Braintrust

Posted on July 30, 2024August 2, 2024 by David Hopkins

If you’ve not read the book Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull, I thoroughly recommend it. Using the progress, successes and failures of Pixar films, its producers and directors, and how the business survived each one, there’s a lot to learn here.

One aspect of the book, and Pixar, I am intrigued with during my recent re-reading, is their ‘braintrust‘. The braintrust is a process that grew organically through the early failures as part of the development of Pixar films. In summary;

“To understand what the Braintrust does and why it is so central to Pixar, you have to start with a basic truth: People who take on complicated creative projects become lost at some point in the process. It is the nature of things—in order to create, you must internalize and almost become the project for a while, and that near-fusing with the project is an essential part of its emergence. But it is also confusing. Where once a movie’s writer/director had perspective, he or she loses it. Where once he or she could see a forest, now there are only trees. The details converge to obscure the whole, and that makes it difficult to move forward substantially in any one direction. The experience can be overwhelming.”

We’ve all been here; so engrossed in the work and encouraged (or discouraged) by progress you can often lose sight of the original brief or requirement. We are no different in curriculum and course development projects than the directors and animators at Pixar. We work in a highly creative industry.

The outcome of the braintrust meetings is not a set of instructions for the producer, nor are there any expectations for the producer to change anything. The braintrust is merely an opportunity to dive into the story, question and be questioned on progress, uncover unknown problems and hear how to handle known ones. What the producer does with this information afterwards is up to them. Still, it is not a good idea to return to the braintrust with the same issues or without moving the project along.

The braintrust was not created or planned. It grew from the need to help struggling colleagues, to take a deep look at a story and try and unpack why it had stalled and how to simplify the questions to move it along. The braintrust is a group of trusted colleagues who have had similar experiences and who meet several times over the 3-4yr lifespan of a film.

Ed Catmull is at pains to describe the difference between the openness and transparency of feedback, and candour as a central premise of the braintrust:

Candor could not be more crucial to our creative process. Why? Because early on, all of our movies suck … Pixar ﬁlms are not good at ﬁrst, and our job is to make them so–to go, as I say, “from suck to not-suck.”

Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one’s own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve – we strive to check those impulses at the door. The Braintrust is fueled by the idea that every note we give is in the service of a common goal: Supporting and helping each other as we try to make better movies.”

By understanding the principles of a braintrust and the importance of candour, this approach can help you regain your original purpose or project bride, gain a clear(er) perspective, and receive constructive feedback, leading to more effective and engaging learning experiences.

In short …