When I was 20, I wrote a big long note to a handful of folks at Pixar. I really wanted a job there. A few months later, I received a curious letter from a human being I did not know who happened to live in my old apartment. She mentioned that she received a piece of mail addressed to me from Pixar, and within the envelope was a note from Pete Doctor. I was thrilled — handwritten on Pixar letterhead, the letter felt like a piece of magic in my hands, I read the words with a surge of joy and I think I even gave the paper a whiff.
It’s interesting to think about the lengths that the lady at my old apartment went through to find my new address and send me that letter. And I also found it quite peculiar that she opened my mail, read the letter, and thought to herself, “this guy really needs to get this letter!!” While Pete didn’t offer me a job in the note, he communicated something that has been worth a lifetime of inspiration. In essence, he just told me that I need to “start writing stuff!” and he also drew some neat little sketches of Up characters on the back. It’s something I really cherish to this day and it pushes me to continue to believe that writing and the effort to be better at it can open up great possibilities in my life.
When I came across Pixar In A Box, I felt like I discovered something truly magical. It felt like a treasure trove of wisdom, a thoughtful and rare gift directly from a place I dream of working at. I really think it is all-around the best thing I’ve watched on film and storytelling. And what makes it even better, it’s free! It’s entertaining, educational, delightfully fun, and well structured. It must’ve taken a year to make! The instructors all work at Pixar and you get a real humanizing sense of how the magic is made.
So far, I’ve only worked through the first section “The Art Of Storytelling” and after a handful of evenings watching and working through the exercises, it has sparked fresh momentum and new approaches to my own creative endeavors.
Using Pixar films as a reference, they breakdown filmmaking, and storytelling into essential and approachable elements. Along the journey, you even get to see Story Artist storyboarding and working on pitches. There’s something about actually watching a Story Artist do a rough sketch of the scenes (and even make mistakes) that makes me feel like, “Hey, I can do that too!” And when challenged by the activity to take it, I actually did!
I actually fought through the little voice in my head that says, “you can’t draw!” That little frozen feeling of creative immobility that I feel when I’ve never done something particularly well before. But when I started putting the marker to paper the momentum grew, the visions and imagination started to ignite and I started to see things and sketch them together. Even if it’s rough outlines and rudimentary shapes, it was working. As I progress, I want this to be a routine and a skill I use to share and communicate more ideas. Every minute is packed solid learning on things like story structure, film grammar, and methods for creativity and confidence to share work — these are strong lessons that I could apply to loads of things.
It’s definitely still my dream to be a part of Pixar and write stories that can touch and inspire people. While I’m not there yet, I’m grateful for this class and the amount of thought and work that Pixar has poured into it. While I know there’s room to grow creatively, in the meantime, I’m just gonna keep writing stuff. For what it’s with, I like to jot here a little thank you to #PixarInABox for sharing so generously this wisdom and knowledge into the world.
PS. Here’s a little idea I’ve had for a “Keep Miami Beautiful” awareness campaign. Inspired from the class, I decided the simple scene would be a solid thing to practice drawing up and depicting it. it’s rough, but it does the trick!
