What every creator can learn from Pixar

Author

Jay Alto
March 25, 2023

What every creator can learn from Pixar

Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes, 5 seconds

Hello there. Welcome to the Curious Creator.

This week, Pixar. The people that make kids laugh and adults cry. 

Genius storytellers that every creator should study (which I'm going to make easier).

1/ Creator Quote - What Pixar would say about AI...

2/ Bangers of the Week - There's so much stuff, it was hard to pick 3

3/ Weekly Ramble - The main thing you should learn from Pixar

It’ll be worth it…

Creator Quote

John Lasseter, Founding Father of Pixar, on computer animation in the 90s:

“We look at the new technology, and we don’t look at it as a way to replace any of the creativity or any of the real art of filmmaking. It's just a great, new, expensive pencil. It’s artists using computers as an artist at Disney uses a piece of paper and a pencil.”

This quote feels appropriate with everything that’s happening in AI...

Things might be changing, they might even be getting a bit scary, but it’s important to remember they are just tools that allow you to be more creative.

Don't fear them, use them.

This Week's Sponsor: Myself!

Don't worry, I haven't sold out yet...

But I did make a video about Pixar that I think you'll enjoy. Check it out.

Bangers of the Week

Everything at Pixar revolves around storytelling. And luckily, they have a free course explaining how they do it.

I’ll never stop recommending this video, that’s how good it is.

While focused on company culture and creativity, there’s still an enormous amount of value in this book as a modern day creative.

Emma Coats, Story Artist at Pixar originally tweeted these out in 2012. Luckily, someone has collected them all into one.

Weekly Ramble

‘Storytelling’ is definitely a buzzword in the creator world today, made out to be the secret sauce that will transform your content.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it but often when people hear ‘storytelling’, they think things have to get all serious. They don’t.

The remarkable thing about Pixar is how they can use anything to tell a compelling story. Whether that’s toys, superheroes or fish their movies are fun, charming but always driven by story.

On YouTube, we don’t need to take ourselves too seriously.

Most viewers are only looking for something fun to distract or entertain them but that doesn’t mean we can neglect storytelling.

Under the fun there should always be something worthwhile to the viewer and what most will find is that storytelling is the best retention-hack going.

Thanks for reading. Jay Alto.

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