Have I Ever Told You About The Day I Spent At Pixar?

where Only a fraction of what they make is ever seen, but they regard all of it as art.

Wandering those hallowed halls offered me a perspective that informs much of what I do today. As I was reflecting on it, recently, I realized Pixar is partly responsible for my desire to light my photographs on fire.

Several years ago, I was directing (writing, shooting, and editing) a brand film for a creative learning center in Yerevan, Armenia — and one of the members of their creative council worked as a producer at Pixar, so I went to Emeryville, CA to interview her. As a young director who, at the time, was mostly known for his photography, yet to make a 'real' film, the trip served as a kind of pilgrimage for me. The experience was so pivotal, that every detail of the day has been tattooed onto my brain.

The woman I went to interview, Katherine Sarafian, was working on her first film in her new role. Turns out, she wasn't just a producer, she was the Executive Producer of a Pixar movie. (I will save, for another time, how much pride my family felt watching her accept the Oscar the following February for that film, which was/is our daughter’s favorite from Pixar: Brave.)

Her new role, this new film — of which they’d only completed the title sequence at the time — kept Katherine very busy, so she gave me a quick tour before heading off to her meetings, essentially giving me free run of the studio as I waited for her to finish up.

“Don’t miss the art galleries,” she encouraged, nodding upstairs.

If you’ve seen Inside Pixar, on Disney+, you may have a sense of how the building lays out, but for those who haven’t let me explain.

Walking through the main entrance of what is now called The Steve Jobs building, you enter a bright, airy atrium, which serves as the heart and soul of the studio. At the far end of the atrium is the entrance to their screening room, while several conference rooms overlook the atrium on either side. These are where they break and pitch their stories, where the geniuses at Pixar go about the business of making some of the greatest films of all time. And, as I discovered, it's just outside those conference rooms where the studio set up two art galleries — the galleries Katherine encouraged me not to miss.

In the first gallery, I discovered a thrilling assortment of work related to the franchise currently in theaters. When I was there, that meant Toy Story character studies, color tests and clay models filled the space. For a film buff, seeing all the intention and care that went into those characters and films was a real treat.

That said, I found myself even more enamored with the work in the other gallery.

In this one, everyone at Pixar was invited to hang their personal work — the stuff that lit them up as artists, not just what got them paid, or made them famous. The art in this gallery was tremendous. I don’t recall a single piece that made me think, “oh yeah, I can see a little Pixar in that.” None of it seemed possible to have come from the same hands and minds that made Woody, Buzz or Lightening McQueen.

It struck me how important it is to create things that live beyond the scope of your job, or the spotlight and attention of the public. This gallery would only ever be seen by a handful of people, and few to none of the fans of Pixar's films. Here were walls of art made for and hung up to inspire one another.

Not only that, this work was given a space of equal honor to the studio's work. Pixar carved out valuable square footage — a mirrored version of the space dedicated to the company's very successful films — to display the personal paintings, photographs and mixed media pieces of anyone and everyone at Pixar.

As a director and filmmaker, it is hard to make room in my life to create things beyond that which I’m paid to make, outside the genre of my profession, even. Not only do I need to make other things, I also need to make space to hang them, to share them with the world. And I don't need to regard them as cute little side projects. This work is every bit as important as the TV commercials and brand films I’m commissioned to create.

That's part of what’s driving me to stretch my tight, inflexible creative hamstrings with Fire Sale, which is set to launch in one week. So, no matter how you know me — or what kind of work you know me for (or don’t!) — let this story serve as your invitation to venture upstairs.

Fire Sale is part pop up shop, part collaborative art project, part philosophic exercise. To learn more, please click here. If you enjoyed this story and think it might connect with others, please consider sharing it. You never know what chain reactions a single spark can set in motion.