I'll say this as strongly as I feel it: The movie studio Pixar is one of the most positive forces of cultural creativity in Western culture. Their work is not only commercially successful—meaning that they get to keep doing it!—it gets more and more daring and dazzling with every release. There is a certain other movie-production company, much beloved by evangelical Christians, that specializes in creating generally high-quality adaptations of existing children's literature, and more power to them. But Pixar is telling brand new stories, perfectly suited for the medium in which they work, and their stories are without exception (so far) absolutely full of the kind of vision and values that Christians would hope to offer to the world. (Indeed, the last two films, Ratatouille and WALL-E, happen to be beautifully realized depictions of the two postures I celebrate in Culture Making: creating and cultivating, respectively.) This article from HBR is well worth reading carefully and thoroughly (and is available free, as of this posting, if you just click diligently). Three cheers—no, thirty cheers—for Pixar.

re: 3 12 120, community, creation, cultivation, movies

Andy:

What’s equally tough, of course, is getting talented people to work effectively with one another. That takes trust and respect, which we as managers can’t mandate; they must be earned over time. What we can do is construct an environment that nurtures trusting and respectful relationships and unleashes everyone’s creativity. If we get that right, the result is a vibrant community where talented people are loyal to one another and their collective work, everyone feels that they are part of something extraordinary, and their passion and accomplishments make the community a magnet for talented people coming out of schools or working at other places. I know what I’m describing is the antithesis of the free-agency practices that prevail in the movie industry, but that’s the point: I believe that community matters. . . .

After Toy Story 2 we changed the mission of our development department. Instead of coming up with new ideas for movies (its role at most studios), the department’s job is to assemble small incubation teams to help directors refine their own ideas to a point where they can convince John and our other senior filmmakers that those ideas have the potential to be great films. Each team typically consists of a director, a writer, some artists, and some storyboard people. The development department’s goal is to find individuals who will work effectively together. During this incubation stage, you can’t judge teams by the material they’re producing because it’s so rough—there are many problems and open questions. But you can assess whether the teams’ social dynamics are healthy and whether the teams are solving problems and making progress. Both the senior management and the development department are responsible for seeing to it that the teams function well.