A tour of Pixar and a comment on how they crank out great movies

I stumbled across this visit to Pixar on blogdex and just browsed through the pictures a bit. I'm a bit in awe of Pixar; my partner Joe used to work in the movie business, and he has told me how hard it is to create just one hit movie. Pixar has created not one, but six to date. Even more amazing, they have not had one flop. That is a bit like having a baseball team that has never not won the World Series.

One quote caught my eye in the article which does help explain a bit of their success though:

They offer classes to all of their employees, no matter what department they’re in, on all aspects of filmmaking. The theory is that they want everyone in the building to understand exactly what it is that the company does, so they can all appreciate the main goals of Pixar.

This is smart marketing. Not only does this program provide education, but it also aligns the word-of-mouth marketing message that comes from employees.

Of course, no one should be surprised that Pixar is good at marketing; Steve Jobs is CEO, after all. I just want to know when he sleeps.