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If You're Sitting In Your Minivan, Playing Your Computer Animated Films For Your Children In The Back Seat, Is It The Animation That's Entertaining You As You Drive And Listen? No, It's The Storytelling. That's Why We Put So Much Importance On Story. No Amount Of Great Animation Will Save A Bad Story.

-John Lasseter

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If You're Sitting In

John Lasseter

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If You're Sitting In Your Minivan, Playing Your Computer Animated Films For Your Children In The Back Seat, Is It The Animation That's Entertaining You As You Drive And Listen? No, It's The Storytelling. That's Why We Put So Much Importance On Story. No Amount Of Great Animation Will Save A Bad Story.

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Animation, For Me, Is A Wonderful Art Form. I Never Understood Why The Studios Wanted To Stop Making Animation. Maybe They Felt That The Audiences Around The World Only Wanted To Watch Computer Animation. I Didn't Understand That, Because I Don't Think Ever In The History Of Cinema Did The Medium Of A Film Make That Film Entertaining Or Not. What I've Always Felt Is, What Audiences Like To Watch Are Really Good Movies.

Every Single Pixar Film, At One Time Or Another, Has Been The Worst Movie Ever Put On Film. But We Know. We Trust Our Process. We Don't Get Scared And Say, 'oh, No, This Film Isn't Working.'

The Hardest Thing To Get Is True Emotion. I Always Believe You Need To Earn That With The Audience. You Can't Just Tell Them Ok, Be Sad Now. Humor, You Can Add. Even To The Last Minute You Can Be Adding Little Bits Of Humor. But The True Earned Emotion Is Something That You Really Have To Craft.

A Good Part Of My Leadership Skills Is Crafted From Learning From Experiences Early In My Career That Were Not Positive Experiences.

Positive Experiences

Soon I Learned That The Worse The Puns And Jokes, The Funnier They Could Be, If You Knew How To Deliver Them.

Slice Open One Of My Veins And Cartoons Will Pour Out; Open Another Vein And You'll Get A Flood Of Motor Oil.

I Realized That People Make Cartoons For A Living. It Had Never Dawned On Me That You Could Do This As A Career.

My Father Pulled Into Pearl Harbor Four Days After The Bombing, And He Said, Everything Was Still Burning. He Said They Never Told The Public How Bad It Was. It Was Really Bad.

I've Always Loved Animation It's The Reason Why I Do What I Do For A Living - The Films Of Walt Disney. This Art Form Is So Spectacular And Beautiful. And I Never Quite Understood The Feeling Amongst Animation Studios That Audiences Today Only Wanted To See Computer Animation. It's Never About The Medium That A Film Is Made In, It's About The Story. It's About How Good The Movie Is.

I Think That The Entertainment Industry And The Entertainment Press Tends To Focus On Opening Weekend Box Office As A Measure Of The Success Of A Film And I Think The True Success Is Out There In People's Homes And How Much They Absolutely Love These Characters.

Every Young Person Gets So Excited About New Software Packages And New Technology.

The Closer You Get To Reality, The Harder It Is To Make It Look Convincing To The Audience. That's Why I Tend To Make Things [films] That Are A Little Bit More Caricature.

Your Voice Is Worthwhile. Have Faith In It.

In Computer Animation, Every Detail Has To Be Thought Out, Designed, Modeled, Shaded, Placed And Lit. The More You Add, The More Computer Memory You Need.

One Of The Big Technical Advances That's Really Great Looking Is The Water.

People Who Get Into Animation Tend To Be Kids. We Don't Have To Grow Up. But Also, Animators Are Great Observers, And There's This Childlike Wonder And Interest In The World, The Observation Of Little Things That Happen In Life.

Directing Is One Of My Favourite Things To Do Because I Love Telling Stories And I Love Working With The Individual Artists And It's Something That I Really Missed.

I Just Devoured All Of His [buster Keaton’s] Films Because His Sense Of Comic Timing Was Amazing. He’s The Closest A Human Being Has Ever Come To A Cartoon Character. And I Was Just Amazed At His Sense Of Character And Timing, The Humor. It's All Just So…sophisticated, Even When You Watch It Today.

If You Can Think About It, You Can Create It.

To Take Full Advantage Of Computer Animation, You Have To Pay As Much Attention To The Believable As You Do The Unbelievable.

Every Animator Is Really An Actor Performing In Slow Motion, Living The Character A Drawing At A Time.

There Is Such Amazing Talent At Disney. My Job Is 100% Creative, And I Am Very Excited To Creatively Lead Them.

Toys Are Put On This Earth To Be Played With By A Child.

At Pixar, After Every Movie We Have Postmortum Meetings Where We Discuss What Worked And What Didn't Work.

If You're Sitting In Your Minivan, Playing Your Computer Animated Films For Your Children In The Back Seat, Is It The Animation That's Entertaining You As You Drive And Listen? No, It's The Storytelling. That's Why We Put So Much Importance On Story. No Amount Of Great Animation Will Save A Bad Story.

I Love The Villains Who Are Really Hyper-smart. When At The End Of The Movie You Find Out What They Were About, And It Makes Absolutely Perfect Sense From Their Point Of View.

Disney Infinity Gives You The Ability To Be Creative In A Way That Nobody's Ever Seen Before.

You Make A Movie To Entertain Audiences. That's Why You Make A Movie. The Product Sales Is Because People Love The Characters, And To Me, That Is A Testament To How Our Movie Has Become So Ingrained In Family's Homes All Around The World And That's Why I Make Movies.

The More We All Help Each Other, The More We All Benefit. So Go Out There. Help Others.

In Dire Economic Times, Movies Are Relatively Inexpensive Entertainment For The Whole Family.

I Worry About Kids Today Not Having Time To Build A Tree House Or Ride A Bike Or Go Fishing. I Worry That Life Is Getting Faster And Faster.

You Can Achieve All The Things You Want To Do, But It's Much Better To Do It With Loved Ones Around You; Family And Friends, People That You Care About That Can Help You On The Way And Can Celebrate You, And You Can Enjoy The Journey.

Family And Friends

People Have A Real Love Of Looking At Small Worlds - Something Inside Them Is Innately Attracted To That 'miniature' Realm.

Quality Is The Best Business Plan.

Quality Not Quantity

What's Fun About The Story Development At Pixar Is It's A Journey. You Don't Just Write A Script And Then That's The Movie You Make. It's Just Constant Evolution And Being Open To That And That Collaboration With The Voice Actors And With The Artists And Animators At Pixar.

I've Got Disney Blood Running Through My Veins.

'cars' Was About Lightning Mcqueen Learning To Slow Down And To Enjoy Life. The Journey Is The Reward.

Humor Is The Easiest To Achieve; The 'heart' Is Always The Toughest, Because You Can't Tell People To Feel A Certain Way.

This Is What I Always Tell My Filmmakers-you Have To Do Tons Of Research, Because You Don't Know Where The Inspiration Is Going Come From.

I Always Felt A Little Bit Like A Little Kid That's Never Grown Up In The World Of Adults.

'bambi' Is An Amazing Film, And When You Watch It Today, It's Just As Beautiful. It's Timeless. It's Just As Beautiful Today As It Was Back Then.

Sure, They Were Simple Desk Lamps With Only A Minimal Amount Of Movement, But You Could Immediately Tell That Luxo Jr. Was A Baby, And That The Big One Was His Mother. In That Short Little Film, Computer Animation Went From A Novelty To A Serious Tool For Filmmaking.

My Mother Was A High School Arts Teacher, So I Was Always Surrounded By The Arts

One Of The Things About Animation Is It's So Expensive To Do The Animation, That You Can't Produce Coverage. You Only Have One Chance To Make Every Shot.

I Always Loved The Idea Of A Spy Movie And Part Of It Came From My Personal Love Of Spy Movies. It Started When I Was Growing Up As A Little Kid In The 60s.

I Believe In The Nobility Of Entertaining People And I Take Great, Great Pride That People Are Willing To Give Me Two Or Three Hours Of Their Busy Lives.

Animation Is The One Type Of Movie That Really Does Play For The Entire Audience. Our Challenge Is To Make Stories That Connect For Kids And Adults.

I Love Movies That Make Me Cry, Because They're Tapping Into A Real Emotion In Me, And I Always Think Afterwards "how Did They Do That?"

Walt Disney Had Always Tried To Get More Dimension In His Animation And When I Saw These Tapes, I Thought, This Is It! This Is What Walt Was Waiting For! But When I Looked Around, Nobody At The Studio At The Time Was Even Halfway Interested In It.

The Art Challenges The Technology, And The Technology Inspires The Art.

I Have This Saying. Quality Is The Best Business Plan. I Believe So Strongly In That.

You Have To Do Three Things Really Well To Make A Successful Film. You Have To Tell A Compelling Story That Has A Story That Is Unpredictable, That Keeps People On The Edge Of Their Seat Where They Can't Wait To See What Happens Next. You Then Populate That Story With Really Memorable And Appealing Characters. And Then, You Put That Story And Those Characters In A Believable World, Not Realistic But Believable For The Story That You're Telling.

It’s So Important To Create In Your Own Voice, To Hold Onto What Makes You Unique, And Have Faith In Your Vision.

Animation Is The Only Thing I Ever Wanted To Do In My Whole Life. I Have No Desire For Live-action Or Anything Else.

Every Technology That Comes Into Filmmaking Is First A Gimmick. Think About Sound With 'the Jazz Singer' Or The First Colour Or Surround Sound - It Takes A While For Filmmakers To Understand How To Use It.

It [moviemaking] Is About Entertaining Audiences With Great Characters And Great Stories, You Want To Make People Laugh, You Want To Make People Cry, You Want To Have Great Music That Is Memorable. You Want A Movie That, As Soon As It's Over, You Want To Watch It Again, Just Like That. That's What It Is, Whether It's Live-action, Animation, Hand Drawn, Computer, Special Effects, Puppet Animation, It Doesn't Matter. That's The Goal Of A Filmmaker.

You Cannot Base A Whole Movie On Just The Imagery Alone. It Has To Be The Story And The Characters.

The Spirit Of Route 66 Is In The Details: Every Scratch On A Fender, Every Curl Of Paint On A Weathered Billboard, Every Blade Of Grass Growing Up Through A Cracked Street.

The Spy Genre Is Something I Loved.it Also Extends To The Bad Guy Because I Think, To Me, What I Love The Most About The Spy Genre Is When You Have A Great Bad Guy. What Makes A Great Bad Guy, To Me, Is The Logic. What He's About Has To Make Sense To Me, That If I Was In His Shoes, Yeah, Right, That Makes Sense.

There’s Never A Wrong Idea. You Just Keep Throwing Stuff Out And Inevitably There Are Elements Of Different Things That Inspire A Character Or Environment.

I Believe In Research You Cannot Do Enough Research; Believability Comes Out Of What's Real.

I Quickly Realized That This Medium Had A Lot To Offer Someone Like Me. To Do Disney-quality Hand-drawn Cartoons, You Have To Be A Master Of Two Art Forms. Seriously, You Have To Be Able To Draw Like A Leonardo Da Vinci Or A Michelangelo. But Also You Have To Know Movement And Timing And Control That Through 24 Frames A Second.

To Me, I Would Much Rather Be Part Of A Healthy Industry Than Being The Only Player In A Dead Industry. There Are So Many Great Artists Out There. And The Goal Is To Make Great Movies, You Know? So To Be Successful, Quality Is The Best Business Plan As I Always Say.

One Of The Fun Things About Play Is Making Up Stories.

I Do What I Do Because Of Walt Disney - His Films And His Theme Park And His Characters And His Joy In Entertaining.

A Gem Of A Short Film Has A Sense Of Pure Joy In Animation That Is Different From Anything You See In A Feature Film.

We Make The Kind Of Movies We Like To Watch. I Love To Laugh. I Love To Be Amazed By How Beautiful It Is. But I Also Love To Be Moved To Tears. There's Lots Of Heart In Our Films.

You Need Others. Too Often People Think That Being Unique Means Being Isolated, And Being A Great Artist Means Coming Up With Genius Ideas Out Of Nowhere. Nothing Could Be Farther From The Truth.

When I Look At The Success I Have, It's Because Of My Creative Thinking Skills.

I Think The Painted Backgrounds In Animations Are Absolutely Stunningly Beautiful. There's Something Really Special About This Medium. I Don't Believe Audiences Have Grown Past It. I Think What Audiences Love Is To Be Entertained-thoroughly, Deeply Entertained, And That's What I've Always Set Out To Do.

I'm The Biggest Fan Of Animation. I Love The History Of Animation, I Know It Well.

Never In The History Of Cinema Has A Medium Entertained An Audience. It's What You Do With The Medium.

Sunday, For Me, Is All About Being Home With The Family With No Plans.

Computers Don't Create Computer Animation Any More Than A Pencil Creates Pencil Animation. What Creates Computer Animation Is The Artist.

When You Make These Films, They Become Like Your Children. But At A Certain Point, They Don’t Belong To You Anymore; They Belong To The World.

Pixar Films Are Not Realistic. They Are Believable For The Worlds We Are Creating.

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