00:00Okay, so picture this. You come into a meeting and we're like,
00:02all right, we have 15 minutes to figure out all the fun things that we're going to do in this movie. Go!
00:07Versus, oh, we're at lunch, we're just talking, we're talking about our kids and,
00:12oh, that reminds me of this story that my kid did this morning.
00:15Hey, could that go in the movie? Maybe, or at least it brings,
00:18I think the more sort of loose your brain is in those moments, the more creative ideas show up.
00:26When did you first realize, oh, I have some idea, I think I can create some stuff?
00:32Me?
00:32Yeah.
00:34Well, I came from, I was lucky, my parents were very encouraging,
00:38and so I discovered flip books, I think, was the thing that made me light up. So you know how,
00:42like, you might draw something in a corner of a page and then every one is a little different,
00:47and then when you flip through them, it looks like it's moving. That I found in,
00:51I think it was third or fourth grade, and I've been making flip books ever since.
00:56The idea of bringing something to life is just too much, too fascinating.
01:01You started at Pixar when you were 21.
01:04Yeah.
01:04And now, 30 years later, you are chief creative officer. Can you describe us this job?
01:12What do you do every day?
01:12Yeah, it's a weird job, isn't it? Yeah. Well, it's a great job because I get to work with
01:16some of the most talented people in the world, amazing filmmakers, and so really my job is to
01:22just select which people and then what projects do we want to start messing around with.
01:29What does creative means to you?
01:32Creative, that's a good question. It's an easy word to throw around,
01:35but it's a little hard to define. I think it's the unexpected
01:39combination of ideas that somehow make sense together, and it's both surprising,
01:50but also makes total sense in a perfect world. I remember Glen Keane, do you know him?
01:54No.
01:55He's the animator who drew the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, or Ariel in the original Little
02:01Mermaid. And he said, oh, a real creative idea is one that as soon as somebody says it, you're like,
02:08why didn't I think of that? So I like to think that that's great creativity. And that's not always
02:14fun, but I think the creative process is closing doors, that's part of it. It's at the beginning,
02:20it's widening, and then it's closing. I think a lot of people have this idea that either you're
02:24talented or you're not, you're just born with talent. And so geniuses like Walt Disney just,
02:29oh, Dumbo, that's in my head, and then they just make it, right? That's not really how it works.
02:34You have to practice. So if someone handed you a guitar and said, you're playing a concert,
02:39and you're like, I've never played before. Yeah, but you have amazing innate talent. Well, no,
02:44you still have to practice. You have to work the chops, you have to know how to play the chords.
02:49I think filmmaking, the creative process in general is the same, you have to practice.
02:54So the more you make stuff, and the more it's reflective of your own passions,
03:00as opposed to imagining what you think someone else might want to see,
03:04I think those are all important things. Do you feel sometimes some kind of
03:09pressure to be creative, or do you still kind of have fun?
03:14I think those are the same thing, right? Having fun, the more, okay, the more fear-driven,
03:20the more worry, that tends to shut down the creative brain. I think play is, from when we
03:27were little kids, you remember, you sit, and you have your figures, and the rest of the world
03:31disappears, and you're just in this. And I think what I get to do is like that too, where in a
03:37perfect world, I'm sitting in a room, and the rest of the world disappears, and I'm just focused
03:42on this problem, this thing that we're working on now together. The reality is sometimes there
03:48are other factors that you have to think about. So it is a business, and we have to think about
03:54schedules and budgets and things like that as well. This new movie is directly inspired by
04:00Peter's relationship with his parents. Your movie, Inside Out, was directly inspired by
04:05your daughter. Do you think that the best creation comes from our personal stories?
04:11Yeah, I think almost inevitably, no matter what you do, the process requires that you get in
04:20touch with it personally. So let's say you're a painter, or you're a designer, you're trying to
04:26come up with ideas that reflect what the main character is going through. The way I approach
04:31that, and I think most any artists that I've worked with, is not an intellectual approach. You don't
04:36say, which shape should I use, and mathematically, and it's more of just an intuition of saying,
04:42when I felt lonely, what did that feel like? And then you start drawing or painting and creating.
04:48I think it's ultimately an experience, not an analytical approach. I read the other day that
04:55you might come back to directing with maybe Inside Out 2? Oh no, no. We are doing Inside Out 2,
05:03but that's being directed by a wonderful guy named Kelsey Mann. I'm not working on that one.
05:09I hope that someday maybe I could be able to direct my own thing again, but right now I've
05:14got my hands full with this job.
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