Quotes from Edwin Catmull

The desire to avoid meltdowns actually is one of the things that screws up live-action films.

Lucasfilm has always had an openness to technology.

A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Our decision-making is better when we draw on the collective knowledge and unvarnished opinions of the group.

The need to challenge the status quo is just more obvious when you're failing than when you're succeeding. But it's no less urgent.

In the early 1970s, I headed to graduate school at the University of Utah and joined the pioneering program in computer graphics because I realized that's where I could combine my interests in art and computer science.

I love solving the problems of having groups work together and removing barriers. But to actually turn around and be in the center of that is an awkward place to be.

Communication needs to be between anybody at any time, which means it needs to happen out of the structure and out of order.

We have to evolve, we have to change, and in order to do that, we have to initiate the change.

Art isn't about drawing; it's about learning to see. What organization doesn't need this ability?

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.

When I see a film, I'll remember that there was a time when it wasn't working, and there was some pain and angst in order to get it to work.

If you put out 20 films, you hope that a number are successful. It's like human reproduction versus frog reproduction. Frogs produce thousands and hope a few succeed. Humans don't produce many babies but put a lot of energy into them, which is kind of where we are. They still don't always succeed, but you try a lot harder.

I can't look at 'WALL-E' or 'Finding Nemo' or 'Up' and look at in the same way as people outside of the company would look at it. Each one of them had angst.

With every one of our films, we try to touch emotions, but we don't try to touch the same emotions each time.

Virtual reality's been around for 40 years. People have been talking about storytelling in that world for all these years, and there have been experiments around of people trying to do that, and always excited about it.

If you want people to be let loose, you can't over-control them.

If you aren't experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.