I've never pitched a joke that I wouldn't be comfortable seeing in a Pixar film.
Alex Hirsch
I had never touched a computer in my life before I came to Pixar.
Andrew Stanton
Working at Pixar you learn the really honest, hard way of making a great movie, which is to surround yourself with people who are much smarter than you, much more talented than you, and incite constructive criticism; you'll get a much better movie out of it.
The way Pixar has always worked is that we think of an idea and then we make it. We don't develop lots of ideas and then pick one.
The thing about working at Pixar is that everyone around you is smarter and funnier and cleverer than you and they all think the same about everyone else. It's a nice problem to have.
I mean, frankly, I'm not speaking as a representative of Disney or Pixar, I'm speaking as just myself as a filmmaker: I don't go into anything that often thinking about a sequel.
Most people know me at Pixar as the guy that doesn't like to do sequels or very reluctant to do sequels.
I love all three 'Cars' movies, and I honestly love almost all of the Pixar movies. They make you laugh, they make you emotional, and they bring back memories.
Anthony Gonzalez
I auditioned for 'Coco' when I was nine years old, and I had no idea I was auditioning for a Disney/Pixar movie. When I was 10, they told me that it was going to be a Disney/Pixar movie, and I was just mind-blown. I was so shocked and thankful that I was going to Pixar.
Hand-drawn animation is something that I feel really strongly about. A Pixar movie may be really great, but it looks like it was drawn by a machine.
Bill Plympton
I love Pixar films; I think they're the greatest filmmakers in the world. I love Disney films. 'Tangled,' was great. I loved 'How to Train Your Dragon,' the Dreamworks film. But it's not for me. I don't want to make a film for families; I want to make adult films.
I'm not as successful as Pixar or Dreamworks, and that is disappointing to me, because I think my films are as valid as a Pixar film. I think there's an audience for my films. I know there's a market for someone like Quentin Tarantino, who basically does adult cartoons in live action.
Pixar make kids' movies, but there are jokes in there for adults, and it never gets too sentimental.
Billy Howle
I have tremendous brand experience. What I do a lot for Disney is manage the great brands of this company, whether it's Disney, ESPN, ABC, Pixar, Marvel, 'Star Wars.' And I'm very engaged in technology and its impact on the consumer, either what experience you deliver for them or how to market and sell to them.
Bob Iger
Anything Pixar does, you know, I really just am in awe of them and thrilled to be included in anything they do.
Bonnie Hunt
The thing about Pixar, they don't do the 'trend is your friend.' They're really about timeless story telling, and that's pretty great.
When the Pixar people call, you jump at the opportunity.
When I first landed at Pixar, I felt like I found this creative oasis with John Lasseter... It's what you thought Hollywood was going to be.
I never heard one word in Pixar about, 'Will kids get this?' I don't think it's important that they get everything. I think that it's important that they get engaged, interested.
Brad Bird
Oh yeah, I'm still employed at Pixar and I love it here.
I think it's the most extraordinary studio around. I would love to do my next project with Pixar.
All Pixar movies are heartbreaking, aren't they?
Even in the Pixar and DreamWorks animated movies, there are themes that could be taken into an adult area very easily. 'Zootopia,' I think, is the closest so far; I love that movie because they really did push the envelope as far as the ideas and writing of an animated film for families.
People will turn their noses up at a sequel or that type of thing, but Pixar really works hard - if they're making a sequel - to make a sequel an original movie, to make it an original story.
I don't think at Pixar we'd ever make something that was too scary for general audiences.
At Pixar, we do a million versions of the movie, and every one of them goes through their awkward teenage phase where it's terrible and doesn't make sense, and we just keep working on it.
I started at Pixar the month 'Monsters Inc.' came out.
The first 'Monsters, Inc.' represents starting at Pixar for me, I have a special place in my heart for it. So to be able to tell a story with those ideas is an honor.
I don't think that photorealism is required to offer emotions. You can have very abstract characters and renderings offering the same type of emotions - look at Pixar movies: they're not photorealistic; they're stylised, and it doesn't prevent emotion from happening.
To tell you the truth, I hadn't seen any Pixar until I went to see 'Wall-E,' and I watched it and I was shocked to see how adult it was, with the setting in our lives, both present and future, and how they dealt with it... And then quite relieved to find that the one I was working on, 'Up,' how adult it was.
After Pixar's 2006 merger with the Walt Disney Company, its CEO, Bob Iger, asked me, chief creative officer John Lasseter, and other Pixar senior managers to help him revive Disney Animation Studios. The success of our efforts prompted me to share my thinking on how to build a sustainable creative organization.
When it comes to producing breakthroughs, both technological and artistic, Pixar's track record is unique. In the early 1990s, we were known as the leading technological pioneer in the field of computer animation.
Every Pixar movie has its own rules that viewers have to accept, understand, and enjoy understanding. The voices of the toys in the 'Toy Story' films, for example, are never audible to humans.
We've always had ups and downs at Pixar, starting with the high we felt doing something we'd never done - 'Toy Story' - and the low we felt right after when we realized we'd messed a bunch of things up along the way.
One of the effects Pixar University has on the culture is that it makes people less self-conscious about their work and gets them comfortable with being publicly reviewed.
Part of being the successful Pixar is that we will take risks on teams and ideas, and some of them won't work out. We only lose from this if we don't respond to the failures. If we respond, and we think it through and figure out how to move ahead, then we're learning from it. That's what Pixar is.
I started off life at Pixar with interesting technical problems. But as time has moved on, I found that the social and management problem was far more complex and interesting.
At Pixar, we believe strongly that filmmakers should develop ideas they are passionate about. This may sound like a no-brainer, but in fact in Hollywood, the big movie studios have whole departments devoted to acquiring and developing projects that will only later be paired with a director-for-hire.
One reason for keeping Disney animation separate from Pixar was that by solving their own problems when they finished a film, Disney could say, 'Nobody bailed us out; we did it.' And it's a very important social thing for them to do that.
Pixar is a community in the true sense of the word. We think that lasting relationships matter, and we share some basic beliefs: Talent is rare.
The Pixar name means more than any other name. It's very important to us to keep that name at a high level.
One of Pixar's key mechanisms is the Braintrust, which we rely on to push us toward excellence and to root out mediocrity. It is our primary delivery system for straight talk.
Throughout Pixar's history, we've had major meltdowns and crises. It's happened throughout our history: you reach a certain point, it doesn't work, and you start all over again.
What I've learned running Pixar applies to all businesses.
For me, the work we did to turn around 'Toy Story 2' was the defining moment in Pixar's history.
Apple is a wonderful company for its customers and investors. So, too, Pixar. (NeXT, not so much...) But Apple is also an engine of misery for its subcontracted Chinese workers.
I just love everything that Disney and Pixar do. Not only do they do beautiful films, but they have great messages for kids.
The goal is not to just do 'Video Game High School' every year. We want to grow into a real content production company. We want to be Pixar or HBO. We want to make five series a year or 10 series a year.
Besides kind of like the Wes Anderson, or, of course, a lot of the European movies, most everybody in the States, the big studios, make pretty much the same film. And we're kind of held to Pixar standards, or Disney standards, as it's kind of always been in the animation industry.
One of the head guys at Disney categorically said to me, 'We don't want to make children's films any more. We want to make films that are going to appeal to all quadrants.' Hence you have films like 'Shrek' and all the Pixar stuff, which is designed to suit everybody.
