collection__The_Grand_Budapest_Hotel-9781419715716.html Written & Narrated by Matt Zoller Seitz Edited by Steven Santos

A hardcover of Seitz book The Wes Anderson Collection is available in Meyer Library. I also have donated a paperback version to the library and purchased the Grand Budapest Hotel hardcover, so there's no excuse not to check it out.

Day 20: Tell'em What Cha' Here For?

I'm a Witness! A witness in the power to overcome adversity, set-backs, and those who don't wish you the greatness that you strive for every day. Congratulations Lebron, on just being that kid from Akron, Ohio and the mythological figure in the minds of so many in this world.

Nike Commercial Cavs NBA Champion #AlwaysBelieve Cavaleirs NBA Finals Insane

This is my group post for tomorrow... speechless.

Day 10-19: Bounding

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I had planned on sharing the synopsis of my Senior short film over the weekend, yet I'm pushing it back to this coming weekend. Over the past week I was fighting off a cold of some sort, very low energy and headaches. I think it had something to do with the weather patterns here in the city or my daily walks in the Presido. Life has a way of telling your body it's time to recharge, which allowed me to revisit Mckee's Story via Audible. Hopefully I'll be back up to speed by tomorrow. 

Day 9: The Future of Storytelling part 1: Saschka Unseld

I wanted to give some time to the advancements that Director Saschka Unseld has brought to the Pixar films of the past and the future. I have made it a form of ritual to take my daughter Oates to the opening of every Disney, Pixar, and Laika film since she's been of age. I always enjoy sneaking in a two bags of Cherry Jelly-Belly's, a bag of Pirate Booty, and two cans of Classic Coke (a treat my wife allows me only at the movies); as a method of creating those small remember when memories with her and now her sister Groceries. The moments my father created with me is exactly why I first fell in love with going to the cinema. Entering into that dark room allows one to leave behind reality and engage in segmented ideals.

Saschka has since moved on from Pixar and is now Creative Director for Oculus Story Studio's VR Filmmaking efforts.

In the beginning there were moving pictures. Then came sound, color, CGI. See the beginning of a new evolution in cinema with Oculus.

Future of Storytelling Speaker: Saschka Unseld Creative Director, Oculus Story Studio In virtual reality, you are at the center of every story. Saschka Unseld, head of Oculus Story Studio, wants to keep you there, experiencing virtual worlds directly, with characters who interact with you in real time.

Which bring me to this post about The Future of Storytelling, and it's importance in pushing the medium forward. Looking back on the past five films from Pixar starting with Cars 2 to the present, I've seen significant improvements in the look of the films. With each review of a film or short there's always something new visually I notice, from the way in which the studio has used technological advancements to heighten the narrative. There's a huge amount we could discuss here, so I"ll direct readers to a 2015 SIGGRAPH Tech Paper entitled  Art and Technology at Pixar, from Toy Story to today . 

I first noticed Saschka's work back in 2011 on his non-removed Vimeo page, after looking at the end credits of Toy Story 3; a practice I've used in making connections( more on this in a future post). At that time he was posting tests, commercials, photography, and short films. One of those short films/tests was entitled Umbrellas; which I feel leads right into The Blue Umbrella.

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An animation that I did just for fun a few years back that then, slowly, evolved into the story of The Blue Umbrella.

The reason why I'm starting this series off with Saschka is I recently re-discovered a post on the Making of the Blue Umbrella, in the form of a calendar. I find that reviewing it has fits nicely into what I'm testing out with my senior film/group project. Here are just a few gems from this innovative way of giving views a look into how the short was made. I would love everyone on the team to review this before the project begins in September.

All images, videos and other materials are © Disney / Pixar 2013

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All images, videos and other materials are © Disney / Pixar 2013

As a bonus there's a great write up by Collider with Director Saschka Unseld. There, he talked about the short film’s photo-realistic animation, his experience working on previous animated films, writing a happy ending versus having an “arthouse film” ending, his cinematic influences, the importance of music in the piece and more.  Hit the jump for the full interview.

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Day 8: Pixar@CCA

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Well, 2016 has indeed been very generous so far, but let me just say 2015 was a very fulfilling fruitful adventure into the unknown as well. Since moving from Chapel Hill North Carolina back in January 2015, life has been a varied experience of ups and downs. Looking back that life that I was living with my wife and three daughters had stunted my growth creatively. I had become content on living an average life, in a small town, playing a role. It occurred to me that if kept in a small bowl, my ideal quality of life would remain small. But, if I had more space to interact and explore, my ideals could double, triple or quadruple its size. That's perhaps the reason for my feeling a need for growth; I'm intended for larger things. After all, a giant man can't have an ordinary-sized life. 

With that said, the decision to attend CCA has been well worth all the downs of being alone in a new environment. There has been no shortage of hands being extended for helping me establish a presence within the community, sans missing out on the three-week story session held by my college in conjunction with Pixar. This session focused on story development and storyboarding, geared towards a group of 15-20 Chinese animation students and 4-5 CCA Juniors. From my interviews those selected through the school were chosen based on their Junior project review. Further insight into the sessions program was not shared with me due to privacy.

To the department credit, it did put together a great workshop for those students around for the summer highlighting key elements to story development, hosted by Jo Rivers. It was exciting to participate in the nightly lectures from the Pixarians who came to share their knowledge with we emerging animation students.

One takeaway from the three-week series of talks was no one was documenting this moment in history. With the lurking discussion of the Oakland campus possibly closing within the next three to four, it would have been nice to have a record of the strives that the animation department took to enhance students education. Which is why I took it upon myself to utilize the skills I learned intern reporting at WUNC/NPR to get that moment archived. Below is a list of speakers I meet over the year and topics covered in their lectures. 

Story Re-Boarding- Jeff Pidgeon

Toy Story That Time... - Steve Purcell

Acting > Animation - Bobby Padesta

An Establishing Shot - Paul Topolos

The Ins and Outs of Camera Structure on "Inside Out"- Patrick Lin

Creating Believable Characters - Ricky Nierva

Creating Story with Improvisation - Christian Roman

Editorial- Keepers of the Movie - Kathy Ringgold   

Reference For Animators - Cat Hicks

Staging the Camera in Real World Settings - Adam Habib

Story Layout- Syvia Wong

The Elements Needed to Create An Animated Short Story - Matthew Luhn

Visual Storytelling| Compositing & Staging - Nate Stanton

I'm looking forward to August o1, 2016 when I'll have the chance to sit in on what I viewed from the outside, last year.

Day 7: Designing with Pixar

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I'm going to try my best to get out to NYC and see this next month, so stoked! The Cooper Hewitt Design Museum currently has a great exhibition on view till August 07, 2016 entitled Pixar: The Design of Story. It's a capsule examination of the collaborative design process behind Pixar Animation Studios. On view in the Process Lab, the installation features original artwork—including rarely seen hand-drawn sketches, paintings, and sculptures from over 25 years of Pixar filmmaking–and creative exercises inspired by the Pixar design process.

Concept art from Toy Story, Wall-E, Brave, The Incredibles, and Cars, among other films reveal how the visual design process and story development work hand in hand at Pixar. From a film’s earliest stages, Pixar designers use the design processes of iteration, collaboration, and research to create appealing characters and believable environments that ultimately contribute to the success of the film’s story.

In addition, over 650 Pixar artworks are on view on the touchscreen tables in the Process Lab and the Great Hall, and are tagged to link the Pixar works to thousands of Cooper Hewitt-related collection objects.

Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to Create Your Own Characters, Worlds, and Stories encourages artists and fans to explore their own imaginations through Pixar’s characters and scenes.

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The house is based on a Victorian-style home in Berkeley, California, and an annotated diagram on display at Cooper Hewitt shows where the designers specified nearly microscopic details like patinated copper at the base of the chimney and the scale and frequency at which cracks in the paint would appear.

                                                       EXHIBITION ONLINE

From blob-like monster college students to digital renderings of curly hair in motion, explore all of the works featured in the Pixar exhibition online.

Recorded live on November 12, 2015 at El Teatro in El Museo del Barrio. First half of conversation. In this Design by Hand series talk John Lasseter discusses his career as an animator for the Walt Disney Studios, where he first experimented with the then radical new medium of computer-generated imagery (CGI).

JOHN LASSETER JOINS COOPER HEWITT FOR AN EVENING OF CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL BIERUT

In this Design by Hand series talk John Lasseter discusses his career as an animator for the Walt Disney Studios, where he first experimented with the then radical new medium of computer-generated imagery (CGI). With moderator Michael Bierut, Lasseter recounts how in 1984 he joined the Lucasfilm Computer Division, where he animated one of the very first CGI films: The Adventures of André & Wally B. After the division was bought by Steve Jobs and renamed Pixar, Lasseter wrote, directed, and animated Pixar’s first short films, including Luxo Jr., now screening at Cooper Hewitt.

Purchase the Designing with Pixar activity book through SHOP Cooper Hewitt.

Day 6: A113 Series: Teddy Newton

In the summer of 2010, I attended the annual Siggraph Conference that was being held in Los Angeles. My goal was to attend the conference, visit CalArts, and see Hollywood in the span of a week. This trip would be the first out to California, and step one of my five-year plan of positioning myself for a career in animation. 

Just as a recap, in the summer of 2004, I had a conversation with my wife about reentry into the world of animation and going back to school to get my degree for it. This decision came shortly after viewing the Disney/Pixar film the Incredibles. It was something very magical about what I was witnessing as director Brad Bird weaved a narrative of dealing with choices. In the film the question of, does one have to sacrifice one's aspersions to fulfill one's responsibilities to their family. A narrative I've been dealing with since meeting my wife and starting our family.  

Fast forward back to that summer of 2010; I had decided to attend the SIGGRAPH conference as a way to meet people in the industry. I had read the book The Pixar Touch, that John Lasseter was hired on the spot after reconnecting with Ed Catmull while attending the conference on the Queen Mary back in 1983. I figured I could at least make some connections while attending the panels being given.

It was a Wednesday, and I had planned on skipping out of the after the morning panels, to head up to CalArts. Unfortunately, I had poorly planned the excursion and was forced to scrap the trip and settled for the afternoon panels. What I didn't know was that with that change of plan, my world would be changed by an unexpected meeting.

I was attending the Stereoscopic panel on the Making of Day and Night. Afterward, I approached supervising TD Michael Fu to thank him for the lecture and to have him sign my Art of Pixar Shorts book. After a brief dialogue on the film's impact on me, he asked if I would like to meet the director. After waiting for a couple of minutes, it was my turn to shake hands with Teddy Newton. He was very friendly in introducing himself, and asking my opinion on the film. He asked what I was doing at the conference, and I explained that I was there to see what the conference was about since I had read about it in The Pixar Touch. I informed him that I was a student and spoke with him about my aspirations of working for LAIKA as an facial animator and showed him a number of my drawings on my iPad.

The conversation led to me explaining that I had planned on checking out CalArts legendary character animation program. At that moment, he paused and informed me that "there's a small school in the Northern California neighborhood of Rockridge. CCAC it’s a school in the same manner that CalArts was. This school is the California College of the Arts, and with what I see here, it’s worth checking out." We shook hands, and he gave me his business card and said: "don’t quit.”

I immediately picked up my iPhone and scheduled a meeting/campus tour for that following Friday. If it had not been for that chance encounter I doubt that I would be entering into the opportunity that lies before me.

Day & Night director Teddy Newton at Siggraph 2010. 

Here's a great write-up from the good people over at Pixar Talk.

Teddy Newton was born in Encino, CA, but grew up in Dana Point, along the California coastline. He was inspired by the drawings of Al Hirschfeld and early Warner Bros. animation. Teddy dropped out of CalArts in the early 90s and spent some time at Disney doing story sketch work on Pocahontas, Fantasia 2000, Runaway Brain, Mulan and Hercules. Teddy opted to leave Disney to pursue more creative opportunities.

Teddy conceived the characters for DreamWorks Interactive’s Cooper McQ Breaks Thru. Other early works include writing and storyboarding an entire episode of the Emmy-nominated television show Dexter’s Lab and doing inspirational boards and story development for Nickelodeon’s first animated feature, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.

Teddy formed a partnership with composer Michael Giacchino to make animated films, but they did not have the capital to see it through. Teddy then moved on to Warner Bros Feature Animation and he partnered with Brad Bird on developing the story and characters for The Iron Giant.

Teddy Newton hilarious story pitch.

He co-wrote and produced the live action feature The Trouble with Lou which was screened at the Slamdance Festival in 2001. This was followed by the animated (and very adult) Boys Night Out, which Teddy wrote, co-directed and handled the art direction. It paid off as Boys Night Out received an Annie Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Short Subject.

A man must babysit his very young step-son. Since he wants to go to his favorite place in town that evening, he decides to take the kid with him. The place is the local strip-club and more than a few surprises await the kid there.

In 2002, he joined Pixar and became the character designer for Brad Bird’s The Incredibles. Here’s what he said, as part of the production notes, about creating these now iconic characters “Brad would simply describe the characters to me-he wouldn’t use too many adjectives, but he would often do an impression or a voice for them. Sometimes the voice alone would put enough pictures and ideas in my head. It’s like when you listen to the radio and you start to imagine what the person would look like. You get inspired and everything starts to take shape.”

Teddy stayed in the world of The Incredibles as he co-wrote the Jack-Jack Attack short based on one of his drawings of Jack-Jack that Brad loved.

Uploaded by Nirav Naresh on 2013-10-01.

He partnered with Brad Bird again on Ratatouille and helped with character design on the amazing end credits (with production design by Nate Wragg and Bob Scott/Scott Morse on backgrounds). This continued on the bonus features of Ratatouille with director Jim Capobianco's Your Friend the Rat, as Teddy "brand of humor" aided in the gags and keyed out a lot of the animation for the hilarious short.

Most recently Teddy designed Alec and Presto for Doug Sweetland’s 2008 short Presto. The decision was made that the characters would have an iconic look that viewers would immediately recognize and Teddy delivered on this promise in spades. Teddy also contributed character designs to Peter Sohn’s 2009 short, Partly Cloudy.

Teddy wrote and directed the Oscar nominated Pixar short, Day & Night, which played theatrically with Toy Story 3. The short also won both a VES and an ANNIE for outstanding short.

Newton was slated to be working on an personal project at Pixar, but it seems that he has since left the studio and was last seen on the Twitter account of Lino DiSalvo @LinoD, with fellow ex-Pixarian John Kahrs @john_kahrs on the Paramount lot. Hum...

Day 5: A113 Series: Brad Bird...

I'm finally creating dreams for a living. Today I thought I would start the A113 Series off with an interview with Brad Bird. Bird being the driving force indirectly behind me re-establishing myself in the medium of animation. The interview above was conducted by Pixar's Andrew Gordon part of his Spline Cast Podcast. This an interview recorded on Monday, January 8, 2007, with Academy Award winning Animation director Brad Bird that lasts about an hour. Brad's next feature film will be Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles 2, due to hit theaters in the summer of 2019. 

Brad Bird talks about the reach of animation.

I consider Bird's directorial style a bit of a hybrid. I see a bit of Lucas' originality when it comes to story, flashes of Spielberg's ability to create excitement throughout a film, with the complex layering of Ridley Scott. However, he has made the stories in which he directs personal, much like an indie film. J.J. Abrams, another director I consider to be leading this charge back to captivation on the big screen, stated in an MTV interview back in 2011 about Bird's signature style of directing.

"It's so weird to watch scenes for a movie by a director that feels so of that director's style, and yet you realize you've never seen a live-action film by that director. You watch moments where you go, 'That's so Brad Bird!' And then you realize, oh, it's so weird to have seen a Brad Bird moment with actual flesh and blood actors. He's a filmmaker who has happened to use animation as a medium, but it's his filmmaking and his characters and his rhythm and his comedy, the action he can do, it's just the humanity that he's done that comes through in movies that have happened to be animated. Seeing that kind of nuance in a movie with people is just, I'm just so thrilled to be a part of it all. I haven't seen the whole thing, but what I have seen is mind-blowing."

The second part of this post is a link to an interview Bird gave to the McKinsey Quarterly titled Innovation lessons from Pixar: An interview with Oscar-winning director Brad Bird, given eight years ago in April of 2008. I paid $15.00 to download this interview when it came out and was surprised to see the interview in its entirety online, for free.

One major moment in the interview is when The Quarterly aske's "How did your first project at Pixar—The Incredibles—shake things up?" An except of that discussion is below:

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.

As for how these ideas apply to my work, it's quite clear that he and I enjoy the manipulation of cinema and its effects of allowing the viewer to step into the world looking for elements that best relate to oneself. For me, I pine for the stories that Bird's creations display of the family structure. In all of his four films The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Tomorrowland there is a common denominator weaved throughout. They all have a way of returning to an imagined or wished-for past. Here a great collage of Bird's work entitled The Works created by Joel Walden, enjoy!

If I'm ever looking for inspiration, the work of the brilliantly imaginative Brad Bird is what I often turn to. With his latest film, 'Tomorrowland', finally hitting cinemas this weekend, I thought it was due time to pay tribute to the five feature films directed by this immensely talented storyteller.

Day 4: Walt's Influence On Animation Priorities Today part 1

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Last September, I was fortunate enough to be in attendance today's for Andy Beall's lecture on "Walt Disney's Influence On Animation Priorities Today," at the Walt Disney Family Museum. Surprisingly the speech that was given was nothing that I had prepared in my notes. I thought it would a somewhat retelling of Walt's approach towards filmmaking, and how he created the most successful animation studio in the world. Basing my thought's on the rollout of WGBH's American Experience Documentary that aired earlier this month. However, what I experienced was an intimate look at the way in which the personality animation that Walt's Nine Old Men pioneered during the Golden Era of animation, is still alive and well within the filmmaking process at Pixar Animation Studios.

First things first, just who is Andy Beall? Andy Beall has worked in animation since 1995, starting out in classic animation as part of Warner Bros. Animation division. His resume includes Space Jam, Quest for Camelot, Osmosis Jones, and The Iron Giant before transitioning into the realm of computer-generated animation at Pixar Animation Studios. Part of the team staggered up from SoCal to the Bay by Oscar Winning Director Brad Bird; assembled to work on The Incredibles. Since his arrival at Pixar, Andy has worked the short film Jack-Jack Attack, Ratatouille, WALL-E, UP, Brave, and Monsters University.

Mr. Beall's role as Senior Animation Supervisor at Pixar was the surprise that I had not known about, prior the purchasing tickets. Overall, the lecture consisted of a "how did we get here" explanation on the craft. He referenced Pixar's Internship Program, his personal development, and the keys to putting together the type of animation reel he looks for; when selecting student animators for the internships. One clear takeaway for me, at least, was the mention of Doug Sweetland and Tony Fucile's impact on the medium (more on these two animators are coming in my November posts.)

Both animators are legends in their right, yet share a strong connection with their ability to create strong dynamic poses. Capacity to build suggestive poses forces the audience to think more. During my first semester here at CCA, my Animation 1 professor Ed Guiterrez gave an excellent lecture on watching your character's silhouette. Ed pointed out that even if the character is facing the viewer head on, you still need to pose her/him so the audience can see what the character is doing. And it doesn't stop with the silhouette, watching the line of action, making design choices with the understanding of an animator and that it has to move.

Mr. Beall summarized that everything he looks for in a reel could be found in every single keys ( poses driven drawing) within this one shot. We looked at a scene from Pixar's Toy Story 3, animated by Doug Sweetland; which Mr. Beall highlighted during his 90-minute lecture.

For educational purposes only copyright Disney/Pixar

Mr. Beall continued to explain how subtleties work in an animators performance, and that the magic lived within those brief seconds of believability. 

Once home, as I began to log my notes from the lecture, I found myself looking for more answers to fill in the gaps I had missed in my note taking. At times like those my focus to continuously turn towards three of Walt's Nine Old Men;  Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnson for guidance.

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Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnson

Through books like John Canemaker's Nine Old Men one can get a vivid look into the men who crafted the animation priorites that we use today. So much can be gleaned from these three masters of the field of acting in animation, that their... why am I trying to summarize their collected 100+ years of animation knowledge into a few pages?, lets let them speak for themselves.

Below are a couple of videos that was screened on the Disney Channel back in the mid 1980s called the Disney Family Album. All but one of the Nine Old Men completed a two part segment, Les Clark being the exception for he died in 1979. If any one wants to do additional research theirs a wonderful film called Frank & Ollie that covers the two mens working relationship from their days in college to their retirement in the late 1970s. 

Uploaded by None on 2013-10-30.

This is Part 1 of 3 of a Disney Family Album feature on Frank Thomas.

This is part 2 of 3 of the Disney Family Album feature on Frank Thomas

This is part 3 of 3 of the Disney Family Album feature on Frank Thomas.

Day 3: Creativity,Inc.

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Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”

This book is required summer reading for my team, no if's, and's, or but's about it; REQUIRED. This book is an amazing journey into foster self-awareness, setting objectives from a creative standpoint, and a clear approach to research and development! I personally have donated a copy to the fine staff at Meyer Library at CCA.

The post for today is really about the intelligent system that we all are a part of, and trusting divine order. Case in point two years ago I was lucky enough to get through to the NPR Program The Diane Rehm Show and speak to Dr. Ed Catmull about his book Creativity, Inc. I had no prior knowledge that he would be her guest for the day, yet I stumbled upon it as I was getting in my truck headed to a final exam. I calmly puled my truck over to the side of the highway, somewhere in RTP and dialed the 1-800 number. The phone rang for a few moments, and I was greeted by a screener who asked for my name, where I was calling from, and my question. I explained that I had just finished reading Dr. Catmull's book and that I had a question about Chapter 11 and the phrase "the unmade future...". She said that's great and could I hold? I stated yes, but informed her that I was on my way to one of my finals. She said, "I would be first to talk, just hold on, and turn the volume on my radio down when I was cued in." 

Think about all that took place, just to lead up to that very moment. Had I not been in the truck, with someplace to be, I'm sure I would have never had the opportunity.

What triggered that memory was a conversation ( a powerful debate) I recently had with my wife Twinkie about the meaning of timing and the effects it has on determining what is considered having a successful life. What I was trying to sum up in the midst of foot traffic near Fisherman's Wharf was how this moment you're in right now is the past and whatever energy/attention level at that time, whatever needs, whatever life situations are, attracts the right people and events to you. As a result, a person goes from being an actor who's influenced by others playing the roles of producer and director, to being the writer, producer, director, and star of this glorious life. Words of truth that I have heard time and time again from Steve Job, Mister Rogers, Chuck Weinraub, and the late Dr. W.W. Dyer. 

It's amazing how once you start applying focus onto an area, in this case, my pursuit of my ambition to work as a story artist and getting BFA in Animation at CCA; open up blocks for you. Proof of this mysterious effect of attracting what you want in life, is real. Think about all the people who share the stage with you as you move through life.  Enjoy the interview!