Tour notes - Pixar part 7: Overtime

It was during the discussion about the extras that Randy mentioned something brief about overtime. But like most of what he said, it was pretty powerful.

He said that the movie industry, and studios in particular, have a reputation for working crazy hours. Everybody pours themselves into a project working all hours of the night and day until it's done. But that is not the culture at Pixar. They have late nights, for sure, but for the most part if you are there at 8pm the parking lot will be pretty much empty.

If all a person does is work, then they have nothing else to put into what they do. Their life experience is skewed by their crazy schedule, and as Randy put it, your work will inevitably become derivative. It will be a copy of what someone else did, rather than something that you actually created.

Pixar encourages its employees to go home and live their life. They want their employees to fall in love, and get married, and get their hearts broken and experience all the good and bad things of life - and then bring that with them to work. That is how you foster a creative atmostphere. The crazy schedule many studios keep is actually counter-productive.