Creativity, Inc. : overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration / Ed Catmull ; with Amy Wallace.
Material type: TextPublication details: New York : Random House, [2014]Edition: First editionDescription: xvi, 340 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cmISBN:- 9780812993011
- 0812993012
- Wallace, Amy [aut]
- 741.58 CAT
Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Clonmel Library Main Collection | 741.58 CAT (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 30026000070747 | ||
Standard Loan | LSAD Library Main Collection | 741.58 CAT (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 2 | Available | 39002100590398 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
From a co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios--the Academy Award-winning studio behind Coco, Inside Out, and Toy Story --comes an incisive book about creativity in business and leadership for readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Huffington Post * Financial Times * Success * Inc. * Library Journal
Creativity, Inc. is 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 creativity--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."
For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, WALL-E, and Inside Out, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is . Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired--and so profitable.
As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his co-founding Pixar in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie's success--and in the thirteen movies that followed--was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on leadership and management philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:
* Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.
* If you don't strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead.
* It's not the manager's job to prevent risks. It's the manager's job to make it safe for others to take them.
* The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
* A company's communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
Includes index.
Introduction: Lost and found -- Part I. Getting started : Animated -- Pixar is born -- A defining goal -- Establishing Pixar\'s identity -- Part II. Protecting the new : Honesty and candor -- Fear and failure -- The hungry beast and the ugly baby -- Change and randomness -- The hidden -- Part III. Building and sustaining : Broadening our view -- The unmade future -- Part IV. Testing what we know : A new challenge -- Notes day -- Afterword : The Steve we knew -- Starting points: thoughts for managing a creative culture.
In 1986, Ed Catmull co-founded Pixar, a modest start-up with an immodest goal: to make the first-ever computer animated movie. Nine years later, Pixar released Toy Story, which went on to revolutionize the industry, gross $360 million, and establish Pixar as one of the most successful, innovative, and emulated companies on earth. This book details how Catmull built an enduring creative culture -- one that doesn\'t just pay lip service to the importance of things like honesty, communication, and originality, but committed to them, no matter how difficult that often proved to be. As he discovered, pursuing excellence isn\'t a one-off assignment. It\'s an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And one he was born to do-- Provided by publisher.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Introduction: Lost and Found (p. ix)
- Part I Getting Started (p. 1)
- Chapter 1 Animated (p. 3)
- Chapter 2 Pixar Is Born (p. 21)
- Chapter 3 A Defining Goal (p. 45)
- Chapter 4 Establishing Pixar's Identity (p. 66)
- Part II Protecting the New (p. 83)
- Chapter 5 Honesty and Candor (p. 85)
- Chapter 6 Fear and Failure (p. 106)
- Chapter 7 The Hungry Beast and the Ugly Baby (p. 129)
- Chapter 8 Change and Randomness (p. 145)
- Chapter 9 The Hidden (p. 167)
- Part III Building and Sustaining (p. 187)
- Chapter 10 Broadening Our View (p. 189)
- Chapter 11 The Unmade Future (p. 223)
- Part IV Testing What We Know (p. 241)
- Chapter 12 A New Challenge (p. 243)
- Chapter 13 Notes Day (p. 275)
- Afterword: The Steve We Knew (p. 297)
- Starting Points: Thoughts for Managing a Creative Culture (p. 315)
- Acknowledgments (p. 321)
- Index (p. 325)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Author notes provided by Syndetics
Ed Catmull received a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah. He is the co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and the president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation. He has received five Academy Awards, including the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for lifetime achievement in the field of computer graphics.(Bowker Author Biography)