In the late 1990s, Pixar was beginning to establish itself as one of the most influential studios in animation.
Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc.… film after film, the studio showed an unusual ability to develop stories with a very high creative level.
And yet those films we now remember as landmarks weren’t born good. From the outside they seemed to have a formula that was very hard to replicate: talent, a solid creative culture and a way of working that allowed ideas to keep improving throughout the process.
At Pixar there’s an unwritten rule they repeat often: the first versions of a film are always bad.
While a film is being developed, directors present constant work-in-progress: scenes, scripts, decisions and problems that still need solving.
They call this the “Braintrust”, an internal space where directors show the state of their films and receive direct, honest feedback from other directors and creatives at the studio. Over time, that system became one of the most important dynamics of Pixar’s culture. It was, in fact, a conversation among equals whose only goal was to improve the work.
No one had the last word above the rest, and yet some of the most important decisions on every film were made there.
For a long time, that system worked.
The stories evolved and each film made the leap that turned it into something memorable.
Until they noticed that in some teams, little by little, the conversation began to change. People started to measure what they said, to soften certain comments and to avoid pushing too hard on some points so as not to make the project’s director uncomfortable.
The effect was very clear. The films stopped improving and settled for a merely correct version. The problem wasn’t talent. People had stopped challenging and enriching one another, and the Braintrust space had lost part of its essence.
A team doesn’t stall when it lacks talent. It stalls when the talent stops questioning itself.
The value of the Braintrust lay in the people gathered being able to say what they really thought, regardless of the position they held. If you look at it calmly, this doesn’t happen only at Pixar. It’s common for teams to stop evolving when hierarchy conditions the conversation and people stop questioning ideas freely. Pixar set three premises for the Braintrust sessions so that the essence would never be lost again.
1. No one has the last word.
Even though there are people of different ranks within the Braintrust, no one imposes decisions and the director isn’t obliged to accept the feedback.
2. The feedback is absolutely honest.
It isn’t softened or dressed up. What isn’t working is said plainly and the problem is pointed out directly. But it isn’t against the person, it’s against the film.
3. The goal isn’t to be right.
It’s to improve the result. Ed Catmull, one of the founders, used to say: “We’re not here to protect people, we’re here to protect the film.” With these three premises they managed to separate ego from work and hierarchy from conversation, creating spaces where ideas could improve without hierarchy limiting the conversation.
— Berta
