Frozen: The Pixar-Disney story

As Creativity Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration comes out, the world can’t help but wonder what Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation and Walt Disney Animation Studios has to say about leadership and the corporate culture of what is possibly the most interesting combination of organizations in the recent cinema industry.

Pixar has been phenomenally successful in its endeavors over the last decade (Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Up) and to boost its declining Walt Disney animations tudio Disney bought Pixar in 2006. Catmull and John Lasseter, Pixar’s CEO were appointed the president and CEO respectively. The result, Disney bounced back, initially with Tangled and Wreck it Ralph and finally it has its biggest hit in the recent times, the movie which ended up one-upping Toy Story – 3, Frozen, which earned well over a billion dollars in box office revenue. Surprisingly, this blog post is the result of an intense discussion with a  friend who incidentally hated Frozen and I had to explain these very things to him as well, only then it wasn’t this organized, ah well.

Now the one and only reason for this success is ‘Culture’. Let’s have a look at what has changed in Disney post-merger.

1)    People first.
Pixar was a task oriented group, having risen to success so fast the organizational culture laid heavy emphasis on commitment and dedication. While making Toy Story-2 the creatives team, allegedly, worked for seven days a week for nine month. Pixar had drifted into a dangerous zone and had to be pulled out, writes Catmull. There was an incident wherein a stressed out artist forgot his infant child in his car, who was later recovered unconscious in the broiling car parking, 3 hours later.
The notion here is, excellence at any cost ideology of Pixar, doesn’t work in the longer run and incidents like this are a wakeup call.

2)    Encouraging self-expression and diversity of thought.
Yet another Catmull trait, making everyone feel included. The biggest battle after a successful merger is to accommodate everyone’s opinions by making the projects all inclusive.
Pixar’s office design itself maximizes contact and collaboration. The cafeterias, meeting rooms, employee mailboxes are all centralized so as to let the users interact with each other. In fact Catmull even replaced an expensive long rectangular conference room table with another design because the older one ‘kept people on the ends of the table from interacting with each other’.
Pixar’s ‘Braintrust’ sessions, popularized post Toy Story success, are candour filled interactions between directors, artists, creative heads give each other feedback regarding the film’s progress. The director is free to act on it or not but this type of spirited discussion makes the feedback process easier, something which Disney picked on.
Yet another problem was the Pixar’s chain of command. The Production Managers at Pixar were abhorred by the technologists, probably because during the production of Toy Story the commands from the top grew so restrictive that the entire workforce revolted. There was a time when the situation got so out of hand that the Production Managers didn't even want to work at Pixar. Catmull and Lasseter gathered the entire team and made it very clear that hierarchies and channels are secondary to free discussion, when it came to creative projects.  It took a while for the top management to adjust to this change but by the time Pixar completed ‘A Bug’s Life’ all was fine.

3)    Focussing on a vision that makes people feel proud to be involved.

Pixar’s purpose is to make ‘great films’ as it goes. Brad Bird and John Walker made the Iron Giant while working for another studio and the sole reason for which they were hired by Pixar was their ability to convert projects into something much more than a money machine. Catmull states he found this astonishing drive in Pixar’s employees to focus on the quality of the content which in turn ensured that profits followed.

Catmull closes by saying that how has Pixar affected him personally. Earlier he was focused on creating the first feature film to be entirely animated on a computer, today he has found his new calling: to create a sustainable creative culture that survives long after Pixar’s founders are gone. “We are in this for the long haul” 

Cinematic Innovation: From Charlie Chaplin to Pacific Rim

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”
~ Bill Gates

Now, this post is an attempt to reclassify the stages of automation of a field, and analyse how they have impacted the show biz.

The three phases that we wish to look at are:

Automation replacing current activity
Enhancing the activities
Inclusion of new functionality
Film industry has always been tech-savvy and they have been early adopters of every new trick and technique that they happened to stumble upon. Gone are the days when John Carpenter had to conjure up ‘The Thing’ from bread and dough, gone are the days when one could marvel at the effort which must have went in designing the effects of Nightmare of Elm Street’s bed-engulfing-Johnny-Depp scene. Effect houses like Pixar, Industrial Light and Pacific Data etc. are already functioning in the third stage. Production houses are catching up, and DreamWorks has shown great advancements (How to Train your dragon 2, Rise of the Guardians).

So, the stage 1 would be when computers substitute existing methodology of accomplishing certain tasks, rarely affecting the productivity. Lately computer based camera holding and movement have become a fad among the production houses.

Godzilla during the 80s was a man in a rubber suit, shot from a distance, when I sat through the 2014 version (staring agape at the brilliant radiation breath/fire spitting scene, MUTO ravaging scene, final scream), I couldn't help but wonder at the computerized modelling that must have went behind the movie.

Taking a rather old example:
The advent of green screen: the backgrounds used to be painfully painted over a stretch of weeks and then the movie shot in front of it. Although the green screen artists had completely substituted the painting process by 1940s yet the productivity remained the same, since the background still had to be drawn on a computer.

Also, before computers could dictate the trajectory of cameras, the cameraman had to take and retake the shot till the shot achieved perfection. Even though the editing rooms were becoming increasingly populated with computers the major chunk of the task was still done by the cameraman, while only minor editing changes being carried out by the team.
“Computer Effects” would sum up the second stage. Explosions were simulated; men were copied and pasted to create crowds. The production became quicker. The pyrotechnics weren’t needed; Model artists were replaced with ‘Matte artists’ and ‘Optical Printers’. ‘Digital Composting’ allowed a scene to be shot first and then the backdrop added. The cameras were computer-guided, requiring only one-take-scenes.

Existing computerized processes were made more and more efficient. The focus of film making shifted from Pre-production to Post-production; a process which was becoming increasingly automated. Precision and accuracy increased, the pan-dimensional-circling-Michael-Bay-esque shots could be better shot by an overhead computerized camera rather than any camera-rig or steadicam or dolly-set up.

Gonzo, Hip-Hop montage and the Irreversible style camerawork could be now achieved with minimal human intervention and handling.
Newer functions would dominate the next decade of cinema. Movies are becoming completely automated and animated. We have newer technologies like Imax and 3-D, which have redefined the movie-going experience creating an entirely new customer-segment.

Encouraged by past successes, the production houses tend to keep employing newer methods of automation and innovation. Recently released ‘Elysium’ was released in Immersive Audio (Auro 11.1 and Dolby Atmos), a technology which allows producers to dynamically mix audio post-production (something that Peter Jackson has vehemently defended over the past couple of months).

Post IMAX, we have Anamorphic lenses (Cinemascope) which is essentially a return of discarded technology, which is being considered a repeat of what happened post the death of the original debut of 3-D.
(Thor: the dark worlds was shot in Anamorphic Wide Screen)

Some developments in the pipeline:
-Computational Cinematography
-High Frame Rates (The Hobbit, even though it made some people throw up at 48 fps it is considered to be more relaxing to our eyes)
-SimulCam (Avatar, essentially motion capture technology with a live feed, instead of waiting for the post-production phase to put the CGI in the frame, SimulCam allows the director to dynamically view the CGI rendering of the actors in front of a green screen and allows for direction of the movie like a regular movie, with real actors being shot in CG anime.
-Live CG (Star Wars VII is supposed to be shot in Live CG. Currently being tested, Lucasfilm has dropped a lot of hints about the technology)


Although any conclusion to this post would be thoroughly insufficient (?!) yet it can be said that automation has resulted in strengthening of the profession and the benefits outweigh the costs, we have the biggest hits coming from the CGI-digital factories (Titanic, LOTR, Avengers Assemble, Frozen, Avatar, Toy Story, Transformers, Iron Man 3 etc.)

Once again the shift in required skill sets has rendered many unemployed and major league animation studios have ended up becoming the biggest winners. But when you need giant robots beating giant aliens, as massive structures crumble around them in a big crash of digital dust over the sound of the Inception horn, you need the best of both worlds.

GameSutra : The tale of 'The Most Evil Video Game Corporation'

There are outputs, there are inputs, there is division and there is efficiency, nothing new, nothing fancy about that. Most of the discussion is usually undertaken from an academic perspective using  generic terms such as ‘tangibles’, ‘intangibles’ etc.  but once again, we were reminded of something which is, or rather was very close to our hearts, and by all gods it has been a pain to watch the events unfold over the last couple of years.

So, we are going to talk about the Electronic Arts. Yes, one of the largest publisher/developers in the industry. Situated in redwood, California, the firm has published over 900 games till date.

EA’s rise has been marked with game-changing (Yes, we are going to make pathetic puns like that, and there is nothing that you could do about it) events. Founded in 1982 the firm changed its name from Amazin’ Software (with an apostrophe!) to EA. Also the second CEO Larry Probst, faced with falling stock, had to change is stand on M-rated games and hence the firm gave us System Shock 2 in 1999, which proved to be a healing potion for the firm (I know it’s very late in the night and we aren’t even trying).

Basic structure:
The firm has what it calls ‘labels’:

EA Games (102 games published)
EA Sports (Need we say anything?)
EA Play (EA Hasbro titles)
EA Interactive (Mobile and Social Media)
Some numbers to impress you:

Revenue : $3.797 Billion (Declining)
Employees : 9370
Number of acquisitions till date : 39

Coming on to, why should anyone read this post?
Well, unless you have been living under a rock for the past 4 years you know just how badly EA has been criticized for its aggressive expansion policies. In fact the firm beat Bank of America, in the final round of “Worst Company in America” at The Consumerist, in 2012. This result came in the aftermath of the Mass Effect 3’s ending controversy; what could have been an awesome game with sheer adventure value as its prime value proposition was ruined by an ending which rendered the character choices nearly inconsequential, not to mention the innumerable plot-holes, but we digress. Its $10 online pass strategy failed, resulting in many disappointed fan boys, Origin was supposed to be a challenger to Steam and it is nowhere nearby.

So, the question is what is EA doing wrong here?

 1) Buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then giving us subpar games, destroying established franchises. Post-acquisition, being a larger firm EA meddled too much with the corporate culture of the acquired entity, forcing quick development of, let’s say, Ultima VIII: Pagan and IX: Ascension, which were criticized by the fans and the creator Richard Garriot alike.
Also, failure of EA’s walkthrough strategy of finishing the games, mostly resulted in the original studio taking the blame and EA went on to even shut down Origin and Bullfrog after Magic Carpet 2 tanked, resulting in massive layoffs, which again were a bad signal to the industry.

Till date 22 studios/developer subsidiaries of EA have been declared defunct, including bigger brands like Victory Games and Playfish.

Also, EA was criticized for acquiring 19.9% of Ubisoft’s shares, which was described as an attempt at a ‘hostile takeover’, although EA later sold off the reduced stake in 2010.

2) EA employees were overworked, to the extent of 100 hours per week, which invited class action lawsuits, which it had to settle, and had to cough up $30.5 million in compensation.  Recently there have been stories of reform and a supposed 13% increase in employee morale, but the bottom-line remains the firm has been struggling with the numerous projects that are in the pipeline due to rapid expansion, resulting in boring reboots/additions to franchise rather than genuinely creative games.

The market effect of this perception is rather clear. When EA offered a bid to take over Take-Two, the critics and analysts deemed it to be the best offer ever made and the deal was already being heralded as the largest deal in the video game industry, but when Take-Two declined the offer, the gamers heralded the decision almost unilaterally. The reason for this being that some of our favorite franchises (GTA and Bioshock) wouldn't be lost to EA, and we would not have to painfully wait for a new edition every year with minute alterations, which hardly make any difference.


3) EA was sued in 2008 for signing exclusive contracts with NCAA and NFL to use their images and names, thus forbidding other companies from doing the same (?) and again in the same year for using some players’ images in FIFA, without their permission.

4) Battling with declining profits, the firm included a program in its game Spore (2008) enforcing a lifetime machine-activation limit of 3 instances (What?!). While this was supposed to minimize piracy, on September 13, 2008 Spore was judged the most pirated game ever (Now I am just quoting torrent comments here, so there might be some hyperbole, but yeah, well every truth is relative). Not to mention Spore invited its own set of lawsuits.
The firm then changed its verification methodology to online authentication, which has made SimCity such a pain.


5) EA announced that they would shut down more than 50 multiplayer games in 2014, as; faced with capacity constraints the firm needed the Gamespy Multiplayer Server for the development of newer games.


The firm has defended its stand by putting up a rather polarizing argument about how the 'Anti-LGBT' propaganda has tried to defile the organisation's reputation after it started allowing the players to create players of every gender and sexuality in its games. but had that been the truth JC Penny's would probably win the above mentioned award hands down.

The question still remains, when organisations have a diverse pool of creative teams, what is the degree of control the center could exercise on the functional divisions. Video games units will always remain product oriented and no cross functional utilization could ever be possibly achieved in an acquired entity, and EA’s failed attempts to mix-up the work culture of the newly acquired entities with its own, have proven this once and for all, that when dealing with creative challenges, subjectivity and specificity of knowledge should be given the highest regard.

Although this seems like a grim picture, speaking from a strictly personal perspective EA has gained back some of the lost respect. The newer games have been rather innovative, the Dead Space franchise (apart from the sexist advertising) has been a success and the firm’s operating income has been rising.

Not to mention Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick’s desperately antagonistic remarks probably had something to do with it, as a new phrase hit the market in early 2010 “Activision is the new EA”.
Probably because they threw the guys who developed ‘Call of Duty’ out!

But that’s a story for another day.

References :
http://www.ea.com/news/we-can-do-better
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/EA-Responds-Accessing-Disc-DLC-Mass-Effect-3-40358.html
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/EA-Says-Some-Online-Passes-Supposed-Expire-37500.html
http://gamerant.com/ea-responds-activision-ceo-bobby-kotick-attacks-dyce-43139/ 

Blast from the Past

धर्मे च अर्थे च कामे च मोक्षे च भरतर्षभ। यदिहास्ति तदन्यत्र यन्नेहास्ति न तत्क्वचित् ।।

O scion of the Bharat race, whatever dharma, artha, kaama and moksha exists in the world, exists in the text, whatever is not in the text does not exist elsewhere.

The story of Mahabharata, in the Hindu mythology, shall never be deemed as a description of the past, as the very word itihasa portrays the essence of depiction of life ‘as it was, as it is and as it always shall be’. Without delving any further in to Nietzsche’s ideas on the eternal return and going all gaga over ‘Time being a flat circle’, even a superficial analysis of the text at hand gives us great insights into how organizations worked back then and how relevant the discussion is, till date. Here is our attempt.

The first and probably the most important learning from the text is how dynamic was the organization’s goal structure. Modern day businesses demand constant alignment, commonality of mission and vision and ironically portray Krishna as ‘the one who achieved all’. But if we were to pay any heed to Krishna’s teachings, it becomes clear that alignment is more about heart than head. We all know this, feel this, yet the modern day management would roll out bonus structures and contracts, assuming conformance.

The CEO walked over to the desk and majestically signed the vision statement of the company for the next 5 years to come. The grand statement left everyone who read it in shock and awe of the firm’s (literary skills?) mission and direction.

What when the CEO retires, the new leader is expected to inherit and absorb the old vision. We have bible all over again, slaves flocked to Israel, Promised Lands dispute resulted in the royal house of David replacing Saul, and enemies laid ruin to the fragmented kingdom.

Krishna would have had a different PoV all together; he would have said do not focus on goals at all. Goals are milestones, indicative of the direction you’re going in, the distance you have travelled, the unchanging target of any business should be realization and not measuring up against a set metric. Realisation of strengths, constant correction, and perpetual improvement makes any business a playground; metrics, hollow statements carved in stone, visions codified in conference rooms make the organization a battlefield.

Moving on, let’s analyse Krishna’s role from another perspective: a crisis manager.

Setting aside his divinity, we can see him in a role wherein organization’s success or failure wouldn’t have much impact on his personal appraisals/position. He is the person who sits out of the action and yet has maximum control over it.
Krishna is said to be an avatar of Vishnu. Since the greater objective here was to eradicate evil from the earth, Vishnu’s avatars actually bring out the different stages a manager has to go through in an organization.
A basic lay-out of the reporting relationships:

Parasurama: Enters at an early point, focuses on discipline, regulation, focus.

Rama: Idealistic, sets examples, sacrifices and compromises to enforce and inculcate dedication as a key virtue.

Krishna: instils responsibility/ownership in the team, sits out.

Buddha: If the system is functioning smoothly – walk out and observe.

Kalki (Yet to happen in the Kalyuga): If it’s not (duh?). Exterminate it and dissolve the organization.

Krishna is the first preceptor of sustainability in a competitive environment. While Kauravas have a ‘attack when challenged’ or a reactionary plan, Krishna focuses on the bigger picture. Even the organizational set up laid out by him takes in consideration the limited resources Pandavas had and could be said to be the earliest possible deviation from the functional structure of organizations.

A simple comparison brings out the differences in the structure:

The problem of enforcing the previous leader's vision statement on the succeding leader becomes apparent here. Every Kaurava leader fought his own battle. And as a result, either became disillusioned with the cause of the organization and gave away his secret and died or disregarding the active agenda pursued his own objectives and led the army astray. 

Some visions:

Bhisma: vowed to protect the throne of Hastinapur, preservation and nurutring of the kingdom as a whole.

Drona and Kripa: allegiance to the throne, dutiful servants, followng orders.

Karna: his friendship to Duryodhana and prove his mettle against Arjuna.

Shalya: Was an ally of the pandavas (in the past), demoralise the kauravas. 

All in all, we have three different perspectives. First, have a look at the project and its end points. Second, think of the end points creating problems of their own and pre-empt the problems embedded in the solution. Third, consider the projects as cyclical events which should result in learning and improvement constantly making us better and wiser. 

(References: http://devdutt.com/articles/indian-mythology )

Movie Review: X-Men The Days of Future Past

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1877832/

Directed By: Bryan Singer
Written By: Simon Kinberg

One of the most irritating things about the X-Men franchise is the fact that they did not plan ahead. After what happened in the Final Stand, it has been getting increasingly tough for the audience to make sense of the franchise's plot.

So, without any spoilers whatsoever, the story starts in the future. Now this is the time in the comic arc when the Trask's sentinels have taken over. And these are not the original sentinels but the final upgraded versions that are capable of shape shifting and absorbing other mutant's powers in order to one-up them. We see a rag-tag bunch of mutants trying to battle them. The entire setting of the movie feels rather inadequate. I, for one, never liked the final war in the Final Stand. I hated the fact that they killed a bunch of characters in 20 minutes of run time and hoped us to be sympathetic or display any sort of emotion whatsoever. The set up of the war in this movie is equally disappointing.

One, in case yo are watching it in iMax 3-D, you ll feel as if the final touches on the CGI were still to be done when the print was released. The sentinels have a terminator-ish feel to them. Apart from that the film tried to shove in two-mainstream characters from the comic books, Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver. Scarlett Witch comes as more of a shock to the audience, with her powers not very clearly explained and her character development literally starts and ends with the girl with eye-tattoos who made portals out of thin air. So, during the battle we discover that the mutants (Charles and Magneto combined) have decided to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back into the past to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence, who looks exquisite and acts even better) from murdering Trask (Peter Dinklage).

The explanation given is rather flimsy, Mystique murdering Trask was the triggering point of the Mutant-Sentinel war and stopping her from doing it is the only way to stop the carnage.

Now, movies based on comic books aren't exactly famous for their intelligent plots, so some leeway could be given there but apart from that the movie as a whole fails to establish a connect with the audience.

The reasons are many, Marvel has followed this formula in nearly every X-Men movie, there is always one evil human scientist/doctor/army general who wants to experiment on/weaponise mutants and has to be stopped. While the lore of Trask industries is very firmly established in the comic books, there are little, if any, differentiating factors from the older X-Men villains.

I will get a lot of hate for saying this, but the X-men heroes are getting old. They have failed to evolve and the constant muddling with the timelines has rendered them blank and one-dimensional. So now we have two actors playing Xavier and yet we can barely relate to him, let alone care about the fact that the dude was murdered in Final Stand and was in this movie somehow and was shot in the First Class and got his legs back in this movie and lost his powers. Although the movie does explain the complications, yet when you modify your characters at the drop of the hat, you become a little of everything and at the same time nothing.

All things said and done, Days of Future past has little to offer in terms of story and direction and acting. Still, if you are a fan of Trask industries, so watch it. You get to see two generations of Sentinels come alive on the big screen for the first time. You get to see Quicksilver in the famous kitchen scene, which by the way is the money shot of the entire movie. You get to see Jennifer Lawrence, in some really acrobatic fight scenes and you get to see Tyrion Lannister, with a mustache.

All in all, if you are a nerd/fanboy DoFP is a good one time watch. 

Repilot

After what seems like an eternity, I believe I finally have a lot of time on my hands and I would like to kick start this thing back again. Now, for obvious reasons a lot shall be changed and you shall all be ready to embrace it as it comes.

The new things which you all can expect are, more organization, more sensible content and maybe more frequent posts.

Also, one of the biggest perks of being at a B-school is that you anyway type a lot. You have reports, papers, home work assignments and you have to research and read and type and print and the usual vicious circle. So the idea is to utilize this time I am spending on the computer to maintain something worthwhile for me to reminisce over in my spare time.

Also, I don't want to draw this out forever, so here we go.
Good luck and have fun!