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Walt Disney, the Illusion of Life, & Being Less Corporate

Walt Disney films are largely responsible for my interest in making movies. I’m not afraid to admit that.  I couldn’t say that in college.  I was too preoccupied with what  my classmates and professors thought of me.  Back then I was more likely to talk about Citizen Kane and Stanley Kubrick films.  Those are masterfully crafted movies, sure, but they had practically zero influence on my aspirations. Not so with Walt Disney’s creations, but in my effort to matter to the world I had forgotten that.

It’s taken me a while, but I have slowly returned to the things that I loved for their own sake and not based on what other people said.  Reading The Illusion of Life, a marvellous book about the story of Disney animation lovingly told by two early Disney animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, helped me to restore my unashamed enthusiasm for many of the Disney animated films I grew up with as a kid.

book_the_illusion_of_life

The first film I remember seeing in the theater was Snow White.  Pinocchio was the first film that compelled me to stay up late and ponder its mysteries, in this case I was trying to figure out what it would feel like to get transformed into a jackass.  (A few years later, I would understand the jackass thing all too well, unfortunately. I’m working on getting things right these days, but it’s a process.)

During the holidays, going to a Walt Disney film became a tradition for my family.  It was a time when we’d stop fighting with each other and informally agree to be temporarily harmonious.  It was a nice time.  But moving on, my  interest in computer animation too was colored by my exposure to the Pixar films that Disney distributed.

Not everyone in my world had a similar admiration of Walt Disney. My college professors carefully avoided any reference to Disney’s influence on cinema history, although the man pioneered new techniques for working with sound and color and had won twenty-six Oscars before he died.  (For all you film kids doing the math at home, that’s a few more than the nine Oscars that Stanley Kubrick’s films won.)  It is also worth pointing out that while Hollywood was still years away from conceiving of the effects film, Walt Disney gave the world Snow White, the first movie in which every single frame featured a created effect.

One of the books I had to read in college was Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard.  He wrote several long and loveless paragraphs about how Disneyland was the ultimate example of our false and simulated existence.

Baudrillard’s book was a joyless thing, perfumed with important-sounding philosophical concepts. I don’t remember much from the book beyond an impression that Baudrillard wanted to convince me that he was smart and very well read, and that his work  anticipated the Matrix films (films that I enjoy much more than Baudrillard’s book).

For comparison, let’s look at how  The Illusion of Life discusses Disney’s accomplishments. In the book, Walt is quoted as saying “I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with expressing myself with obscure creative impressions.” Did you notice the emphasis on serving others in that quote?

That’s a lesson that the book’s writers, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, absorbed well.  Consider their advice to aspiring entertainers: “The ancient counsel ‘Know thyself’ is full of wisdom, but, for the entertainer, it is possibly just as wise to suggest, ‘Know your audience.’

snow white

photo from flickr.com/expressmonorail

What a contrast with Baudrillard’s style that is.   Disney’s work has brought a sense of joy and wonder to millions of people around the world.  Jean Baudrillard has filled the minds of philosophy students with intellectual contempt and a sense of superiority over the uninformed.

I know that the Walt Disney Company is a very powerful multi-national corporation, and I don’t celebrate everything that the company does, but I’m talking about the man who started it all, the man who lived up to his well-known quote: “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.”  I tend to root for the philosophers, but in this case Baudrillard comes off as the more banal and  corporate one.

To delight in a thing for the sake of the thing itself and not for the potential profit it brings is an essential aspect of being less corporate. If you can’t tell that the writers of The Illusion of Life created the book out of a deep, delighted love  for animation and for Walt Disney, then you probably can’t recognize love when you see it.  There’s the cover that transitions gracefully from black and white to color, the textured yellow paper that greets you when you open the book, the full-page color stills that appear in the first few pages, and the playful, yet thorough, prose.

All of these things are clues that this is a book that cares very much about getting the details right.  The book has 489 colored prints, thousands of black-and-white drawings, and it was printed in Italy; that’s definitely not the way to produce a book if you care only about maximizing your profits and keeping costs low.

On top of that, there are several flip-book sequences on the top-right corners of the pages that beg for your attention.  I would have still bought the book without that feature, a feature that must have taken a bit of time to sync up, but how magnificent to discover one more extra that Frank and Ollie threw in for us.

teacups

photo from flickr.com/expressmonorail

The animator-writers of the book speak fondly of Walt most of the time, and they dedicated the book to him, so obviously they liked the guy.  But, they don’t give him the idealized  hero treatment that I’ve seen the Walt Disney Company do on occasion.  Instead, the writers give us examples of when Walt was abrasive, difficult to please, and even wounding.

Look at how they critique a bonus system that Walt tried at one point: “The bonus system did not produce better pictures or even good ones.  Few regulations do.  Efficiency is better built through dedication rather than speed for its sake.”  How refreshing that they were not afraid to discuss the strengths and the weaknesses of their boss and the man they admired.

Since Frank and Ollie are honest about Disney’s flaws, we are more likely to believe them when they sing Disney’s praises, and sing they do.  They talk about Walt’s incessant curiosity and his high standards.

Walt Disney didn’t fall into the corporate trap of  resisting change merely to do things like they’ve always been done, and his drive to innovate wasn’t limited to technology.  For example, he didn’t hesitate to hire women for his ink and paint department, even though it was accepted knowledge  at the time that only men could do the job effectively.

Nor was Disney afraid of failure. Apparently, he wanted to be a live-action director when he first came to California, but that didn’t work out so well.  Instead of giving up, Disney returned to animation and worked hard to produce Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons.

But, thanks to strong-arm negotiation tactics by Charles Mintz, a producer working for Universal, Disney was soon locked out of the very cartoon he helped to create.  On top of that, most of his workforce was signed away from him.  Disney had every reason to get bitter, but instead he stayed focused and created a character known as Mickey Mouse.

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photo from flickr.com/expressmonorail

Frank and Ollie also talk about the spirit of cooperation that Disney encouraged. Everyone was expected to share knowledge and to help those who were struggling on a concept.  They quote Disney as saying, “Everyone has to contribute or they become laborers,” and they give a few examples of Walt’s determination to find the right job that best suited the strengths of his people.  The assumptions that everyone matters and that everyone has distinct skills are seemingly obvious, but they are still ignored in more corporate environments.

Since Disney animators helped to define the craft of animation, Frank and Ollie could have thrown around corporate phrases like “proprietary information” and “intellectual property” when discussing their animation processes.  Instead, out of a desire to see their beloved field of animation advance, they broke down their technique into twelve distinct principles that are thoroughly illustrated with one example after another.  Those twelve principles are now the cornerstones of all the animation training programs that I’ve seen.

By giving information away and trying to be helpful, Frank and Ollie earned for Disney the loyalty of thousands of animation students who succeeded by studying their work.  Too bad more companies aren’t as generous with their resources these days, since their businesses could benefit greatly if they did. It’s the curse of the all too-powerful legal departments and of the frivolous lawsuits that make such departments necessary, I suspect.

While discussing the craft of animation Frank and Ollie write, “The animator should be as surprised as anyone at the way it comes out.”  Exactly right, but that should be true for any work that isn’t corporate in nature.

You can do all the planning in the world, but you’ll never know all the conditions and the particulars that might come up until you dive into the thing.  When you react to changes in the moment, your work has vitality.  Otherwise it is a representation of a preconceived idea that grown distant from reality.

Think of the last corporate event you attended.  Were you surprised at all when the wacky speaker made lame, self-aggrandizing jokes and then talked about how the numbers  for that quarter were great news for the company, regardless of what the numbers actually looked like? That kind of speech is bad because it stays the same regardless of what happens in the world or with the audience.

Anything with vitality, whether a service, product, or person, has to be surprising at least in some sense, by definition. Otherwise, let us call the thing in question dead or corporate.

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photo from flickr.com/expressmonorail

I will end with two more  quotes from the book.  “Our true personalities are best revealed by our reactions to change we did not expect.”  Not bad insight from men who make cartoons, don’t you think?

Toward the end of the book, Frank and Ollie throw in a quote from William Faulkner.  Faulker explains that it is a writer’s “privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.” At that point, Frank and Ollie add that “even the cartoon can try for such ideals.”

If animators aim for such lofty ideals, maybe it’s not asking too much for you to reconsider the merit of animation in general and Walt Disney in particular.  Or, you could go back to reading Pretentious Quarterly and producing and endorsing things that bring more despair and decadence into the world, but don’t expect me to applaud you for that.  I’ll be too busy celebrating the things that make me smile and keep me hopeful.

Six TED-Talk-powered Tips for Making the World Less Corporate

Photo by ramon_perez_terrassa on Flickr

Photo from ramon_perez_terrassa on Flickr

 

“Too many rules prevent accomplished jazz musicians from improvising, and as a result they lose their gifts, or worse, they stop playing altogether.”  That’s a quote from Barry Schwartz’s fantastic speech on our society’s loss of wisdom.   (It was a speech given at this year’s TED conference, and I highly recommend watching it.)

It’s sad isn’t it, when our jazz musicians, athletes, unique thinkers, visionary entrepreneurs, volunteers, and all the others who strive to bring more meaning into the world  experience something that causes them to forever stop doing what they do.   Too often the villain responsible is a corporate one, a thing that could have been avoided with a thinking mind and a working heart.

The death blow doesn’t always come from the heavy artillery.  Sometimes all it takes is a phone call.  Please allow me a personal story: it’s why I had to write this post.  With just one five-minute phone call, a producer that I’ve been in contact with for over seven months almost shattered my inclination to ever create again.   He did this not by denying the merit of my project, something that I’ve been working on for the past few years of my life, but by telling me that after 7 months he hadn’t gotten to read it yet because his time was very valuable.  

 

Old Poorhouse Woman with a Glass Bottle - Paula Modersohn-Becker

Old Poorhouse Woman with a Glass Bottle - Paula Modersohn-Becker

 

I sent him 11 pages to consider, and yes folks, that’s 11 pages and not 110.  Before I did that I saw his shows and read his book to better understand him and to determine whether my project could possibly be relevant to him.  I thought it could be, but I assured him that I would not call or email him again if he gave me a definitive no.   A “no” he would not give me, but a declaration about the value of his time, he freely shared.

I shut down as a person for almost a week because of that.  I got little done, and I wasn’t the easiest to be around.   Because of him, I thought seriously about just settling for a life of doing corporate work and spending money to buy more comforts and pleasures.  Thank God, I no longer feel that way.

I’m not writing this to lash out at him in public.  That’s not my style.  I prefer to settle my disputes with someone person to person, and as God is my witness, he will know what I think of his actions, and I will get a definitive yes or no from him, or I will die trying.

My point is that sometimes even seemingly small, thoughtless moments can perpetuate a more corporate world.  The producer in question is not altogether bad man.  He is in many ways, I’m sure, more decent than I am, but he almost convinced me to give up entirely on pursuing any kind of creative expression, the very stuff that gives my life the strongest sense of purpose, harmony, and hope.  Put differently it’s part of the least corporate elements in my life.  

I recognize the very real possibility that I have done or  could do to someone else what he almost did to me.  This list, inspired by Barry Schwartz’ lecture, is my way of fighting that possibility:

 

1. Take strong positions.

If you’re not interested in a project, why tie up someone’s time by being ambiguous?  By saying an honest no, you make it easier for someone to turn his attention to more rewarding possibilities.  Certainly, it can be uncomfortable to say no and face the disappointment or frustration of another person, and besides, staying undecided for as long as possible is convenient.  Unfortunately, with your ambiguities and your delays on a decision, you add your own home-made resistance to someone else”s dreams, and dreams are hard enough to bring to life without your half-hearted opposition.  

Barry Schwartz isn’t vague about what he accepts and what he doesn’t.  That’s one reason why he’s compelling.  Corporate speakers, though, are too concerned about saying the wrong things, so they hedge.  To prevent you from realizing this, they distract with mesmerizingly awful PowerPoint  animations.  No one enjoys hearing those people speak, but everyone claps out of habit.  

Speaking of PowerPoint presentations, you’ll notice that the slides Mr. Schwartz uses have an elegant,  minimalistic design.  The ideas are strong enough on their own so that cutesy, animated gifs aren’t needed to hold the audience’s interest.   (To read more about the thinking behind the slides for the presentation, check out this helpful lessons-from-TED post from slide:ology.)  If your presentation isn’t compelling enough, maybe you should spend more time tweaking your ideas and not your clip art.  

 

2. Avoid meaningless clutter.

I am amazed by how many companies choose to use hold recordings that go something like this, “Thanks for calling.  Your call is very important to us.  It will be answered in the order in which it was received.”  This is something any company can say.  Is your company just like any other company or does it have something special to share with the world?  Your advertising says that you are special, so why let your phone messages or your internal training videos, or your memos argue otherwise?

As if the above phone message isn’t bland enough, too many companies opt to have the message repeat every 45 seconds or so.  Right when I am getting comfortable enough to start daydreaming about new possibilities, I get interrupted with generic words from a generic voice.  That’s sort of like throwing balls of Styrofoam at patrons right when they’re bringing a spoon of hot, savory soup to their mouth.  That kind of thing robs me of my appreciation for the moment, a moment that could have begotten good and useful things.  

Why waste words to apologize for the inconvenience when it really isn’t an inconvenience?   Asking me to use a different grocery-store isle because the one in front of me is closed is not an inconvenience.  It is a reasonable situation that common sense illuminates.  Using plastic phrases on me rarely makes me feel better, and clunky legalistic prose doesn’t encourage me to spend more money.  When I discover it in stuff I’ve already purchased, I  have fewer reasons to smile about the product in question.  

As Mr. Schwartz suggests, there’s no reason for teachers to read the lesson from a script.  That insults the competent teachers and bores the kids.  If the teachers aren’t able to come up with their own coherent lesson plans that address relevant topics, then they should be doing different work.  Making things easy for incompetent people to be mediocre has the unfortunate consequence of making the world more corporate at an exponential rate.  

 

3.  Incubate possibilities.

Both babies and new ventures cannot survive on their own without support from others.  The call that you don’t return could be the one that seduces someone to give up on something that would have changed the world.    One of my goals is to return a call or email that asks for a response within 2 days.  I’m pretty good at doing that most of the time.  If I can do it, why can’t you?    Why risk the chance of demoralizing someone when returning a personable call usually takes just five minutes or less?

Barry Schartz warns us that if people have to swim against the current for too long, they’ll give up.  Some ideas don’t have enough merit to justify their survival, but others do.  It’s tragic when the good ones get strangled by the organizational resistance that attack with bureaucracy and mindless adherence to policy.  

 

4. Avoid unnecessary rules.  

To quote Mr. Schwartz again, “Moral skill is chipped away by an over-reliance on rules that deprives us of the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations, and moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing.”  The more rules you make the more you encourage the rise of corparate drones who merely follow policy and don’t think or interact with the particulars at hand.  Those kinds of workers can be crafted into docile automatons, but they won’t be very good at generating innovation and adapting to change.

 

5. Don’t be cynical.

Everyone has their shortcomings, but we sell people short when we search for base motives behind every deed.  Treating others with weary suspicion even when they do good makes it harder for that person to continue doing good.  I’m as guilty of this as anyone, maybe even guiltier than most; I face an on-going battle against encroaching cynicism, and I don’t always win.  

When you’ve been hurt, it is a challenge not to project those past experiences of cruelty and selfishness onto other people in the present.  But, if you keep treating an organization or a  contact with enough cynicism, eventually they’ll ignore you or live up to your expectations.  Neither party benefits from that, so that’s reason enough to keep a vigilant guard against corrosive cynicism.  

Follow Mr. Schwartz’s advice: “celebrate moral exemplars.”  Dare to praise others not just for their technical capacities but for the nobility of their actions.  You may risk looking unsophisticated, naive, and unhip, but do it anyway.  Virtue matters enough to justify the risk.

 

6.  Be honest. 

Well-intentioned buisness people are, on ocassion, hesitant to speak the truth out of fear for the market’s reaction or their jobs.  On a personal level, people are hesitant to tell the truth out a fear of rejection or of the consequences that come with the truth.  These are not petty matters to be easily dismissed.  

Sometimes being honest will cost you in the short term, but it comes with long-term freedom, freedom to be yourself and to make decisions based on what can help you or your organization grow.  In the end, honesty always prevails, but you won’t believe that unless you accept a metaphysical reality greater than the perceivable material, and often very corporate, world around you.  

If your worldview does not allow for a God or a universe that ultimately rewards character over profitability, then there is a very real danger that you will end up as another corporate denizen who will do anything to stay on top,  perhaps you’ll even apologize for the inconvenience as you uppercut me with your meaningless clutter.  Anything to stay ahead, right?

Photo from flickr.com/rickz

Photo from flickr.com/rickz

Here’s me being honest: I had decided against writing this post, until I came across Barry Schwartz’s speach.  The beauty of his ideas helped snap me out of my own private hell, long enough to write this.   Whether this post will be helpful to anyone, I don’t know, but writing it was helpful to me.  Before watching Mr. Schwartz’s speach, my plan for the weekend was to spend much of it drinking one beer after another at a local bar.  By being less corporate, Mr. Schwartz helped me to do the same.  

You can do likewise, if you’re so inclined.  Somewhere in the world a jazz musician will thank you.

 

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