[晨初／阿澈】Creativity, Inc.翻译挑战！34

　　本书简介：

　　皮克斯动画工作室创始人、总裁，首次全面披露，皮克斯20年不断创新、一直走在行业尖端的秘诀。

　　作者简介：

　　艾德·卡特姆，皮克斯动画工作室的联合创始人，皮克斯动画总裁。2006年皮克斯加入迪士尼后，同时担任皮克斯动画和迪士尼动画的总裁。他荣获过5次奥斯卡奖，他在犹他大学取得了计算机科学博士学位，现与夫人和孩子住在旧金山。

　　埃米·华莱士，记者，《纽约时报》周末版商业版块专栏作家，并为《纽约客》《连线》《洛杉矶时报》等供稿。现任《洛杉矶时报杂志》的州总编辑。

　　我和阿澈两个人会先后翻译本书的内容，每天一点先由我进行初步翻译，词汇查找，再由我们的阿澈（抱住她的大腿）进行校对与调整，分享我们翻译的过程给大家，希望能够碰撞出不一样的火花，因为一千个人可能对一段文字就会有一千种把握，我们并不是专业学习英文的人，一切只是因为爱好，如果有不对的地方还请指正。谢谢~，那么就开始吧(｀?ω?′)。蓝字是阿澈，绿字是英英释义。

　　Moreover, we don’t want the Braintrust to solve a director’s problem because we believe that, in all likelihood, our solution won’t be as good as the one the director and his or her creative team comes up with. We believe that ideas—and thus, films—only become great when they are challenged and tested. In academia, peer review is the process by which professors are evaluated by others in their field. I like to think of the Braintrust as Pixar’s version of peer review, a forum that ensures we raise our game—not by being prescriptive but by offering candor and deep analysis.

　　此外，我们不想让智囊团去解决导演的问题因为我们相信，十有八九我们的解决办法不会比导演团队提出来的好。我们相信那个想法——因此，电影——只有在它们接受挑战和测试之后才会更好。在学术界，同行评议是经过同领域的教授评估过的过程。我想智囊团就是皮克斯版本的同行评议，就像一个论坛确保我们提升电影的质量——不是通过设立规范而是坦诚的交换意见和深入的分析电影。

　　peer review同行评议prescriptive指定的; 规定的; 规范的

　　That doesn’t mean it doesn’t get tough sometimes. Naturally, every director would prefer to be told that his film is a masterpiece. But because of the way the Braintrust is structured, the pain of being told that flaws are apparent or revisions are needed is minimized. Rarely does a director get defensive, because no one is pulling rank or telling the filmmaker what to do. The film itself—not the filmmaker—is under the microscope. This principle eludes most people, but it is critical: You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged. To set up a healthy feedback system, you must remove power dynamics from the equation—you must enable yourself, in other words, to focus on the problem, not the person.

　　这并不意味着过程就不会遇到阻碍了。人之常情的每一个导演都更喜欢知道自己的电影是一部杰作。但是，因为智囊团的构建，被告知缺陷很明显或者需要修改的痛苦被最小化了。很少有导演会反感，因为没有人是直接评价等级或者告诉电影制作人应该怎么做。电影本身——而不是电影制作人——在显微镜下观察。大多数人都不知道，但却至关重要的一个准则：你不是自己的想法，如果你将自己跟自己的想法定义太多紧密，当它们被批评的时候你就会感到被冒犯。为了建立一个健康的反馈系统，你必须将移除这个等式的力量——你必须成为你自己，换句话说，集中在问题而不是人身上。

　　Eludes避开

　　Here’s how it works: On an appointed morning, the Braintrust gathers for a screening of the film-in-progress. After the screening, we head for a conference room, have some lunch, gather our thoughts, and sit down to talk. The director and producer of the film give a summary of where they think they are. “We’ve locked down the first act, but we know the second act is still gelling,” they’ll say. Or “The ending still isn’t connecting like we want it to.” Then, the feedback usually begins with John. While everyone has an equal voice in a Braintrust meeting, John sets the tone, calling out the sequences he liked best, identifying some themes and ideas he thinks need to be improved. That’s all it takes to launch the back-and-forth. Everybody jumps in with observations about the film’s strengths and weaknesses.

　　这是智囊团会议如何运作的：在一个约定的早晨，智囊团聚集在一起观看在制作过程中的电影。在放映后，我们去到会议室，吃完午饭，汇集我们的想法然后坐下来讨论。导演和制片人会根据他们的电影做一个简要的他们的想法的阐述。“我们已经锁定了第一幕，但是我们知道第二幕还不清楚，”他们会这样说，或者是“结束的部分跟我们想要的还没有联系在一起。”然后，通常约翰会先给他的想法。在智囊团会议中每一个人发言都是平等的，约翰会定一个基调，说出他最喜欢的地方，指明一些主题和想法他认为还能够更好。这就是来回发射的整个过程。每一个人都会评论这部电影的优缺点。

　　Before we get to the forces that shape that discussion, let’s take a moment to look at things from the filmmakers’ point of view. To a one, they regard these sessions as essential. Michael Arndt, who wrote Toy Story 3, says he thinks to make a great film, its makers must pivot, at some point, from creating the story for themselves to creating it for others. To him, the Braintrust provides that pivot, and it is necessarily painful. “Part of the suffering involves giving up control,” he says. “I can think it’s the funniest joke in the world, but if nobody in that room laughs, I have to take it out. It hurts that they can see something you can’t.”

　　在我们专注于讨论的情况之前，让我们花一点时间从电影制作人的角度来看待问题。他们认为这些会议是有必要的。《玩具总动员3》的作者迈克尔·阿恩特（michael arndt）表示，他认为要拍出一部伟大的电影，电影制作人必须在某个时候的支点，从为自己创造故事到为他人创造故事。对他来说，智囊团提供那个支点，并且这是必要的疼痛。“部分的痛苦来自于放弃控制权”他说“我可以认为这是在世界上最好笑的笑话，但是如果在房间里面没有一个人笑，我必须要放弃。当别人能看到一些事情而你却不可以的时候真的很难受。”

　　sessions一场;?一节;?一段时间;?开庭，开庭期;?会议pivot支点; 枢轴; 中心点; 最重要的人; 中心; 核心; 在枢轴上旋转

　　Rich Moore, whose first animated feature for Disney was Wreck-It Ralph, likens the Braintrust to a bunch of people who are each working on their own puzzles. (Since John and I took over at Disney Animation, that studio has adopted this tradition of candor as well.) Somehow, and perhaps especially because they have less invested, a director who’s struggling with his own dilemmas can see another director’s struggles more clearly than his own. “It’s like I can put my crossword puzzle away and help you with your Rubik’s Cube a little bit,” is how he puts it.

　　里奇·摩尔，在迪斯尼制作的第一部动画片是《无敌破坏王》，他这样比喻智囊团，一群人每一个都在解着自己的谜题（自从约翰和我负责迪士尼的动画部门后，工作室就将坦诚的传统贡献了。）不知道为何，也许是因为他们的投资少了，一个挣扎在困境之中的导演更能看到另一位的挣扎之处。“就像我将自己的填字游戏放在一边来帮助你解魔方一样，”这是他的比喻。

　　likens把…比作dilemmas窘境，困境

　　liken: liken sb/sth to sb/sth, phrasal verb with liken verb, 认为…与…相像

　　take over:

　　Bob Peterson, a member of the Braintrust who has helped write (and provide voices for) eleven Pixar films, uses another analogy to describe the Braintrust. He calls it “the grand eye of Sauron”—a reference to the lidless, all-seeing character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy—because when it focuses on you, there’s no avoiding its gaze.

　　鲍勃彼得森智囊团的一员，帮皮克斯写了11部电影（贡献了自己的声音）。用另一种类比来描述智囊团。他称之为“索伦之眼”——指的是《指环王》三部曲中无盖，全视角的角色——因为当它集中在你之上时，你无处可躲它的凝视。

　　Lidless：['l?dl?s] adj.无盖的；无眼睑的；〈诗〉(眼睛)睁着的；注视的。Lid：眼睑

　　背景知识：

　　But the Braintrust is benevolent. It wants to help. And it has no selfish agenda.

　　但是智囊团是慈善的。他们只是想要帮忙，里面没有自私的成分。

　　benevolent慈善的

　　Andrew Stanton, who has been on the giving or the receiving end of almost every Braintrust meeting we’ve ever had, likes to say that if Pixar is a hospital and the movies are the patients, then the Braintrust is made up of trusted doctors. In this analogy, it’s important to remember that the movie’s director and producer are doctors, too. It’s as if they’ve gathered a panel of consulting experts to help find an accurate diagnosis for an extremely confounding case. But ultimately, it’s the filmmakers, and no one else, who will make the final decisions about the wisest course of treatment.

　　安德鲁·斯坦顿，他几乎是我们每一次智囊会议的接受者，喜欢说如果皮克斯是医院并且电影是病人，那么智囊团就是令人信任的医生。在这个比喻中，重要的是记住电影的导演和制片人也是医生。就像是我们聚集了一群咨询专家帮助一个及其复杂的病症下确认的诊断。但是最终，是电影制作人而不是其他会作出最后的决定最明智的治疗方法。

　　accurate diagnosis确诊

　　Jonas Rivera, who started as an office assistant on Toy Story and has gone on to produce two films for us, alters Andrew’s hospital analogy slightly, adding this: If the movies are patients, then they are in utero when the Braintrust first evaluates them. “The Braintrust meetings,” he says, “are where the movie is born.”

　　乔纳斯·里维拉，开始只是《玩具总动员》的办公室助理，现在已经为我们制作了两部电影，稍微更改了安德鲁的医院比喻，加上了“如果电影是病人，那么当智囊团第一次评估的时候，他们还在子宫里面尚未出生。”他说：“智囊团的会议就是电影诞生的时候。”

　　in utero在子宫内; 尚未出生时 uterus子宫

　　To get a clearer sense of how candor is delivered at Pixar, I want to take you inside a Braintrust meeting. This one followed an early screening of a Pete Docter film, then known as The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside the Mind. The premise for the film had emerged straight out of Pete’s cranium, and it was predictably ambitious, layered, and complex. Already, Pete and his team had spent months hashing out whose mind, exactly, he was going to take viewers inside of and what those viewers would ultimately find when they got there. As Braintrusts go, this was a crowded one, with about twenty people at the table and fifteen more in chairs against the walls. Everyone grabbed plates of food on the way in and, after a little small talk, got down to business.

　　为了能够更清楚的感觉在皮克斯坦诚是如何传达的，我想要带着你进入智囊团会议的内部。这次是在皮特·多克特电影的早期放映之后，这部被称为没有名字的皮克斯电影会将你带入其中。电影的前提已经直接出现在皮特的脑中，并且可以预见它是野心勃勃，层次分明，复杂。皮特和他的团队已经花费了好几个月反复推敲这个想法，他打算将观看者到达那里的时候最终发现他们已经深入到剧情之中了。随着智囊团的会议展开，这一次比较拥挤，大概二十几个人围绕着桌子和十五把靠墙的椅子。每一个人拿上几叠食物边走边说，在几场小型谈话后就开始说正事了。

　　known as被称为premise/?prem.?s/前提cranium /?kre?.ni.?m/颅骨; 头盖骨hashing反复推敲

　　To be continued~