On Sunday night The Southbank Show (don't bother clicking on the link if you want to see the programme, they don't have it up, yet. Or maybe never, I have no way of telling and itv aren't saying).
Anyway, it was about Pixar and John Lasseter and what a wonderfully smart man he seems to be.
"I'm the thickest person here now, as we always make a point of employing people smarter than us." Okay, something we've not heard all before and certainly not true but you got a real sense that he believes that you employ people for their thinking and not someone who can regurgitate your own thinking for you.
He also spent some time explaining about how, when he saw the computer generated animation film Tron, he was blown away by it. Not the film, but the fact that he could see the opportunity the technology offered. But the film flopped and the industry said people didn't want to see computer animation, when really they didn't want to see a shit film. So, when Toy Story came along and it went massive, the industry line was that people didn't want to see hand drawn animation and that the future was in computers.
Which is, of course, also bollocks. And he said as much. He couldn't understand why the debate wasn all about technology and not stories and engaging with the audience.
And so when he took over creative control of Disney he commissioned a new hand drawn film and got some of the old school Disney artists back to run it. I think I should rephrase that, He reemployed a bunch of guys who had been put out to pasture, because they had the right skill sets and he appreciates that the craft.
The parallels to our industry are obvious and so I won't insult your intelligence spelling it out.
Oh and he also said, quality is the best business plan. And I'm going to be saying that a lot from now on.
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