Darla K. Anderson: From Digital Angel to Producer and Beyond

On Tuesday November 11^th the Brooklyn Theater at Pixar Animation Studios was filled to capacity with professionals, students and animation fans as they eagerly anticipated the arrival of one of Pixar’s most well-known members, Producer Darla K. Anderson. Ms. Anderson, who joined the studio in 1993, has the illustrious distinction of working on some of the animation industry’s most beloved films. Her accolades include winning the BAFTA award for Monsters, Inc. and Producer of the Year in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures from the Producers Guild of America for Cars. She spoke to the entranced crowd with her signature humor and drive about her story from growing up in Glendale, California to becoming one of the film industry’s most respected Producers.

Hollywood Calling

Darla Anderson grew up with stars in her eyes.

Born and raised in Glendale, California, she dreamed of starring in commercials and TV, and being a part of the Hollywood scene. Her mother did not want her to be part of the industry, believing it was not a great environment for children. However young Ms. Anderson dreamed of being part of the film production world. Her hero at the time, Jodie Foster, was the same age, and she envisioned starring alongside Jodie in films and becoming fast friends.

Life Takes A Turn

Her childhood dreams were cut short when at 13 her mother died tragically in a car accident. Through a series of events young Ms. Anderson found herself homeless at age 14. Knowing that the foster care system would not be a good alternative for her, she slept on the couches of friends.

During this dark time she believed that life was not worth living and wondered if she should simply give up. However she made a huge life decision to be in the game and go for it.  The loss of her mother, she said, “makes you super confident and incredibly insecure.”

She decided to stay in high school in Glendale and then moved on to community college, where she earned a $500 scholarship. Most of her professors were retired from UCLA and USC so she received an excellent education at a fraction of the cost.

She then went on to San Diego State where she earned a degree in environmental design. “I’ve always thought with a Z axis,” she said. “I always thought in 3D.”

She credits her determination and the mother of a close friend from college for helping to keep her afloat.

“I’m not sure where I would be in my life without these people,” she said, referring to her friend’s family, particularly her friend’s mother. “She has unconditionally loved me.”

I Wanna Be A Producer

Upon graduation all of her friends were getting jobs in sales and making lots of money immediately out of school. By contrast Ms. Anderson’s path proved to be far from linear. She traveled from odd job to odd job, from running an ice cream store to even serving as a truant officer. This was in the 80s, where yuppie-dom and earning as much as humanely possible was considered the standard way to live. Ms. Anderson’s seemingly unconventional lifestyle baffled her friends to no end.

But her life path would take another unexpected turn when at age 25 she met a guy at a party and discovered that he was a producer for Primavera Video Productions. It was at that moment that Ms. Anderson found her calling in life – she would become a producer.

She promptly called Primavera and announced that she was a producer and would love to work for their company. “They said thank you for your confidence we will hire you as a PA go make that coffee over there. And that is how [I] started as a PA,” she said.  

Primavera specialized in B movies, corporate videos and commercials, and Ms. Anderson volunteered for every shoot. One day she saw a flying logo in the editing room, the very early stages of 3D animation. And at that moment, she knew where she wanted her film career to take her. “I was in love. Completely, utterly in love with 3D animation,” she recalled.

She left Primavara and got a job at a small company called Angel Studios where she served as executive producer of the four-person company. While at Angel she often traveled to LA to sell ad agencies computer animation. “Back then nobody liked computer animation. It was really a hard sell,” she said.

The SIGGRAPH Moment

However, this proved to be the right course of action. She attended SIGGRAPH, now a stalwart gathering of the best and brightest in the animation and VFX industry, but at the time a fledging gathering of a handful of people.  “[There was] maybe 200 people employed in the industry at that time, “ she said. “SIGGRAPH had one party in a hotel room held by the guys at ILM.”

It was at SIGGRAPH that Ms. Anderson first heard of the company that would make her career: Pixar. At that time only three minutes of computer animation existed, and the people at Pixar wanted to make a full-length movie. “No one thought Pixar could do it,” she said.  No one, she recalled, but Pixar and her.

Going on gut instinct, she packed up her two cats, quit her job before she was fired, “rather be a bandit than be abandoned,” she remembered, and made it her goal to move to San Francisco, work for Pixar, make 50 thousand a year and come out of the closet. Once again, everyone thought she was nuts risking it all on a small company that no one had heard of to work in computer animation, a medium that at the time few had any faith in. “When I first came to Pixar nobody thought it was a good idea. You’re doing what? You’re working in San Francisco?” she said.

Ms. Anderson, however, would not be deterred.

Journey to Pixar

When she wanted a job, Ms. Anderson said, she would always call the president of the company. She felt that, after losing her mom at such a young age, she had nothing to lose, which enabled her to be “fearless with authority,” she said.

That fearlessness enabled her to pick up the phone and call then Vice President of Pixar Animation Studios Ralph Guggenheim and invite him to lunch.

She had no money and “emptied out the change in my drawer to pay for lunch,” she recalled. The experience proved to be invaluable, and she and Mr. Guggenheim formed an excellent professional relationship. At the time however, there were no jobs to be had, since the Disney deal with Pixar had not yet been struck. 

This information only stoked the fire in Ms. Anderson, and every six months she would call Mr. Guggenheim to see what jobs were available. She even received a thanks but no thanks letter from his assistant basically asking her to stop applying. “But Ralph kept taking my phone calls so I ignored those letters,” she said, figuring that if the boss keeps picking up the phone she was in great shape.

The Digital Angel Throws Her Hat In The Ring

Two years later her persistence paid off, and she joined Pixar in 1993 as producer of the commercial group. Her hope was that she would be a producer for Toy Story, but she realized that she would need to cut her teeth in commercials in order to prove that she was the right person for the job.

Her determination and the hard work of her group enabled Pixar to earn the funds necessary to finance Toy Story. “Our group of 25 people ended up getting Toy Story out the door,” said Ms. Anderson. Mr. Guggenheim even honored her work by bestowing her the title “Digital Angel” in the Toy Story credits, which she had often been called at her previous job.

Toy Story proved to be a smash hit, and enabled Pixar to move forward with their sophomore project, A Bug’s Life. For that film, Ms. Anderson didn’t bother to throw her hat in the ring for the producer job because she had only done commercials and knew nothing about marketing or licensing.

But when she saw the applicants coming through the door, she experienced her second epiphany. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing but neither do they,” she thought. She wrote to then Pixar CEO Steve Jobs and then Chief Technical Officer and now Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios President Ed Catmull an email entitled “Deep Thoughts” – a letter that basically pitched Ms. Anderson for the role of producer at Pixar.

During the interview process she met with the top brass at Disney in order to prove her mettle, since “Disney owned all of Pixar’s stuff at that time,” she said.

Her enthusiasm impressed the executives at Disney, but she still needed more time to learn the ends and outs of producing.

“Disney loves charts and graphs and analysis – I love looking at that too but I cannot produce it,” she said. She ended up getting an associate producer job rather than a producer job when the process was complete.

The day she didn’t get the gig Mr. Jobs personally apologized to her. When she told him she would accept the job he promptly asked, “Why would I say yes?”

“Because A,” she said, “I have no leverage, and B, I have a lot to learn.” This was the answer that Mr. Jobs wanted to hear. “Steve said they told him that if you were the right person for the job I’d take it.”

From Assistant Producer to Producer

A Bug’s Life had to prove that Pixar was not a one hit wonder, said Ms. Anderson.

Steve Jobs had warned her that after you have the big hit you quite often have the sophomore slump. “Then Antz came out and there was a lot of pressure,” she remarked. “Every time I turned the corner, [Steve] would say – hi Darla, is the film great yet? We all felt the pressure. We have to make it great.”

The Pixar team rose to the challenge, proving that Pixar had what it took to sustain itself as a feature film company. And Ms. Anderson’s excellent work on A Bug’s Life led to her being named a producer for many of Pixar’s future films, including Monsters, Inc. Cars, and Toy Story 3. As a producer, Ms. Anderson wears many hats and overseas all aspects production, but the key, she says, is the story.

“My central focus is story for obvious reasons,” she said. “Story is the most important thing…Everything reports to story for me.”

Story is also her favorite part of the process because it’s so difficult.

“You don’t ever have it. If you’re really trying to tell some truth it’s just a beast that will wrestle you to the ground.” She adds that being a little ADD makes for a good producer. “I get to jump from thing to thing and get paid for it and not get in trouble.”

“My focus is this big creative bent,” she said. “Everyday is super hyper different. Marketing. Casting. Music. Putting together the right team.”

Work/Life Balance: Reality or Myth?

“I don’t have a career mantra – be honest, put yourself out there, go for it,” said Ms. Anderson on her career goals. This assuredness and ability to stay true to herself enabled Ms. Anderson to come out of the closet, earn her stripes at Pixar and in 2008 marry fellow Pixar Producer Kori Rae.

And she admits that like many men and women, work/life balance can be a difficult process.

“We suck at it,” she said with a laugh. However both she and Ms. Rae have found ways to encompass both their professional and personal lives. “We’re allowed to talk about work until we get off the Bay Bridge.” She remarks that having a spouse who also works in the film industry is helpful, as they understand what it takes to get a film into production.

“We compliment each other on advice. If you’re a producer you’re going to work a lot of hours. We’re fortunate that we can work sane hours but it’s for four years.”

On Being a Leader and a Woman in the Industry

Having someone else in your corner, whether that is a spouse, mentor or friend, can help navigate the difficult waters of the industry, particularly when it comes to women and their history in film and animation. 

“You don’t want to be conscious of it but if I look back I can see if I were a guy things might have panned out differently,” she said. Fortunately, her life experiences, professional sponsorship, mentoring and friendship from individuals like Mr. Jobs and John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, along with her character and determination have enabled her to persevere through trying times.

“I grew up as a tomboy and had friends who were boys. When Hilary [Clinton] ran I woke up. The way the media was handling that bothered me. I rolled up my sleeves and decided to start mentoring and speaking,” she said. Her mentorship has included speaking and working with interns at Pixar, participating in lectures across the country and helping women to make inroads in the industry.

She finds that both women and men are hard on themselves on the job, and that women in particular punish themselves more when they make mistakes or do not speak up, especially in meetings.

Working alongside Mr. Jobs enabled Ms. Anderson to see the power and trust that were created from speaking honestly on the issues.

“He was very direct and he appreciated direct feedback,” said Ms. Anderson. “I’m not afraid to say I didn’t get that. If I don’t understand it then everybody didn’t get it or I need to hear it again. I think that’s universal for all of us. You have unlimited silver bullets to use.”

Also, she has realized that the times she has received constructive criticism were often a blessing in disguise. There have been times when colleagues have pulled her to the side to address things she may have said, and Ms. Anderson appreciates their candor.

“For somebody like me, there’s a lot of great things I possess, but I need a friend to tell me – maybe you shouldn’t say that,” she said. “When I get that feedback, I think thank you, I want to become a better person.”

If you fail she says, don’t apologize, just pick yourself back up.

“I’m really hard on myself,” said Ms. Anderson. “I use that to drive myself. [So] I would say lighten up and be kinder to yourself.”

No matter a person’s gender, there is something that everyone can excel at, concluded Ms. Anderson, whether that is working at Pixar or participating in other creative endeavors.

“I have this faith there’s a place for everybody. We’re all here for a reason. We belong on a team,” she said.

“I want everybody to be ambitious. There’s enough for everybody.”

Special thanks to Darla Anderson and the staff at Pixar for helping us create this excellent members only event!

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