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Well, we try to - we definitely try to have a balance. And I think things have gotten a lot better at Pixar. When we did Toy Story, that was an all hands on deck situation that really was time intensive.
Pete Docter
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Pete Docter
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: October 9
Animator
Executive Producer
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Voice Actor
Bloomington
Minnesota
Peter Docter
Peter Hans Docter
Well
Definitely
Trying
Balance
Really
Situation
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Story
Time
Hands
Intensive
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Better
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More quotes by Pete Docter
We found some scientists think that there are basically three emotions. Others went up to 27. Others had 16. Some were in the middle. So we were kind of left with no definitive answer to our basic question - how many are there?
Pete Docter
My father was working on his Ph.D. on Danish choral music - the Danish choral music of Carl Nielsen - so over there to do research.
Pete Docter
And in part that's good but then, like any emotion - and this is something we learned from the research as well - there are positive and negative aspects to all of these.
Pete Docter
And usually I'm not watching the screen. I'm kind of sitting and looking off to the side, spying on people to see what they react to' cause it's - as Joe Ranft used to say, you know, animation is like telling a joke and waiting for three years to see if anyone laughs
Pete Docter
We've tried to regulate things so that you at least get to go home at night and not have to pull all-nighters and see them on weekends and things. So, you know, like everything in life, it's a balance.
Pete Docter
Toy Story we found, sorta by accident, because we didnt know what we were doing, the idea of being replaced by somebody. Everybody has that fear, or encounters this jealousy at some point.
Pete Docter
So this idea of moving seemed like a good way to sort of represent that metaphorically. It also is something for me personally. When I was in fifth grade - so about 11 - my folks moved us to Denmark.
Pete Docter
You have to think about good storytelling and characters first. Then hopefully, the rest of that stuff will follow, some more than others. But if you don't have a good film and strong characters, then you don't have anything down the road.
Pete Docter
And so not only did I have all new friends and all new surroundings, I didn't even understand what they were talking about, which was very difficult and kind of started me, I think, on my path to animation. It was a lot easier to draw people than to talk and interact with them.
Pete Docter
Dr. Paul Ekman, who worked in San Francisco - still does - which is where Pixar Animation Studios is, he had early in his career identified six. That felt like a nice, manageable number of guys to design and write for. It was anger, fear, sadness, disgust, joy and surprise.
Pete Docter
They're expecting us to make mistakes, and they've set up a process that allows us to correct for that and do it again and iterate. So I think that's a real key to the films that we've made.
Pete Docter
I mean, I've - these other films were flukes. I don't know what I'm doing. I should just quit. What would I miss? I'd miss my house and I'd miss going to work. But I think the thing that I realized I would miss most is probably similar to everybody, which is your friends.
Pete Docter
The drive of the story is sort of hinted at the beginning, is Joy and Sadness and those two characters. Especially Joy starting to understand that there's more to life than being happy. And so that's based on real life observations and things that we've learned as adults.
Pete Docter
Traditionally, animation has been dominated by men in the past. I don't know why it attracted guys.
Pete Docter
And as I was sort of doodling, I was thinking, surprise and fear - probably fairly similar so let's just lose surprise. And that left us with five.
Pete Docter
It's, like, you know, if you're sad, it's a way of connecting with other people. And we - a lot of times we sort of feel embarrassed by being sad, and we go off by ourselves to hide and cry by ourselves. But, really, it's a way of re-establishing relationship.
Pete Docter
But the truth is, at some point, our films - almost every single one of them - are really bad. And it's largely hats off to John Lasseter and Ed Catmull who have set up a system whereby they're expecting it.
Pete Docter
And it sort of hit me that the very subject matter of the film that I'm dealing with is the key to the most important thing in our lives, and that's our relationships. And so we had done all this research showing the job of each individual emotion, you know, fear keeps you safe. It deals with uncertainty.
Pete Docter
You know there's always that kid in your class — and every class has one — the kid who draws all the time and is really good? That was not me. I was a lousy draftsman. But as soon as I figured out that I could make things come alive, like using the corners of my math book to make flipbooks, I was hooked.
Pete Docter
Well, what we do is we have a script, of course. But for us, writing is also like storyboarding. It's drawing. And so we will cut all of those drawings together with music, sound effects and dialogue. And we screen this kind of stick-figure version of the film.
Pete Docter
