Pixar Planet
Brave Switches Directors
Talk about Pixar's movie Brave here!Moderators: Pixar Planet Moderators, The Brain Trust
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by ellie-jessie-eve » Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:54 pm
This studio Drama is very interesting. I guess animation studios aren't immune to high school dramas, only with higher stakes.
-
ellie-jessie-eve - Pixar Planet Moderator
- Posts: 18519
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:01 am
- Location: Sonoma Valley, CA
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by weirdojace » Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:48 am
Pixar is a community of people and there's always drama within any community.
-
weirdojace - Ant
- Posts: 26
- Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:34 am
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by Equestrienne » Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:54 am
I would love to know what exactly Pixar didn't like, that cause them to remove her as director.

-
Equestrienne - Mutant Toy
- Posts: 124
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 1:16 am
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by ellie-jessie-eve » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:00 am
weirdojace wrote:Pixar is a community of people and there's always drama within any community.
Of course. I am familier with it from personal experience.
Equestrienne: Yes, I do too. I suppose we won't find out any time soon.
-
ellie-jessie-eve - Pixar Planet Moderator
- Posts: 18519
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:01 am
- Location: Sonoma Valley, CA
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by Equestrienne » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:14 am
I guess the odds of her doing the movie commentary for the Dvd are very slim now. I would have love to have heard how she came up with the idea for Brave.

-
Equestrienne - Mutant Toy
- Posts: 124
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 1:16 am
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by Pricklepants » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:42 am
Equestrienne wrote:I guess the odds of her doing the movie commentary for the Dvd are very slim now. I would have love to have heard how she came up with the idea for Brave.
Yes, this reeks of Jan Pinkava's departure from Ratatouille's helm. The DVD commentary was all Brad Bird's, which is by no means a bad thing, but all we got was how he changed things around afterwards, with very little background on how the original ideas came about.

-
Pricklepants - Garbage Boy
- Posts: 230
- Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 1:32 am
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by cynel » Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:52 am
Pricklepants wrote:Equestrienne wrote:I guess the odds of her doing the movie commentary for the Dvd are very slim now. I would have love to have heard how she came up with the idea for Brave.
Yes, this reeks of Jan Pinkava's departure from Ratatouille's helm. The DVD commentary was all Brad Bird's, which is by no means a bad thing, but all we got was how he changed things around afterwards, with very little background on how the original ideas came about.
lets just hope Brenda dosen't leave Pixar because of this
- cynel
- Ant
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:02 am
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver » Thu Aug 16, 2012 7:08 am
She has indeed left Pixar over this and burned the bridge behind her while on the way out. This was just released apparently only a few hours ago, altho much speculation in this and a few other threads here over the past year and nine months could have been cobbled together to spin a similar tale. Here are the many links to Brenda Chapman and her ups and downs:
"Chapman now opened up to The New York Times about what happened, blaming everything on sexism. "When Pixar took me off of Brave -- a story that came from my heart, inspired by my relationship with my daughter -- it was devastating," she said. "To have [my story] taken away and given to someone else, and a man at that, was truly distressing on so many levels." She went on to say that the industry has always leaned in favor of male filmmakers, stating: "Sometimes women express an idea and are shot down, only to have a man express essentially the same idea and have it broadly embraced." " - Imbd this week.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/f ... man-362772
Many people have asked why this happened, and the studio had cited 'creative differences', they might just as well have added the term 'irreconcilable'. Why? Because there have been many other 'about face's in Pixar's movie dev't history: we know of TS2 going from dvd release to theatrical with 9 months to go and the chaos that caused, JimHillMedia claims that there were major problems with early in-house screenings of Nemo and Stanton's Wall•E, Ratatouille's directoral change is well known here, wasn't there a directoral shuffling in Cars2 and wasn't the first script(rumored to not be in-house) of TS3 thrown out because it was nonemotive? My take on this is that the Brain Trust and whoever else from outside of Brave who was in that screening room saw the glorified screenreel and said it wasn't up to snuff. At this point you do what Stanton did to Wall•E: he swallowed hard and threw out much of the last 2 acts. Chapman either was going too slow with decision making, making the wrong decisions in their view or just flat out refused to make the demanded changes.
If you've ever read the life of Steven Jobs, he apparently pulled the same tactic on many male developers in Apple that Chapman claims has been done "sometimes" to some women in the film industry: discrediting their ideas and then lifting them for themselves. Can every slight be attributed to sexism?
Yeah, it's gonna be too bad that we won't hear her in the dvd most likely (altho maybe she quit right after making the commentary?). I have always been fascinated about several moments in the Rat movie and how Pinkova or Bird came up with them and because Pinkova left we never did get to hear his take. Lots of people in this thread wanted to know how she came up with the story idea, and this is covered here along with lots of other info about her:
http://www.pixarportal.com/blog.php?id= ... -two-brave
http://www.pixar-planet.fr/en/documents ... apman.php3
Wow, I didn't know there was a hyphenated version of this website over in France, actually it's probably independent.
From Pixar's point of view, they gave an opportunity to an accomplished person to do major things at their studio and then probably because of major criticism about too many 'buddy' films, they let her loose with a 'chick flick' and now it has backfired. Instead of co-opting more women and girls, Pixar now has to deal with the fallout of the sexism accusation. Would they have been better off not hiring her in the first place? I'm just throwing this out there.
Unfortunately, she did not have a fairy tale ending at the studio we like so much and is off to LucasFilm.
"Chapman now opened up to The New York Times about what happened, blaming everything on sexism. "When Pixar took me off of Brave -- a story that came from my heart, inspired by my relationship with my daughter -- it was devastating," she said. "To have [my story] taken away and given to someone else, and a man at that, was truly distressing on so many levels." She went on to say that the industry has always leaned in favor of male filmmakers, stating: "Sometimes women express an idea and are shot down, only to have a man express essentially the same idea and have it broadly embraced." " - Imbd this week.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/f ... man-362772
Many people have asked why this happened, and the studio had cited 'creative differences', they might just as well have added the term 'irreconcilable'. Why? Because there have been many other 'about face's in Pixar's movie dev't history: we know of TS2 going from dvd release to theatrical with 9 months to go and the chaos that caused, JimHillMedia claims that there were major problems with early in-house screenings of Nemo and Stanton's Wall•E, Ratatouille's directoral change is well known here, wasn't there a directoral shuffling in Cars2 and wasn't the first script(rumored to not be in-house) of TS3 thrown out because it was nonemotive? My take on this is that the Brain Trust and whoever else from outside of Brave who was in that screening room saw the glorified screenreel and said it wasn't up to snuff. At this point you do what Stanton did to Wall•E: he swallowed hard and threw out much of the last 2 acts. Chapman either was going too slow with decision making, making the wrong decisions in their view or just flat out refused to make the demanded changes.
If you've ever read the life of Steven Jobs, he apparently pulled the same tactic on many male developers in Apple that Chapman claims has been done "sometimes" to some women in the film industry: discrediting their ideas and then lifting them for themselves. Can every slight be attributed to sexism?
Yeah, it's gonna be too bad that we won't hear her in the dvd most likely (altho maybe she quit right after making the commentary?). I have always been fascinated about several moments in the Rat movie and how Pinkova or Bird came up with them and because Pinkova left we never did get to hear his take. Lots of people in this thread wanted to know how she came up with the story idea, and this is covered here along with lots of other info about her:
http://www.pixarportal.com/blog.php?id= ... -two-brave
http://www.pixar-planet.fr/en/documents ... apman.php3
Wow, I didn't know there was a hyphenated version of this website over in France, actually it's probably independent.
From Pixar's point of view, they gave an opportunity to an accomplished person to do major things at their studio and then probably because of major criticism about too many 'buddy' films, they let her loose with a 'chick flick' and now it has backfired. Instead of co-opting more women and girls, Pixar now has to deal with the fallout of the sexism accusation. Would they have been better off not hiring her in the first place? I'm just throwing this out there.
Unfortunately, she did not have a fairy tale ending at the studio we like so much and is off to LucasFilm.
-
DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver - Toy Collector
- Posts: 552
- Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:02 am
- Location: 45mi from Emeryville
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by cynel » Fri Aug 24, 2012 8:38 pm
history repeats itself another Jan Pinkava / chris sanders moment
- cynel
- Ant
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:02 am
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by JustSteve » Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:47 am
DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver wrote:She has indeed left Pixar over this and burned the bridge behind her while on the way out...Unfortunately, she did not have a fairy tale ending at the studio we like so much and is off to LucasFilm.
And now Lucasfilm is gobbled by Disney, so Ms. Chapman is back in the belly of the Mouse. Maybe she'll get a shot at working on a Star Wars movie?
-
JustSteve - Garbage Boy
- Posts: 403
- Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2010 4:26 pm
- Location: Maryland, USA
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by Leirin » Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:38 pm
Funny how that works, huh? I'd love to see her involved in the new Star Wars.
"Is it all gonna be this interactive?"
-
Leirin - Piston Cup Champion
- Posts: 7545
- Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 6:59 pm
- Location: sitting in the apple tree
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by riya001 » Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:45 am
I think the movie did pretty well with Mark Andrews as well!
so i don't have any problems that it had switched directors before

so i don't have any problems that it had switched directors before

- riya001
- Ant
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:35 am
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by Leirin » Tue Jan 01, 2013 10:01 pm
I agree that he did a good job!
I just can't help but wonder what it'd have been like had Brenda gone through as the film's finalized director. I wonder what would've been different.
I just can't help but wonder what it'd have been like had Brenda gone through as the film's finalized director. I wonder what would've been different.
"Is it all gonna be this interactive?"
-
Leirin - Piston Cup Champion
- Posts: 7545
- Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 6:59 pm
- Location: sitting in the apple tree
Re: Brave Switches Directors
by cynel » Mon Jan 07, 2013 9:57 pm
riya001 wrote:I think the movie did pretty well with Mark Andrews as well!![]()
so i don't have any problems that it had switched directors before
this usually happens a of change directors if the project isn't going in the right direction. infact Walt tossed out 6 months of work on Pinocchio before starting over.
- cynel
- Ant
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:02 am
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests
It is currently Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:05 pm
© Copyright 2010 Pixar Planet. All Rights Reserved Legal Info
Disclaimer: We are in no way affiliated with Pixar Animation Studios or the Walt Disney Company. All relevant trademarks and copyrighted content: © Disney. Pixar Planet is a non-profit organisation and any donations received are used to maintain server and domain payments only.
© Copyright 2010 Pixar Planet. All Rights Reserved Legal Info
Disclaimer: We are in no way affiliated with Pixar Animation Studios or the Walt Disney Company. All relevant trademarks and copyrighted content: © Disney. Pixar Planet is a non-profit organisation and any donations received are used to maintain server and domain payments only.