PixarPete

Sorry to report, Pixar burned down. All future films canceled. Sorry.

Yes. Seriously, we had to make you really care about Carl's desire to fly his house to South America because -- let's face it -- that's pretty weird. If the audience didn't cry about Carl having lost Ellie, they wouldn't have rooted for him through the rest of the film!

Around here, a director usually comes up with the concept and then shepherds that idea along all the way until its done. He/she may write, draw, animate, or do voice work, but the primary job is to be able to communicate to the 400+ amazingly talented people who do the actual work. I have to clearly state what it is I'm looking for from the animation in this shot, or what the fire effects should look like in this other shot. Because animation is done in pieces, you seldom have the benefit of seeing what the movie (much less an individual shot) will look like until it's all done, so you have to have a good imagination. But more important than all of that -- I'd say the majority of my job is creating a story and characters that people care about. Of course no director does that by him/herself -- there's a core group of collaborators we work with -- but the director is in charge of all that.

True, true.

I like Buzz, because I'm delusional.