To Pixar and Beyond

ed what I meant.
When I joined Pixar in 1994, it was full of artistic and creative wizardry. That is what mesmerized me when I sat in Pixar’s ramshackle screening room watching scenes from Toy Story for the first time. But I quickly learned that Pixar was stuck. For all its genius, it had no momentum. It was like a starving artist. Just as the Middle Way holds that if we are too ungrounded, we can be frustrated by lack of momentum, Pixar too was ungrounded and frustrated by lack of profitability, cash, stock options, and a business road map.
Pixar’s entire success depended on developing enough strategy, order, and bureaucracy to give it momentum without killing the creative spirit. This is the entreaty of the Middle Way: to inspire us to give expression to our spirit, creativity, and humanity and still take care of day-to-day needs and responsibilities.

“There’s nothing you can do about where the pieces are,” he’d say. “It’s only your next move that matters.”

Some of the animators had full-length mirrors on the wall nearby.

“Why the mirrors?” I asked Ed.

“Animation is really all about acting,” Ed explained. “Before the animators animate a character on screen, they will often act out the part in front of a mirror so they fully understand the movements they need to create on screen.”