Alexander Stuart

Image from Brave - Copyright Disney/Pixar. A little treat for all of you coming to my The Magic of Pixar Writing Workshop this Saturday December 17 at the Central Sierra Arts Council from 11am - 1pm. (Please see the Central Sierra Arts Council's website  for more details.) This is a still from Pixar's next animated movie, Brave, coming next summer - an original Scottish fairytale with a young girl at its heart. It looks amazing. (Image copyright Disney/Pixar)

Photograph: Alexander Chow-Stuart. In the spirit of the holidays, I am hosting a special The Magic of Pixar Writing Workshop on Saturday December 17 from 11am-1pm at the Central Sierra Arts Council, 193 South Washington Street, Sonora, CA 95370. Pixar - the remarkable computer animation studio responsible for such hugely successful classics as Toy Story, WALL-E, Finding Nemo, Up, Cars, Monsters, Inc, The Incredibles and so much more - is viewed as a special place where storytelling has come alive again in a whole new dimension. Pixar's teams of writers and directors work collaboratively and with great passion to create stories that have universal themes, unforgettable characters, warmth, humor, love and all the key elements of narrative structure.   Most challenging of all, they build stories that are compelling and which have powerful antagonists...but antagonists who are not wholly evil and who will not haunt a child's dreams - or yours - with terrify

Photograph: Alexander Chow-Stuart.

Photograph: Alexander Chow-Stuart. On Friday, December 9, 2011, we enjoyed a most wonderful tour of Pixar Studios , arranged by my good friend, independent producer and ex-head of 20th Century-Fox, Bill Mechanic. We had lunch with one of Pixar's writers, Simon Rich , whose credits include four years at Saturday Night Live and several of his own novels, including the recently optioned, Elliot Allagash. Simon was not only fascinating to talk to about writing for Pixar , but showed a genuine interest in talking to our seven year old son, Hudson, about his own forays into animation...and Hudson's love of The New Yorker for its covers and its cartoons, not to mention Hudson's absolute passion for Andrew Stanton's /Pixar's WALL-E, his favorite film of all time, and the one that has done most, in its truly wondrous, extraordinarily moving and breathtaking way, to shape his view of the world and the cosmos. We were then treated to an incredibly illuminating (to ri

Please visit imaginepeace.com to write your tributes. My sympathy and love to Yoko, Sean and Julian on this very sad day. But since all time is now, John is still here with us, with his beautiful music and beautiful soul. Peace and let us all continue to Imagine...