Lead Like Guillermo Del Toro: 3 Lessons From A Humble Filmmaker
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And now, we honor the director of “Pinocchio,” the Best Animated Film of 2022.
Your business will thrive if you lead like the humble filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. Here are three leadership lessons from today’s CBS Sunday Morning segment (produced by John D’Amelio) about him. Netflix will release del Toro’s latest film, Pinocchio, on Friday.
1. Be persistent
In Aesop’s fable, “The Tortoise and the Hare,” two animals use different approaches in a race. The tortoise moves slowly, as tortoises do. The hare sprints, as hares do. The hare takes lots of breaks, figuring his faster pace will still make him win. However, the tortoise’s slow but steady progress leads to victory.
As CBS News correspondent Tracy Smith notes about Guillermo del Toro, “Pinocchio has been a lifelong passion project ever since his mother started giving him Pinocchio dolls as a child.” The filmmaker wanted to tell the story using the laborious process of stop-motion animation. He also wanted his version to be closer in spirit to the original book by Carlo Collodi than to the popular Disney movie.
Del Toro prevailed by slowly but steadily inching toward his goal. It took him over 20 years, but the segments that have been publicly released are stunning. Persistence pays off.
2. Be patient
Studios balk at funding movies that involve stop-motion animation because it is a painstaking process that takes a long time to complete. Puppets must be manipulated 24 times to yield one second of film.
“It’s like milking a mummified cow,” del Toro says of the process. “You get a couple of seconds [of usable footage] a day if you’re lucky.” Del Toro thus used 60 stages and 60 cameras to make the feature presentation.
Why go to such lengths when creating digital images would be much easier and faster? For del Toro, his method gives viewers a more powerful emotional response. A handmade film is something you can feel, and that is why we go to movies in the first place.
Whatever line of work you’re in, there are no shortcuts to excellence. Patience rules!
3. Be humble
Watch any of the dozens of interviews del Toro has given over the years or listen to his commentaries on the DVD releases of his films like Pan’s Labyrinth. They reveal a man who is both deeply committed to his art and humble about his achievements.
Humility may be the most misunderstood of all of the virtues. It is not a low view of oneself, as it’s often defined in dictionaries. Instead, it is an accurate view. Humble people like Guillermo del Toro recognize that however bold their vision may be, it takes other people's hard work to help make that vision a reality.
In a world where braggarts get a lot of attention, del Toro makes it a habit to acknowledge both his team and the filmmakers who have shaped his imagination. Is humility a significant factor in his creative and financial success? Yes.
Call to action
Lead like Guillermo del Toro by doing these three things:
Be persistent
Be patient
Be humble
Doing even one of these things consistently will enhance your work and enrich the people you serve.