It's called Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration.
I have not read it because since all my bad eye operations, I cannot read books--and this does not seem to have an audio.
But Catmull, I do know, is someone I am trying to interest in my script Paw & Order--an animated comedic version of the iconic show with a wolf and bee as the two cops.
For more on this, check out: http://pawanadordermovie.blogspot.com.
Anyway, Catmull targets fear of failure as a block to originality. I would call my effort--which I dreamed--the originality of repurposing. After 30 some years writing scripts, my biggest fear is not getting a listen (Ed never answered my email). Or that Dick Wolf will beat me up.
Catmull apparently uses a lot of his book to describe his activities in physics and then computer science. He sure sounds smart.
He also talks a lot, reviews say, about how to make the unknown safe. The unknown, he says, is too scary for most people. Aw--really?--we call it fantasy.
At Pixar, home of Toy Story, Toy Story 2 (which was supposed to be straight to video but wasn't), they have leaderless brain trusts to pull creatives through troublesome middle stages of creation (I guess where all the unk-unks--as we used to call unknown unknowns when I was in the aerospace industry--lie).
Early drafts, he says, are not miniatures of the beautiful adults they will become--but ugly and incomplete.
Apparently he pushes his brain trusts and creatives so hard one dad forgot to leave his son at daycare and left him in the car.
Is it me--or would Ed and I maybe not get along that well? To me, watching an idea unfold, unfold more, more...is exciting and fun. I don't need a committee to bigfoot it until they pay for it.
I want to be whispered, not wrangled.
