Inside Out will be in theaters on June 26! On a recent trip to Pixar I chatted with Peter Doctor (director) and Jonas Rivera (producer) who shared fun facts about the film. Also, I’ve watched about 26 minutes of footage and so far the film looks heartwarming and hilarious. I predict some crying on my end.
“Inside Out is real life observations, things that we’ve learned as adults.” – Peter Doctor
“We were really proud of UP. That was sort of an observation and love letter to our grandparents, you know, and this idea of growing old, and the fact that there’s nothing you can do about that and all that with Carl. Inside Out is the echo of that about our kids and growing up, which is, just a lot of fun, and it means something to us. So it’s very personal, and we’re very proud of it.” – Jonas Rivera
Inside Out was inspired by Peter Doctor’s daughter.
Peter Doctor’s daughter was the voice of young Ellie in the movie UP. She was around nine then and she was a lot like that character. She would walk up to strangers and talk to people. She was spunky and bubbly. At 11 and 12 things changed a little bit. His daughter got quiet. Teachers told him that “Ellie’s a quiet girl.” And he would respond, “Who are you talking about?” The origins of this film was trying to figure out what’s going on inside his daughter’s head.
Emotions are the main characters in Inside Out.
The writers pondered, “We like movies that are emotional, what if we made one about emotions?” That thought sparked this idea of using emotions as their main characters, Anger, Fear, Sadness, Disgust and Joy. What that lead them, too, was great research and talking to psychologists and neurologists, and they really delved deep into how and why people think and feel. A lot of that research shows up in the film. Peter states, “and then of course we made some stuff up too, ’cause it’s supposed to be fun to watch.”
The music was scored by a familiar name.
Michael Giacchino’s is the composer on this film. He’s not a newcomer to Pixar. Giacchino has worked on numerous shorts and 5 feature Pixar films including Ratatouille and UP!
Kids get it.
Inside Out was showed internally just to make sure that all of this would make sense to kids, and they got it better than the adults. One of the head character’s supervisors shared a story about his daughter who had been taking swim lessons:
She was afraid to dive off the diving board, and after seeing this movie, she did it. And they’re like, “Wow. That was great honey.” And she said, “Yeah, I felt like fear had been driving So I just pushed him aside.”
Anger was a favorite emotion to work on while Joy was difficult one to design.
“Anger was the most fun in terms of a cartoon? And I had a vision of what he looked like. He was one of the first that we designed.” Peter goes on to talk about Joy. “The most difficult was Joy actually because we wanted her to have depth and she’s our lead. And I don’t know if you have people, friends that are just happy all the time, you kinda wanna strangle ’em, you know? You just don’t believe ’em. So, we wanted to make sure that Joy had a depth and a complexity to things.” Once Amy Poehler, was cast she took things to another level. She was able to find humor in her overachieving perfection. He continues, “which is similar what she does with her character on Parks and Recreation, where she;s so good, and so prepared, has a whole stack of papers, instead of just the one that would’ve been necessary.”
How long did it take to make this film happen?
About five years. It takes about four or five years from the beginning of an idea to when it comes out. Two years of that is in production. Eight months was devoted to animating the project.
Inside Out will be in theaters on June 26! It is Rated PG and fun for the entire family.
* I attended an all-expense paid trip hosted by Touchstone Pictures and Lucasfilms. Opinions are my own.
1 comment
My little sister loves the trailer