Building a Team

Some boards I did for Monsters Inc.

As a superviser at animation studios and as an owner of my own studio, team building is a skill that you have to learn. If you don't know how to put together a good team you run the risk of imploding your projects. Hiring the best talent you can find is an obvious way to build a good team but this alone is not enough. If you have deep pockets and you hired the absolute best talent money could buy for your animation department, this does not guarantee a good film. In fact I would waiger that the opposite would happen. It would be like starting a company and hiring Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos to run it. A disaster waiting to happen.

At Pixar, we would have lunch with prospective team hires to makes sure that they weren't a**holes. I really liked this practice because it made sure that everyone got along. The one weakness of this idea is that it tends to promote the hiring of similar types of people. Not that great for diversity.

When I build a team, I like as many different personalities as posible. I really like the way the personalities play off each other. I would hate it if everyone were to agree all the time. There are only three things that I require from every team member.

Passion for animation.
Passion for the studio or project.
Respect for other artists.

I'll give specific examples of my ideal team in future posts.