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A review by wintrovia
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Amy Wallace, Ed Catmull
4.0
This book is a kind of hybrid of a biography and a how-to book, it swings between telling the story of Pixar Animation and giving advice on the subject of creativity. It does both jobs fairly well and despite the strange mix, it’s an entertaining book.
It’s written by Ed Catmull, one of the three founders of Pixar alongside Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. If I’m honest, I’d never heard of him before but the other two founders are very familiar names to me, so I thought it would be interesting to read a book by someone that was so close to two very interesting people.
The inside story of how Pixar survived a bumpy early period and went on to make some of the best animated films ever made is ones the most interesting things about this book. I particularly liked hearing about the various internal struggles they went through with several of their films.
There’s a refreshing honesty about their failures too, and an insistence that failure is incredibly valuable to the creative process. These bits were probably the most useful in terms of things you can take out of the book and bring in to your own life.
The outright tips on how to be more creative yourself felt a bit forced and didn’t really give much more than bland tips that most people will have heard before. So the parts where it was deliberately trying to offer advice felt a bit full and I wanted to get back to hearing about the inner-workings of Pixar and the people working there.
This isn’t a book that will change your life but it’s a thorough investigation of what makes Pixar such a creative working environment. It’s certainly more entertaining than the average business book and there’s some genuinely useful information about how to be more creative yourself.
It’s written by Ed Catmull, one of the three founders of Pixar alongside Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. If I’m honest, I’d never heard of him before but the other two founders are very familiar names to me, so I thought it would be interesting to read a book by someone that was so close to two very interesting people.
The inside story of how Pixar survived a bumpy early period and went on to make some of the best animated films ever made is ones the most interesting things about this book. I particularly liked hearing about the various internal struggles they went through with several of their films.
There’s a refreshing honesty about their failures too, and an insistence that failure is incredibly valuable to the creative process. These bits were probably the most useful in terms of things you can take out of the book and bring in to your own life.
The outright tips on how to be more creative yourself felt a bit forced and didn’t really give much more than bland tips that most people will have heard before. So the parts where it was deliberately trying to offer advice felt a bit full and I wanted to get back to hearing about the inner-workings of Pixar and the people working there.
This isn’t a book that will change your life but it’s a thorough investigation of what makes Pixar such a creative working environment. It’s certainly more entertaining than the average business book and there’s some genuinely useful information about how to be more creative yourself.