What does Pixar know that I don't? A lot of things . . . rewrites & the 22 Things

I’VE BEEN BANGING my brains out on revisions, and why they aren’t working, and when that happens, I 

often turn to the masters. While re-reading JK Rowling, I realized, duh, foreshadowing is important.

I’m also re-reading Robert B. Parker, who I love, but also realized some of his earlier work is like permission to write well, but get better, and better as the writing goes on (I’m talking about The Godwulf Manuscrip his first book, in general and Valediction in particular)–as he went on writing, discovering himself and his characters, he came to write some of the most beloved crime fiction books in history.

And then along comes Disney Pixar’s “Brave” barreling to the #1 spot, opening to $66.7 million — the fifth-best debut ever for a Pixar film, and a faster start than last year’s Cars 2, which opened with $66.1 million. Brave continued Pixar’s streak of number one debuts, as all 13 of the studio’s releases have reached the peak position during their first weekend of wide release.

Why?

According to Pixar director/storyteller/artist Andrew Stanton, it’s all in the do-over, baby.

He told CNN, “People wonder what the magic elixir of Pixar is. We shoot the movie four times! [Laughs] There’s no rocket science to it. It’s like saying, you’re a musician. You get to go and write a song, but you only get to touch the strings once on your guitar. Once. And then we take it away from you. As opposed to just going into your office and strumming until you get a great tune.

“To me, that’s just how art is formed. So, again, no huge epiphany – we just went, if I was alone and I wanted to make a movie, I’d like to be able to fall off my bike as many times as I have to until I get it right. So that’s the environment we make. There are economics involved, and it’s definitely more cumbersome than live action, so I couldn’t set up four reshoots, but damn, I’ll always ask for as many as I can get, because I don’t find any embarrassment in that.

“It’s like saying, you can all go and write a piece about what we talked about today, but you only get to write it once. You don’t get to change a word once it’s set down. And that’s how movies are made, and it’s fucked up.

“It should be that you should somehow be able to balance economics and let the artist be an artist, and not be afraid of failure or trial and error. You do it with takes – everybody gets 30 takes, 10 takes, five takes until we get it right. Why should I suddenly be omniscient and know that something will work, no matter how it’s written on the paper? It’s a different beast when it’s on the screen. Believe me, we know that at Pixar.