Inside Out With Director Peter Docter & Producer Jonas Rivera

Inside Out is one of my family’s favorite movies. That is why I was so excited to be able to interview Director Peter Docter & Producer Jonas Rivera and pick their brains on this movie. It is always awesome to hear about how a movie gets made. Plus, it always impresses me how much time, research, and effort go into these films!

The first question we asked them was if there was going to be a sequel. I know I want one. I also know they left it open too. Jonas told us:

What wakes us up in the morning and kind of gets us fired up is something completely new.  It was that conversation that led to Inside Out.  We’re having that same conversation now.  We love Inside Out, and it could be a fun world.  It definitely has some open endedness to the end, but we lean towards coming up with something totally new.

We asked both men if they had a character that they most resonated with.  I know everyone has a character that absolutely loved after seeing Inside Out.  Peter told us that it depended on the day, but most of the time it was Joy, and once in a while, anger.

Jonas told us:

I would say joy.  We’re generally pretty positive people, and Pixar’s such a great place.  Every now and then I pinch myself.  We have the greatest jobs in the world.  I never dreamed I’d be doing this and talking about movies that we get to make.  Joyis someone that is always positive but she’s always looking backwards a little bit.  She’s very much into her memories and I guess she’s a nostalgist.  I’m a little bit that way, too.  She’s my favorite.

Of course, we asked if they had an idea of how they wanted to depict the inside of the brain from the start. Peter told us:

The first concept that I had in the very first pitch was like a control room.  Headquarters was the first thing, and then we extrapolate it out from there.  We made a big list of places they could go and some of that ended up in the movie into long-term memory.  We also had things like the stream of consciousness, brainwashing, and things like that.  Some of those didn’t go anywhere.  

We had initially the whole layout was such that headquarters was on top and they had to descend into kind of a spiral like layers of a cake or something down to the subconscious to get a memory.  That didn’t really work.  We tried things hanging from like a biosphere domes till finally we realized what’s really at stake in this film is Riley’s personality.  That’s the thing that we as parents value.  We don’t want our kids to change, because we love who they are, and we needed some way to physicalize that.  Then the islands kind of came in.  

Jonas also told us:

We’re big fans of Disneyland.  There’s a 1959 framed map of Disneyland that I have in our war room.  I couldn’t help but think it’s kind of like that.  There’s different regions, and there’s a train.

With Inside Out, parents and children are able to talk more freely about their emotions.  We asked if that was their goal or a surprise to them.  Peter told us:

Somebody was talking to me yesterday.  I was in Minnesota, and they said they laid out all the emotions.  Theie kid will come in and pick up ones he’s feeling as a way of expressing which is pretty powerful.

Jonas also added:

It’s pretty cool reward.  I have three kids that are nine, seven and a four-year-old.  My daughter Ava has the Inside Out socks where they have little graphic representations of the character and she combines them.  I’m always like you have to match, and she’s like no, I have fear and joy today.  She made a decision as she was getting dressed.  It’s funny, but it’s like wow, she’s thinking about that.  I never dreamed stuff like that would happen.  Its a cherry on top of the whole thing that it has done that.

Their next project is A Good Dinosaur.  After that, they have Finding Dorie.  I know I can’t wait!  I learned so much in this interview and how the story and images evolve.  What did you learn in our interview that you found the most interesting?  Any surprises?