Summary of Creativity, Inc.: by Ed Catmull | Includes Analysis

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Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull: A 30-minute Summary

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With Instaread Summaries, you can get the summary of a book in 30 minutes or less. We read every chapter, summarize and analyze it for your convenience.  

This is an Instaread Summary of Creativity,&nb

• Language: English
• Publisher: Instaread, Inc
• Release date: May 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683782094

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Book Overview

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration is a non-fiction book by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace that relates Catmull’s experience as CEO of the Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. The book describes the creative process and the managerial lessons that Catmull has learned throughout his long career.

The book has thirteen chapters as well as an afterword and a set of starting points. These are divided into four parts.

Part 1, Getting Started, relates Catmull’s first years as a young boy who watched Disney programs every Sunday and dreamed of becoming an animator. At university he joined a graphics research team and created the first animation short film, Hand, based on a model of his own left hand. There, he learned about the benefits of a creative culture. His first managerial job was at the New York Institute of Technology, but soon after the smashing success of Star Wars in 1977, he was hired by George Lucas to set up a computer graphics department at Lucasfilm. Along with Alvy Ray Smith, Catmull created the Pixar Image Computer.

In 1983 he met John Lasseter, with whom he made The Adventures of André and Wally B, a short animation film that was a great success at SIGGRAPH, an annual conference on computer graphics, thanks to Lasseter’s knack of infusing emotion into his characters. George Lucas sold the computer graphics department to Steve Jobs, who turned it into Pixar Animation Studios.

At first, the company did not do well because it concentrated mainly on selling the Pixar computer. Then they signed a three-movie deal with Disney that gave them the opportunity to create what Catmull always wanted: the first full-length computer animated film. The result of this was Toy Story, a smashing success. After this Steve Jobs renegotiated the deal with Disney and achieved a 50/50 split, which gave them more creative freedom and economic security.

After having realized his lifelong dream, Catmull set out to research the reasons why there were communication issues within the company that were blocking the flow of information. He discovered stiff protocols that created tensions between departments, but once he did away with these protocols he was able to restore the creative culture he was so proud of.

In Part 2, Protecting the New, Catmull speaks about the importance of candor in working relationships. The main feedback mechanism, Braintrust, was set up to offer directors a candid set of commentaries and suggestions to improve their film or resolve any existing problems. These open discussions made the difference for many of Pixar’s films, such as WALL-E and The Incredibles.

Another important issue for Catmull was accepting failure not as a cause of shame but as an opportunity for growth. This was seen in their failed experiment of a separate crew for Toy Story 2, which resulted in having to do the film from start to finish in just a year. Fear of failure was such a powerful force that the company set up mentoring programs to help new directors and producers find the right path for their films.

Two other important concepts were the Ugly Baby and the Beast, which were almost opposing forces. The Baby was the embryonic film, put together as a mock-up for revision and examination. It needed to be protected from the Beast, the hunger for more products and profit that usually takes over any enterprise after some success. Like the Baby, new ideas also needed to be protected. The instauration of the summer intern program was one such idea that thrived, thanks