Geri’s Game: Pixar’s $2 Million Dollar Experiment
Lesson: Leave the door open for the unexpected, and in will walk unforeseen values.
In 1998 Pixar released a short five minute film along with the movie A Bug’s Life. From the perspective of the audience this “Short” was an enjoyable addition to the feature film. Internally, however, this “Shorts” program was initiated to solve an important managerial problem.
The Short was called “Geri’s Game;” it features a genial old man sitting in a park playing chess… against himself. There is no dialogue, besides the occasional “Ha!” when he has struck a solid move. The humor derives from the dual personality of the old man as he switches from one side of the table to the other, taking on a new more diabolical personality.
The director, Jan, was given free reign to do what he wanted. His only assignment was to use a human figure. Back in 1998 Pixar had not mastered the nuances of creating a quality human figure through computer graphics. Humans had always been ancillary to their films about toys, monsters, and bugs.
The “Short” program was initiated with the expectation that it would hasten technological innovations and provide training opportunities for new directors. These, however, turned out to be false expectations. Only one short film drove any real technological innovations. And, it turned out, that directing a short was helpful training, but vastly different than directing an hour and a half, $97 million, feature length film. There were, however unintended, unknown, and unforeseen benefits of the program.
For example, the employees who worked on Geri’s Game and the others, gained a broader range of experiences, because there were less people on the crew. This forced each crew member to do a variety of tasks, which never happens on a big budget film where specialization is king. The employees also forged deeper relationships with one another. The films themselves bonded moviegoers to the Pixar brand. And inside the company, people noticed that Pixar truly valued artistry, since they spent up to $2 million on these projects without directly receiving any money in return.
Though the Pixar management team had expected one set of benefits, they got another set completely. This proved their hypothesis: Leave the door open for the unexpected, and in will walk unforeseen values.
