Tour notes - Pixar part 4: The Screening Room
Our next tour stop was (you guessed it) the screening room. There's actually two screening rooms, but I think the one on the left is the one they use the most [Edit: Brandon just reminded me there were three rooms - R, G, and B]. It was a cool room, but not slick or anything. The screening room at ILM is more impressive architecturally. But like most of this tour the great part was the insights.
Randy said that the screening room is where everybody faces the work, which is what it's all about. You can tell it gets used, too, because the back of each row of seats is worn out from people's feet sitting on them. While Pixar is all about "no bad ideas, just ideas that don't fit", they are not afraid to speak the truth about the work. You'll hear somebody say that the work sucks if it really does. In fact, one art director was heard asking "Can we save some of this suck for the next movie?" I thought that was funny.
The key thing to remember is that the work only improves when everyone is facing the same direction. You're not criticizing the person, you are merely discussing the work. So maybe the work sucks, but the person isn't a failure because of it. It's what they did that wasn't very good, not that they aren't very good. So having everyone face the work is important.
He said when you have to have a difficult conversation the park bench is always better than the conference room. Because in the conference room you are facing the person, and that negative conversation becomes personal. But on the park bench you are both facing the same direction, and in a sense are looking at the issue rather than each other.
Also, there should be no secrets. There are not several different realities about the work that need to be explained separately. What you say to one person should be heard by all.
It was at this point that I lamented not having a notepad. It also occurred to me that I would never be here again, so I needed to really pay attention. This wasn't just an afternoon out of the office.
