Pixar’s, Review Sketch tool, 2004

The Review Sketch tool was developed by Pixar studio whilst working on their 2004 feature film ‘The Incredibles’. The tool was born out of the director Brad Bird’s frustration with giving written feedback to animators. He felt that it made more sense to give feedback in a sketch form by drawing on top of projected images. The result from this was Pixar developing the Review Sketch tool which allows a director to use a digital stylus to draw directly on top of an image. The resulting sketches are then made accessible online to anyone who needs to reference them. The tool would prove so successful that it has been used on all subsequent Pixar films.

The ability of the Review Sketch tool to quickly review and propose changes to a digital process through an analogue input appears to be its creative strength and the reason for its inclusion with this review of creativity tools.