The importance of input, life, and teamwork

- One of the most interesting parts of Pixar's film production process, is the use of what they call the brain trust, where directors present a rough version of a potential film to their colleagues. And essentially they spend time to open up the film to be completely ripped apart to ensure that the story, characters, and overall vision makes sense. I think one of the items of the brain trust, Will, that just blows me away, is that it can be months or years worth of work, that is suddenly put into question, and redirected and reformed and reshaped. But I think there's consensus at Pixar, that the brain trust is one of the most critical and important tools to ensure their films are as magical as they are. - The kind of idea behind it is that especially if you're workin' on these things for four or five years, you're just so close, you can't see, what objectively you're putting across. So you need to show it to a group of people that you can trust, that you will listen to, that will be able to tell you what you actually have, and so this grew out of, on "Toy Story", it was obviously all of us just, whenever there was trouble we would get together and talk about it. And then as we started breaking up into, I was doing "Monsters", and then Andrew was starting on "Nemo", and so we realized, we still need to kind of get together, get that old brain back together to analyze and assess each other's work. And the thing is, it's not, it's a tricky balance, because you have to be honest, right. You can't be like "oh, it's great, you're wonderful, "I love it." You try to be supportive, but you also have to be honest because usually there are big problems, so you have to find a way to, in a constructive way, to say, "look I know here's what you're aiming for, "I think what you're aiming for is this, "but I don't get that at all. "and here's another problem." So those can be kind of brutal, because you've built up this false reality of this is great, this is awesome. And then you show it to people, and all that goes away. (laughs) - Can you share, what was the movie that you worked on that had the hardest criticism, or the most difficulty? Or you walked out with the most bruises after a meeting like that? - Well I think "Up" was probably the most difficult because it was such a, well they all were, but I guess "Monsters", I didn't know enough to know that I was in trouble. - 'Cause that was your first? - That was the first film I directed. And everybody, when you have these crucial points, where things are not working, people would come together and help you solve problems. And then "Up" was at a time at the studio when there was a lot going on, and because I had done one before, I think there was this sort of tacit idea that he kind of knows what he's doing, which I of course, don't, even now. So it was Bob and I, and a small group, kind of finding our way on this, and it was struggling. The film is sort of thrashing in terms of what it was trying to be, so we had a lot of tough notes on that one. But they've all been tough. It's had to tell which one was the most tough. - You said something earlier, how you guys are all together sort of as a tribe, your group, when you're making a movie. I would think that as you're doing this, you guys must get incredibly close. What is it like at the end? Is it a sense of relief? Or is there a sadness? Or is there a combination of emotions? What is that like? - It's a combination. It's very bittersweet, because yeah like you say, you've gotten so close to these people, you know, especially when you're working on story, you're sittin' in this room, and you get to a problem that the main character has, and you're like you know this reminds me of my own marriage, and it becomes like therapy sessions, where you're exposing all this deep dark stuff about your self and admitting things that you would never tell any other person. So you end up really getting to know these people deeply. And then there's a sense of elation that you've actually finished it, we've pulled it off, the movie's out there, and look people are actually going to see it. That's great, but now we don't get to be together anymore. Everybody splits up. I've been lucky enough on "Up" and on "Inside Out" to have several of the same collaborators. Jonas Rivera, who produced and this guy Ronnie Del Carmen who I also hold as really key to both of those films. - So when you're creating these stories, you said something that I wanted to ask about a little bit. How much real life, or when you had these meetings, you had these really authentic conversations, does that often influence and shift the story line, or kind of what you're doing, because it's more relatable? - Yeah, yeah ultimately what you're trying to do, is even though these films are about bugs or cars or whatever they are, that you're hopefully putting something up there on the screen that everybody can go yeah, I recognize that. That's happened in my life, not exactly, but enough that I resonate with it. And a lot of time your first stabs at it are like, we got a lot of notes from the first screening that we have of our story reels. The people are like I don't understand your main character, and you'll always know that we've failed to kind of connect in that deeper way for whatever reason. So yeah se do a lot of storytelling about our own lives, and kind of character analysis, and like what's driving so and so, this other guy I know, his marriage split up, or whatever, and why was it da da da. So you're really trying to get inside the characters heads by looking at real life. - So is part of that process developing your stories you kind of create the world that that person must exist in, or that character, like Carl, what did he do for a job? What was his interest, that sort of thing. - Yeah yeah, world building and kind of back story, in all this, and not all of it shows up directly in the film, but you definitely have to have, I've heard it described as a God-like knowledge of the world you're creating, that around any corner, you should be able to say, I know it's there. I know how long has Carl lived in this house. Where his parents came from. Everything about this guy, and hopefully some of that shows up as sort of a depth.