Pixar’s Braintrust: the room with no bosses
The Braintrust is a small group of Pixar’s best storytellers who watch a film while it’s still being made and say exactly what isn’t working. Its one rule is the reason it works: it has no authority. The director hears every note and decides what to do with them. That setup got its hardest test on Toy Story 2, a sequel that wasn’t working with a release date that couldn’t move.
Where it came from
On the first Toy Story, director John Lasseter noticed how often he leaned on four colleagues for help: Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich and Joe Ranft. Their notes on the story were good enough that the group became a habit, and Pixar kept adding people with different kinds of expertise.
Then came the realization that made it last. In Ed Catmull’s words, the group “should have no authority.” It could not tell the director what to do.
The sequel that wasn’t working
Toy Story 2 started life as a direct-to-video sequel. After Disney saw early story reels in late 1997, it was promoted to a theatrical release. When Lasseter came back from promoting A Bug’s Life and watched the reels, he judged that the film wasn’t working, and the release date couldn’t move.
So the people who made the first film rebuilt the story fast, then remade the movie in about nine months. It opened in November 1999, took about $246 million in the US and close to half a billion worldwide.
Why no authority is the point
Notes from a boss aren’t really notes. When the person giving feedback can also cancel your project, the conversation turns into managing that person, and the honest problems stop coming up. Taking the power out of the room is what makes it safe to say, and to hear, that the second act doesn’t work.
Catmull has been blunt that the early versions of Pixar films are bad. The Braintrust exists to find out how bad while it’s still cheap to fix.
A myth worth fixing
You may have heard that most of Toy Story 2 was accidentally deleted in 1998 and saved by a technical director’s home backup. The deletion and the backup are real. But the version that backup saved was the earlier cut Pixar then threw out in the rebuild, so the film in theaters didn’t come from it.
What a product team takes from it
Show unfinished work early
Problems are cheapest to fix before anything ships. A room that sees the rough version catches the problem while it’s still a sketch.
Separate feedback from power
Reviews run by the person who approves your budget produce polite notes. Peers with no veto produce useful ones.
Let the team decide
The director owns the answer. That’s what an empowered team looks like from the inside: it hears everything, then decides for itself.
Questions people ask
What is the Pixar Braintrust?
A small group of Pixar’s most trusted storytellers who watch films in progress and give the director candid notes. It has no authority, so the director decides what, if anything, to change.
Who was in the original Pixar Braintrust?
According to Ed Catmull, it started on the first Toy Story, with director John Lasseter leaning on Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich and Joe Ranft. More people joined as it grew.
Was Toy Story 2 really almost deleted?
Most of its files were accidentally deleted in 1998 and partly recovered from a home backup. But that backup held an earlier version Pixar later scrapped, so the rebuild, not the backup, made the film people saw.
Where this comes from
- Ed Catmull on the Braintrust (First Round Review)
- Ed Catmull, “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity,” Harvard Business Review, 2008
- Toy Story 2 wasn’t meant for theaters (SlashFilm)
- Toy Story 2 box office (Box Office Mojo)
- Toy Story 2’s deletion and backup, and what it really saved (Newsweek)
- Toy Story 2 (Wikipedia)
Learn it by doing it
Module 4 of the course, “Missionaries, Not Mercenaries,” uses this story to show the difference between a team handed a feature and a team trusted with a problem.
Product Management is a course for curious teens, in five-minute lessons with something to play with in every one. Part I is free on iPhone, iPad and Android. No account, no ads.