Toy Story 2 was one of the luckiest movies to be made.
There was a particular instance Ed Catmull, one of the founders of Pixar and current head of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, describes in his book Creativity Inc. Essentially, when the release date was coming up, someone had accidentally typed in a line on Linux (the operating system they use) that deletes all files on a drive. Before they knew what hit them, they lost 85% of the movie. To make matters worse, their back up drive was found to be malfunctional, and hadn’t been working for weeks.
Luckily, one employee was working from home for the movie and had a hard drive with a complete back up. If it weren’t for that, the process of drawing the movie would’ve had to completely restart, and Toy Story 2 might never have been released.
Catmull said they don’t know who deleted the movie, because they never cared to look. In his mind, everyone had the best intentions for the movie. So wasting resources finding and punishing someone for an unpredictable situation and mistake doesn’t avoid future unpredictable situations. And it only sets an environment where people are more worried about mistakes than actually working.
Even though his reasoning is obvious, it’s difficult to think like that. After all, if I was the person that nearly cost the film, I severely blame myself. And if not, that person is a great scapegoat for anyone’s anger.
How often do we blame ourselves for unlucky mistakes even though it doesn’t help anyone? And what does that do to us?
We have a natural proclivity to find someone at fault. But life is random and nothing is predictable. Even after two unlucky situations, a lucky one saved Toy Story 2. I’m surprised in such a high-stakes scenario, Catmull had the mindset and awareness he had. It requires a high amount presence to not just follow the natural anger that arises.
We can’t punish ourselves for unfortunate mistakes. It doesn’t help and increases our anxiety to the point that it’s difficult to try again. As long as you have the best intentions and the willingness to do your best, there’s nothing more you can ask from yourself.
