Build a Brand Story the Pixar Way

Businesses that have recognized the importance of storytelling have also discovered a quirky feature of stories – they don’t always carry the same weight or meaning when we get them in front of an audience that they seemed to while we were working on them.

Pixar learned this lesson the hard way while making Toy Story II, a film that took longer to finish because scenes the producers approved during the script and storyboard phase didn’t work together to add up to the film they wanted to distribute. Stories are contextual, and often the stories that feel good to one storyteller, one manager, or within a business, can come off as bland, trite, boring, or offensive to those outside of the organization – regardless of whether the story is a feature length animation, a new product launch, a press event, or an explainer video. Because Pixar wanted to find a way around costly rework late in a project development cycle, they revamped their creative process to use a team workshop model to work and rework multiple story pathways during the early stages of the process.

The model Pixar developed came out of a business method developed by industrial and product designers in the late 90’s called Design Thinking. The tools for that process are contained in two decks published by Pip Decks. One called “Storyteller Tactics,” and the other, “Team Tactics.” These decks contain a set of workshop recipes that empower cross-functional team thinking AND a set of powerful story tools that allow you to position and reposition stories for your various audiences and constituents. Together, they allow your organization to draw out multiple perspectives during the creative process, allowing you to tell better stories across all channels.

Pixar’s storytelling journey

In September 2008 Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull published an article about the creative process at Pixar. He points out that for a business to generate consistently high quality creative ideas it needs to start with creative people working collaboratively. “Creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many inherently unforeseeable problems,” he writes, debunking the idea that good ideas are more important than good people.

In the animation production line developed by Disney, hand-drawn artwork became a feature length film for the first time due to division of labor that operated in a relatively linear format compared to the process used by Pixar today. Writers would create a script while artists would explore the look and feel the characters would ultimately take on, often with many iterations.

Scripts were broken down by directors and illustrators into storyboards, but the final animation wouldn’t be created until the script was recorded by voice actors. The audio was timed so artists could accurately represent the voice with realistic facial and body animations. Storyboards were broken down into shots, and the shots into “keyframes,” moments that represent the beginning and ending of character movements. Then the animation was drawn, one frame at a time, moving the characters from keyframe to keyframe.

Pixar has broken open this process, into a more interdisciplinary, cross-functional approach. Story elements can be worked and reworked by creative teams to create sequences that hit the theatrical “beats” necessary to move the story ahead.

Creative teams are managed through a checks-and-balances system built on authentic feedback. It’s not enough to get creative people in a room. They need to be able to trust one another to say, “What if this scene supports that scene in a different way?” Through cross-functional feedback, from animators to writers, writers to directors, colorists to scene designers and so on, the story becomes better as it progresses through the creative process.

The process does have a center, called the ‘brain trust,’ made up of different people at different times, but often including top executives like Ed Catmull.

“Built around Pixar’s lauded ‘brain trust,’ the objective is simple, but something that businesses often find quite difficult, to ‘put smart, passionate people in a room together, charge them with identifying and solving problems, and encourage them to be candid.’”

That last bit requires an organization to create rules and norms around candidness, a process I’ll describe how to implement later on.

Filmmaking has become increasingly complex, with more shots per minute and more drastic changes in lighting, mood, color, and tempo, resulting in many more cognitive “triggers” necessary to keep contemporary audiences engaged.  With greater complexity on the part of creators and greater expectation by audiences for precision, consistency AND variety to keep the story fresh throughout the film, there is plenty of opportunity to get lost in the weeds.

In fact, Pixar expects and plans for the creative team to get lost along the way.

The reason the Brain Trust is so important to the Pixar process in the midst of all of this complexity is they recognize what they call “a basic truth: People who take on complicated creative projects become lost.” The Brain Trust stands apart from the day to day work on a particular production so they can provide a birds-eye view to help creative teams find their way back to the main path.

The process of creating a powerful story can play out across various departments that work on unique parts of the film that at the end of their four-year production process add up to the whole. Pixar calls the process of breaking down the overall story into creative divisions with a particular niche skill set “decomposition.” They commonly break out elements  of the world and its rules, the characters, and the story.

The director and “brain trust” workshop and provide feedback as each of these components are developed by their respective teams. “At Pixar, we try to create an environment where people want to hear each other’s notes (even when those notes are challenging) and where everyone has a vested interest in one another’s success.”

Create your own story development process with the Storyteller and Team Tactics decks by Pip Decks.

The storyteller deck and Team Tactics decks are each a 48 card decks containing recipes you can use to better your business. A “recipe” can be, among other things a meeting to hold, a lens through which to view a scenario, a process to follow, or a conversation to have. Each recipe card has the steps it takes to “bake the cake,” but only you can put the recipe in action.

One deck emphasizes storytelling to improve pitches, branding, content development and advertising. The other provides workshop tools for moving projects from concept to completion.

Together, these decks provide powerful prompts for teams working to tell better stories. Whether you have a writer’s room working on a TV series or film, or your brand executives are working to draw out powerful customer, employee and product stories, these decks provide the tools to empower your team and to create your own ‘brain trust’ to facilitate change and innovation through story.

Create your “Brain Trust” mission and vision with Team Tactics

To create a storytelling team on the right foot, one place to start is with the Team tactic “Team Charter.” This card provides a map for creating a collaborative team vision. Remember, for the “Brain Trust” to work, a primary goal is to build the trust to be candid. Employees need to trust they can acknowledge a story element isn’t where it needs to be without being punished or fired, and executives need to trust their employees that they are committed and participating in creating great work. When your team discusses these challenges and opportunities openly at the outset, you’ll find the team creates its own unique set of guiding principles.

Once you’ve created your map you can work it into a publishable format so everyone in the organization can see the vision.

Discovering your story

Organizations have a broad variety of stories to tell, from those inside the organization (employees, products, brand activations and so on) and outside (customers, influencers, regulators, the world your brand interacts with and more). To discover stories start with “Storyish Conversations.”

Story conversations and another card for deepening listening called “story listening” come out of ethnographic practices that places “researchers” within the environment they are studying. By participating and listening to those around them, your team will be able to collect and organize the many stories that make up what your organization is all about.

Even if you are creating a fictional story like a film, you can still use the “Storyish Conversations” card to get into the mind of your characters by going to and initiating conversations with people who are like your characters. What motivates them? What does their day look like? How do they perceive what is most important? These are questions that can help any storyteller get into the mind of the real and fictional people who have a role in your story.

Decompose your story

In the Pixar model, decomposition of the larger story into constituent parts is an important part of why the “Brain Trust” both necessary and powerful. In your organization you probably already have some teams looking at external factors like customer trends, regulatory changes, beliefs and attitudes. These are the features that make up your “world,” just as Pixar animators have teams that generate the rules of the “world” their characters inhabit.

To decompose your story work effectively, draw from the Team Tactics card called “Team Circles.” The goal of this card highlights the importance of figuring out who needs to be involved, and to what level. Some people just need to be informed about the work of the “world building” team, for example, while others need to spend most of their time working on it, and still others just need a quick weekly check-in. With a proper decomposition of work, you’ll be able to bring in the specialists in each story area when needed to contribute to the overarching story your organization is creating.

Division of Labor

The storyteller tactics can be used to divide the labor and to create a vision for each work group. The most important of these, highlighted by Pixar in the literature about their team approach are “world” builders,” “character developers,” and “script writers.”

One group can be focused on the “world” by using a Storyteller Deck card like “The Dragon and the City.” This card focuses on identifying the environment you are working in “the city,” and the threats or quest your “city dwellers” need to go on to create the next version of “the city.” If we were Nike, “the city” could be sports and the “dragons” could be injury, changes to sports funding in schools, or competitors that have carved out a niche in one of our brand categories. Your “world” team take their time to define the environment and the challenges you need to face in that world.

Another group can use the Story Tactics card “Audience Profile” to develop the characters in your story. Customer profiles need to be as realistic as possible, so the “character” team will be consistently working to better understand audiences, whether they are customers or not. The brand of your organization is impacted by those who hate you as much as those who love you. Understanding the full breadth of characters in the narrative is important in telling a story that’s meaningful.

Another team, we’ll call them the “script writers,” can draw from several Structure cards in the Storyteller Tactics deck, each focused on the plot points and story arc of your organization. While audience profiles by themselves are fairly static, as are environments, the structure puts our characters in motion and establishes the important moments or “beats” of the story. The “script writers” will either write the script – copy, content – whatever your organization will produce, or farm it out to creatives, confident that the story structure will provide the basis for a better, more engaging first daft.

Putting it all together

To put it all together, your “Brain Trust” needs to include people in the production of each part of your story, but they are ultimately responsible for pushing stories forward. At the beginning I talked about building a set of principles. The Team Tactics card called “Decision Stack” helps move principles into actions and results. This piece can be internal to the “Brain Trust,” as they need their own processes for developing their role.

When the Brain Trust meets with teams individually or in collaborative sessions, the Team Tactics cards have processes like “Lean Presentations,” “Design Crit,” “Say What You Mean,”and “Accountability Dial” that help sessions stay focused, help people stay focused on their roles while also connecting with other teams, and provide the authentic, candid feedback necessary to move the work to the next level.

Interested in creating your own “Brain Trust” creative process? Get the Storyteller Tactics and Team Tactics decks with a 15% discount at the links below.