Hi, my name is Josh Cooley. I am the director of Toy Story 4.
And I am Mark Nielsen, producer on Toy Story 4.
COOLEY: Hi, Mark. NIELSEN: Hey, there, Josh.
Would you like to go see a film? I hear Toy Story 4 is in theaters.
COOLEY: I hope we can get tickets.
So the first question we always got, working on this film is,
- "Why Toy Story 4?" -NIELSEN: "Why are you doing this?"
COOLEY: "Don't ruin my childhood by making another one.
What are you doing?"
The answer to that question is because we had more story to tell with Woody.
The thing that we always thought about was,
well, Toy Story 3 is a great ending.
But, it's the ending of Woody's time with Andy,
but it's not the end of Woody's story.
And so now we have more Woody story.
NIELSEN: All these films are hard. None of them are easy to tell,
and they're always a little bumpy at the beginning.
But we build them up and tear them down
and keep reworking them until we find our way.
Telling this story, it was so important to us,
the crew and the filmmakers, that we get this right.
These films are so important to our studio.
In talking to people, we know they are important to the world.
People have personal connections to these characters
throughout their childhood. It has this 25-year history,
and so all of us on the crew cared about nothing more
than making this worthy of being a Toy Story film.
COOLEY: And this scene here is all about establishing Bo Peep as a character
and her relationship with Woody.
NIELSEN: And Bo didn't have a lot of screen time in the earlier films.
We didn't even see her at all in 3.
So we knew it was important to set up who she is,
- what she looks like, where she's been. - COOLEY: Yeah.
NIELSEN: And most importantly, the relationship she has with Woody,
and this gets to show their promise,
working together as a team.
COOLEY: Yeah, we thought of Bo as being the Woody of Molly's room.
So she's the leader of all these other toys.
That there is a whole other world in this other bedroom
that we never even showed before.
We knew we needed to get rid of Bo... Not "get rid of."
Have Bo taken in this scene to get the movie going.
And so this is just a great way to get back into the Toy Story universe
and remind the audience about the tone of it
and just the history between Woody and Bo.
NIELSEN: Yeah, the effects department worked really close
with the lighting department on the look of this rain.
They wanted to exaggerate the shape of the drops
and to really feel the scale of this rain for a toy.
COOLEY: Yeah, it's one of the big things about Toy Story, is just making sure
that it doesn't feel like a tiny people movie.
It's more of a Toy Story film,
so that the toys have obstacles and problems that they deal with
that's easy for us, but these toys,
it's life or death out there in the rain storm.
And what was it? Most of the effects budget is in this scene.
NIELSEN: Yeah. More than half the budget for the effects department
was in this very first scene
- with this massive storm going on. - (COOLEY CHUCKLES)
That license plate that was on the car that just pulled in
is actually a command
that someone typed into their computer on Toy Story 2,
which deleted the entire film.
COOLEY: There it is, right there. NIELSEN: They had to go to a backup,
which somebody had at their house
in order to restore the film and get back to work.
COOLEY: So this scene under the car was really important.
It was a huge moment in Woody's life,
and the acting here was so important to get right.
Because of our process in animation,
we don't even really look at the shots strung together.
We tend to look at them one at a time,
and, usually, not even in order,
because some animators are faster than others
or for other technical reasons.
It was so important to get all this acting right as a whole.
So we would review this entire scene just as one big run,
and that was because we just had to make sure that every single moment,
every single blink, every single inhale was for a reason
and that it was all reading across from one shot to the next.
NIELSEN: Yeah, so in this scene, we got Tom Hanks, who plays Woody,
and Annie Potts, who plays Bo Peep, together,
and we actually recorded them in a recording studio
at the same time facing each other and delivering these lines.
That's not typically the way we work. It's usually one actor at a time.
Some actors don't even meet each other over the course of the film.
But, in this case, the chemistry between Woody and Bo was so important
that we thought that having them experience those conversations
and that breakup in the room together and work through it
would be more effective.
COOLEY: Yeah, it's really hard with all these actors,
with their schedules and everything,
and our process being like molasses,
for them all to get together on the same page.
But, from day one, we knew that this was important,
that we had to get them together in the same room,
reacting off of each other. It helps the performance.
It also helps the animators see
how the actors are bouncing off one another.
I love this shot here, going from emotion to instantly inanimate object.
NIELSEN: It was really special too to bring Laurie Metcalf back
- and record her for this. - COOLEY: (CHUCKLES) Yeah.
NIELSEN: She had assumed
that she wouldn't necessarily be part of this film
and was pleasantly surprised to be a part of it
and was an absolute pleasure, recording as Andy's Mom.
COOLEY: She's going off and doing all these amazing movies,
Lady Bird and everything.
And then she says, "Well, what am I doing here?"
And I'm like, "We need you to go, 'Hey, Andy."'
- (BOTH CHUCKLE) - I felt so bad.
We wanted that nostalgic feeling
of going back to the original Toy Story films
and just to get everybody into Woody's headspace here
just so we can see not only the time passing,
but how he's going to feel once he's handed over to Bonnie,
and moving on from there.
And, the only way you can do that is with Randy Newman's song.
Once we put "You've Got a Friend in Me" up against the visuals,
it brought you right back.
Same here with this wipe.
That's the same way that we wipe
on the title of Toy Story in the first film.
NIELSEN: This was a pretty challenging scene
from a technical perspective
just because we're trying to almost treat it like it's one continuous shot.
We worked really closely with the camera department
on just trying to find just the right transitions to go from shot to shot,
again, to make it feel really fluid
as we move our way through Woody's time with Andy.
COOLEY: This shot, the detail in this movie, is insane.
Just look, all the minuscule scratches and everything, it's just... I...
I still don't understand how they do it.
This is a fun scene just trying to find
all those toy truths that happen in real life.
I remember, when my mom was cleaning my room quickly,
everything just gets tossed in the closet.
- (NIELSEN CHUCKLES) - Same thing for my daughter.
It's, like, just get everything thrown in there quickly.
But what is that like for the toys? (CHUCKLES)
NIELSEN: It's a fun reminder of the dynamic
and the fact that Andy's toys are now merged with Bonnie's toys,
and the power dynamic shift that's happened in the room,
which was Woody for so many years,
and is now... they're on Bonnie's turf now.
And Dolly is really the leader of these toys.
COOLEY: We knew right out the gate
we needed to establish that power balance right away
and just to see that he's not jealous,
because he's already done that in the first film,
but this is all new to him, so it's going to be different.
This idea just came from the truth, which is,
my daughter has a Jessie doll and she loves it.
She also has a Woody doll. She doesn't play with it as much.
So we were just thinking, "Well, that would happen."
NIELSEN: Yeah. Kids play with their toys differently,
and it just illustrates that the situation for Woody
is so much different than what he's used to.
COOLEY: This scene here, we got to work with some of the greats here.
Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Betty White, and Carol Burnett
as the preschool toys,
and the clock is an actor named Alan Oppenheimer,
who voiced most of my childhood.
Skeletor, Falkor from The Neverending Story,
Rockbiter, G'mork. He's done so many voices.
NIELSEN: It was such a privilege to work with these actors that are just...
- COOLEY: Legends. - Made such a massive impression
on us when we were younger,
and to be able to have that chance to record them
and have their voices be part of this film was really special for us.
COOLEY: In fact, we got to go to Carl Reiner's house
and record him and Mel Brooks in his living room.
We just were sitting there on his couches
just reading lines together.
NIELSEN: One real highlight for us
was working with the original cast of characters from the earlier films,
both the ones from Andy's room and from Bonnie's room,
and it's been pretty special for us
to see what this new group of animators
does with these characters that we're all familiar with.
COOLEY: It was important to show that Woody is in this new location,
this new situation, but that it's not sitting quite right.
And that, even though he's okay with it, and he loves Bonnie,
he wants to be there for her, that he can't really let go of the past.
He keeps talking about Andy and keeps bringing Andy up
and his history with Andy and his experience with Andy.
This is going to be a tough transition for him.
NIELSEN: One of the other important things about this scene
because, sometimes, what's playing out in the scene
serves multiple purposes,
is that we're setting up
that Bonnie is going to be okay, playing with Jessie.
She's got her Sheriff, and she will be okay without Woody,
and we're going to see how that plays out
at the end of the film.
COOLEY: This was important. The way we staged this
was so that only Woody is the one that can see
that Bonnie is having a tough time here.
He's the only toy that can see it.
Bonnie's parents didn't really get a good clear look, but he did.
NIELSEN: I love just how parental these toys are with their kids.
It's great that Dolly knows Bonnie so well that she's like,
"She's going to forget something. She's going to come back."
She's just ready and prepares everybody
for what she knows is eventually going to happen.
COOLEY: I think this classroom scene
was the first scene that went into production?
- Is that right? It was. - NIELSEN: Yeah. I think it was.
COOLEY: And it was much longer, too. We had a couple of shots
after they go up to the front door
that was going down the hallway,
and just an empty hallway, and her walking down
and just being really scared and intimidated.
- Ended up, we didn't need it. - NIELSEN: Yeah.
COOLEY: So we just went right to the classroom.
NIELSEN: It was a very long walk, and we're like,
"You know what? Let's get her there."
COOLEY: Maybe people don't want to watch a child just walking.
NIELSEN: Down a hallway.
The crowds team just did such a great job in here.
We really wanted to make it a diverse space
to look like a kindergarten classroom around where we live.
And so they put a lot of detail and a lot of attention
into the way that they cast the kids in this
just to make sure it felt like it represented the world.
COOLEY: This scene was all about
calling back to a lot of our childhood fears
of being left out and being in a new place
and not knowing exactly how to feel or not knowing anybody,
and also seeing it from the parents' point of view.
So I remember dropping my kids off at kindergarten
and just looking in through the window and not wanting to leave.
And so this is Woody's version of that.
That's literally why we put a window in the backpack
is so it could feel like he's looking through the window at his kid.
That apple kid. (LAUGHING)
Rewind the movie and watch that apple kid.
He actually steals the apple from a cubby,
and the girl tries to get it back, and he says no.
NIELSEN: What a troublemaker.
COOLEY: Later on, you'll see, when Bonnie leaves the classroom,
he runs out of the classroom and runs right past his dad.
His dad's like, "Where are you going?" That apple kid.
NIELSEN: We all knew an apple kid. COOLEY: Yep.
NIELSEN: Fun fact: you just saw Woody
hiding behind Bonnie's Battlesaurs lunch box.
That is a tribute to the TV special, Toy Story That Time Forgot.
And, if you want to travel deeper into the land of fun facts,
the carpet in this classroom is the same carpet that is in my office
and everybody's office here at Pixar.
COOLEY: You can see right here, as Bonnie picks up the spork,
the lighting actually changes on her face
so that she brightens up right there.
And that's all on purpose to make it feel like the creation of Forky
is a really powerful moment for her.
So, really, to keep the stakes going for this character
so that, when Woody has to leave and go after him,
it really means something.
And, also, Woody is actually responsible for the creation of Forky.
He's the one that put all that stuff up there for her.
He really becomes a parent to Forky as well.
That's not Boo in the background.
So this is the first time you're gonna see a dad in the Toy Story universe.
Right there, Bonnie's dad. Actually, he was in Toy Story 3.
NIELSEN: I think he's like raking leaves in the background in the yard.
COOLEY: You can see him from behind in one shot.
NIELSEN: That's about it though. COOLEY: Yeah.
NIELSEN: And this is a classic Toy Story backpack shot.
There is a lot of great camera work in this film.
But this, right here, is so iconically Toy Story,
staging a big reveal like this inside a tiny backpack.
COOLEY: Yeah.
You know, this is the first time we ever see a toy come to life.
We always thought this would be a really fun idea.
It just came out of the truth of how kids play with things.
Our kids play with the box that the toy came in
more than the toy sometimes, and it started off as a gag.
But you'll see, later on, it really becomes a chance
for Woody to explain what it means to be a toy,
and he really has to dig deeper into himself because of this character.
We were sitting around the story room going,
"Well, what if Bonnie played with a rock?
Would that rock come to life?"
(CHUCKLES) And the answer is, "Who knows?"
It could be because Bonnie writes her name on his feet.
That could be the thing.
I don't think we should explain it.
It's a little too Midichlorian for me.
NIELSEN: I think Forky's last line in the movie
is actually, "I don't know."
COOLEY: Exactly. And that's the answer.
- (CHUCKLES) "I don't know." - (NIELSEN CHUCKLES)
COOLEY: And what Trixie says right there
is a way for us to not answer the questions.
If her just going, "I have a question. I've got all of them."
And so we just kind of...
NIELSEN: We all do. COOLEY: ...don't worry about it.
NIELSEN: And Forky is voiced by Tony Hale,
who you may know from Veep or Arrested Development.
Tony really grabbed onto this character and made it his own.
When we first pitched the movie to him,
the anxiety that this character was gonna have,
and how he was literally asking the question, "Why am I alive?"
- Tony's like, "I've got that." - COOLEY: Yeah.
NIELSEN: "I can grab onto that. That's something
- I can do something with." (CHUCKLES) - COOLEY: "I can do that."
He was also our first choice right out the gate.
I've always loved him in everything,
and I just knew he can bring that innocence
and warmth and comedy to the character.
NIELSEN: Cannot picture Forky as anybody else.
COOLEY: No.
People often ask, "Why isn't his name Sporky?"
We were trying to name this character,
and we had a bunch of different names.
And I showed an image of the character to my son,
who was about four at the time, I think.
And I said, "What do you think the name of this guy is?" And he went,
"Um, Fork Face."
And literally, "Well, that's a great name.
We can't use that for other reasons."
NIELSEN: I don't think we're going to do that.
COOLEY: But Forky grew out of that, and it was funny.
And the fact that my son didn't know what a spork was,
- it felt very real. - NIELSEN: Yeah. Kids come up with names
for things that are beyond anything you would have expected.
So why not?
COOLEY: The one thing that became a pain after a while, though,
is the "E" sound at the end of every single name in this movie.
There is Woody, Jessie, Ducky, Bunny,
Trixie, Andy, Molly, Bonnie...
NIELSEN: Forky. COOLEY: ...Forky.
Andy's Mom.
(BOTH LAUGH)
COOLEY: No, it's just you'd start
to stumble over it as you're pitching the film,
just because everybody's name ended with an "E,"
which is why, at the very end of this film,
if you fast forward, we have the knife show up,
and her name is Karen Beverly.
NIELSEN: Yeah, we actually had a conversation about that
in the story room one day.
I think you said, "I think we should just name her something normal
like Karen."
And I was like, "That's my sister's name.
- You think that's funny?" - COOLEY: I said, "Yeah. It's hilarious."
NIELSEN: And I said, "Well, my other sister's name is Beverly."
COOLEY: And I said, "There we go. Karen Beverly."
And now I just realized that's an "E" name.
NIELSEN: It is. COOLEY: Oh, man!
NIELSEN: Karen's not, though. So you're good there.
COOLEY: Karen. I just... That name makes...
It's just a good name.
Every year, when I was in school,
my parents would take us on a road trip, not in an RV.
It was usually a Volkswagen camper.
A lot of the tone of the travel
feels very similar to the vacations we used to go on.
Mark, you go on a lot of camping.
NIELSEN: Yeah, yeah. We love trailering around.
It's a great way to explore.
We knew the idea of taking these toys
outside the tri-county area on this RV trip adventure
was going to be something bigger
that we hadn't seen before in a Toy Story film.
COOLEY: Yeah, we wanted to expand the world
and just make it feel like
we're going out into the world, where more toys exist out there.
NIELSEN: Montage scenes like this one are really complicated
because everything in the film has to be built and shaded.
And so you're visiting all these different locations,
almost a different location every few shots.
COOLEY: You're spending time and money on these locations
that you're only going to see, sometimes, one shot.
NIELSEN: The sets team really has to build out
every single thing you're seeing.
Every garbage can that Forky tries to jump in
has to be handcrafted by the sets team and dressed in place.
So these montages are a behemoth to deal with.
COOLEY: People tend to forget, these are 3D models.
These are not real objects in the world.
These are all in the computer. Our artists are so good.
They paint these textures that look like floor, that look like the wall,
and it just looks so convincing and so real in the movies,
but every single thing in the movie has to be done. Everything.
Nothing in here is real, and our team is just so great at it
that even I tend to forget at times that this is not really happening.
- (CHUCKLES) - NIELSEN: Yes.
So this is one of those scenes where,
you know, we were capturing Woody and Buzz in this sort of dark space,
having this intimate conversation.
And a lot of the time in the film
we do show Woody being in the dark before he meets Bo Peep.
And I just want to give a shout-out to JC Kalache,
who is our director of photography,
of really finding a right balance of capturing the light
and the darkness on their faces in this important scene,
that had to read even though the environment have to contribute
to them being hidden so that nobody can see them.
We're always pushing that line of how much you can get away with,
with the toys talking when humans are around.
You know, they're in pretty close proximity, especially here in this RV.
And so we always had to dial up and down the volume
to make sure that it seemed the humans would not notice
whatever the activity was going on
while this scene was playing out with the toys.
COOLEY: Yeah, that's why we purposely...
You don't see the parents in the shots at all.
We purposely shot it this way, so you don't see the backs of their heads.
Also, we record these voices.
You gotta remember all that when you're with the actors.
And that's why (WHISPERING) they have to record like this,
like they're talking the whole time.
(IN NORMAL VOICE) Sometimes, you forget.
So this is a callback to all the Toy Story films,
where people are going out the window constantly.
NIELSEN: There is a lot of going out the window in this movie.
COOLEY: In fact, we even call it out. I think Dolly complains about it.
"What's with you guys going out the window?" (CHUCKLES)
Had another joke that didn't make it.
The idea was, at the beginning of the movie,
we implied he was lonely because Bo Peep wasn't around,
and some of the toys went like, "Oh, I think Woody's lonely."
And now they're in Bonnie's room.
Mr. Potato Head would say something, like, "What's he's lonely about?
There's, like, 400 toys in here." (CHUCKLES)
Just calling back to the truth of these movies is a lot of fun,
and Forky's a way to do that. You know, he's never seen Toy Story 1, 2, or 3.
So he can break the rules.
This might be one of my favorite scenes in the movie,
if not the favorite scene.
First of all, this is our chance to do extremely long shots for animation.
Originally, I wanted to make this entire scene one shot.
I wanted it to be a long shot just so it felt like
they're on the road for a long time.
They're supposed to be out there all night long, talking,
and so just not cutting helps to have that feel
of this is just continuing and continuing.
But it is difficult to do long shots like this in animation
just because our process is so slow.
So we had one animator do this entire shot.
I want to say it took months to do.
NIELSEN: Yeah, I think it took months.
You know, it's a blessing and a curse
to get a shot like this as an animator
because you really do get to just dive really deep into the characters
and the nuance of the animation.
But it's a commitment to a whole lot of calendar time
where you're really focusing on
just this one very specific part of the film.
COOLEY: Yeah, they go crazy after a while,
the animators. (CHUCKLES)
NIELSEN: Wasn't this also one of the first scenes
where we animated Forky?
I feel like there was a lot of discovery...
COOLEY: Oh, yeah. NIELSEN: ...going into
the animation of Forky
that really honed in, in this scene.
COOLEY: Yeah, it was important
that he didn't feel like any of the other toys.
So, in fact, we had some test animation
where the animators did some beautiful animation on him right out the gate.
But it felt too clean and too good.
So, actually, we gave it a note a couple times,
"Make it worse. Stop doing such a good job.
Don't have him blink. His spork doesn't actually twist.
It only twists down at the gum down below."
We had a lot of fun just restricting ourselves
so that it had this handmade quality to it
and didn't feel like it was a fully alive character.
It's almost an object more than a character at times.
That speech that Woody gives right there when he's carrying Forky,
it's so beautiful. I remember when Andrew first wrote it
that I was reading it, and going like,
"I have young kids, but I don't have kids that are out of college.
I don't know what that's like."
But only somebody who had kids that are out of college could write this
and have this kind of emotion.
And Andrew does. And I think it's... It was just so touching.
NIELSEN: Andrew Stanton played a couple of roles on this film.
He was one of our writers from the very beginning,
coming in with the first draft,
but he also served as an executive producer on the show.
So he was just a great creative partner
for Josh, and Jonas, and I on this film all the way through.
Andrew has been part of the Toy Story films
going all the way back to the beginning.
So he was such an incredible resource for us.
COOLEY: And it was great to go back and talk to him
about the very first Toy Story
and the rules that they established there
and just making sure that we didn't move away
from any of those rules, make sure that we were still rooted
in the original Toy Story.
NIELSEN: This town of Grand Basin is inspired in part by mountain towns
that you would visit when you were, say, on your way to a national park.
We felt that it was believable that you would find a carnival,
an antique store, and an RV park in one of these small towns.
COOLEY: The light on the ground here became a symbol for Bo's presence,
and you'll see it even reflected in the carnival
at the very end of the movie.
There is just this dappled light everywhere.
Even in the playground that's coming up, when he meets her,
they are in this dappled light situation.
It was always a way to represent her.
And, early on, we had this idea of almost like the nightlight feature,
is these lights moving around, but the lamp didn't move at all,
and it didn't make any sense. (CHUCKLES)
NIELSEN: Yeah, about halfway through production,
the decision was made,
"Let's see if we can get this lamp to rotate,"
which will make more sense out of the moving lights
that are going to draw Woody's attention.
COOLEY: It actually doesn't make any sense at all
why those dappled lights are being projected onto the ground.
(CHUCKLES) There is nothing that shows that that should be happening.
But you just buy it.
I like pointing out how our movie doesn't work.
(NIELSEN LAUGHS)
NIELSEN: If you really break it down, none of this makes any sense.
(COOLEY LAUGHS)
NIELSEN: The antique store was just such a rich environment to explore.
Like, what would that be like for a toy?
And we went down a few roads on that while we were developing the story.
I think there was a time where it was a bustling city.
COOLEY: Yeah, like an old toy city.
NIELSEN: Yeah, and I know we did a lot of research trips to antique stores,
and we realized that there aren't tons of toys in antique stores.
- And, you know, it's not a toy store. - COOLEY: Right.
NIELSEN: There's a lot of hope for a toy in a toy store,
but here, less so, right? These are toys that have a history.
COOLEY: This is purgatory for a toy. NIELSEN: Right.
COOLEY: Literally sitting among old history that's just not moving.
We would go to antique stores over the years of working on this film
and see the same stuff sitting in the same places.
There was just things that were always in antique stores
when we went for research. There was always creepy dolls.
- NIELSEN: Yes. - COOLEY: There was always
- ventriloquist dummies, at least two. - NIELSEN: Without fail.
COOLEY: And so we were like, "Well, let's take advantage of that."
Also, just dust. Dust and cobwebs,
and the feeling that nothing has moved.
I think, early on, the way I was pitching this to the technical team
was like, "I want to be able to smell the store just by looking at it."
I'm so happy we found Christina Hendricks
and that she agreed to do the role of Gabby Gabby.
I remember the first thing we recorded was her pull string lines,
was those really adorable...
Exactly what a 1950s toy would sound like.
And then the next couple of lines were like the most terrifying thing
I've ever heard in my life.
NIELSEN: She just had such a sweet and inviting voice,
but, at the same time, she's able to ride that line...
COOLEY: Yeah.
NIELSEN: ...and can make that turn chilly.
COOLEY: We knew that we would need to have somebody that could go
from inviting and lovable to cold and heartless.
But, at the same time, knowing that we needed to turn her eventually,
as well, to show that she's not that different from Woody at all.
Just wants the same exact thing,
but Woody has had a privileged life, and she hasn't.
The song that's playing here is called "Midnight, The Stars And You."
Lee Unkrich cut it in as a joke,
and I love that song because it's from The Shining,
and Lee loves that movie as well.
NIELSEN: Yeah, Lee directed Toy Story 3.
He was one of the executive producers on this show,
and he's also the world's leading expert on The Shining.
COOLEY: Yeah, and if you haven't seen the film, it is not for kids.
Animators had fun, working with Gabby's eyes
so that they had that little wiggle in it,
so the kind of doll that you place down,
and her eyes close, and she goes to sleep.
Just adds another little freakiness to it.
NIELSEN: Forky is always great at just calling out the truth in the moment.
COOLEY: The voice box thing was tough.
This was such a specific thing
that we've never seen in any of the other movies.
We always hear it. We always see the pull string.
It's always part of Woody, but it's a very nerdy toy thing
to know exactly how a voice box works.
And so it was a tough thing to go,
"Are people actually going to understand this?"
NIELSEN: Yeah, for people to believe
that her voice box could be fixed by Woody's voice box,
we had to simplify that in a way where it wasn't too much of a leap
for people to try to think through how that might work.
COOLEY: You may notice there is a huge time jump here.
You go from 4:00 in the morning
- to now it's 8:00 in the morning. - (NIELSEN CHUCKLES)
COOLEY: But we think that maybe they were searching for...
NIELSEN: I don't think people would have noticed that
unless you called it out, Josh.
COOLEY: Oh, shoot. Well, movie magic.
NIELSEN: So this yellow typewriter there on the side...
COOLEY: Pause it right now.
And that is the Hanks typewriter.
It's a nod to Mr. Tom Hanks.
He has a huge typewriter collection
- and loves typing... - NIELSEN: He loves his collection.
COOLEY: ...on paper.
NIELSEN: This antique store literally has 10,000-plus
individually modeled and shaded objects in it
that were set-dressed in such a smart way
to look like a store owner had put them all in the proper place.
Huge credit to the sets and the art department
for working out how to dress this mall and pull this off.
COOLEY: There are so many Easter eggs in this film.
They gave us a 10-page document of all the things that are hidden
in this movie in the antique store.
NIELSEN: Almost every shot in the antique store
has something in the background
from a previous Pixar film.
COOLEY: This is just the goal to destroy the Pixar theory.
This book that Mom is reading right there,
you can't see the cover, but it says,
"Beyond Infinity: Debunking the Crazy Theory of a Shared Universe,"
or something like that. (LAUGHS)
NIELSEN: There are a lot of us on this crew
that love RVing and camping in general.
We had a lot of fun renting an RV at a local place
and bringing it onto the Pixar property,
and bringing the art department out there,
and just really breaking down every surface on that thing.
Took a lot of photos.
I think a couple of people even stayed in it overnight.
- COOLEY: On the campus. - On the campus at Pixar, yeah.
Because we had it for a few days.
COOLEY: I did a lot of camping at KOAs across America,
growing up with my family,
so there's a lot of nods to that, too, especially Dad having a hard time.
(CHUCKLES) My dad would always...
Wanted to go on these trips and have a lot of fun,
and it always became a real pain for him, eventually.
Something would happen that would just throw off the entire vacation, so...
NIELSEN: The sound team also took an RV out
and recorded it for a couple of days.
COOLEY: That's right. They drove it around,
revved the engine...
NIELSEN: Fired it up.
COOLEY: ...just to get as many different noises and tones,
and just the sound of driving in an RV is something you have to record.
NIELSEN: A lot of RV love and care went into this.
COOLEY: And this is just to see Buzz be awesome.
NIELSEN: It's a pretty bold move to try to cross a carnival
in the middle of the day.
But if anybody can pull that off, it's Buzz Lightyear.
COOLEY: Actually, it turns out, nobody can pull it off.
NIELSEN: That's true... COOLEY: Even Buzz gets...
- NIELSEN: That doesn't work out so well. - (COOLEY CHUCKLES)
COOLEY: Oh, man, this theme right here Randy wrote in,
it's a call back to the Toy Story 2 opening,
where Buzz is being amazing.
Randy did an amazing job of calling back to themes just enough
that it feels familiar, but we're not relying on it completely
to carry the whole scene. It's just that little bit of a flavor.
NIELSEN: We got the chance to have Buzz fly.
COOLEY: Here's Bill Hader as a carnie.
There's a Pizza Planet truck on the back of his leg.
That was an idea we had for a long time,
just getting Buzz stuck in that game somehow, just because...
It's the worst place for a toy to be. You will never be won.
Everybody knows those games are impossible.
NIELSEN: Mm-hmm. COOLEY: And, also, it's a toy truth
that we've never seen in any of these films.
NIELSEN: Those tall carnival rides really helped us
have a visual point to target Woody toward,
we needed to make it clear
that he's trying to get back to the antique store,
but not being able to see the antique store.
That was challenging.
So we had to set that Ferris wheel up
in a place where he's clearly going toward it.
And then we had to set it up earlier
so we knew where it was in geography with where the store is.
COOLEY: So great. We had Combat Carl in there.
Carl Weathers as Combat Carl.
He was just so much fun to work with.
NIELSEN: Our effects team did the sand, which looks so great.
COOLEY: This playground, we kept redesigning it
over and over and over again
because we weren't quite sure what the scene was gonna do yet,
and so we had all these different versions of it,
and, basically, it's like a huge LEGO set, right,
where they can move things around.
NIELSEN: Yes, the sets team did a lot of moving things around,
- but, man, we love where it ended up. - COOLEY: Oh, yeah.
So this was a big moment. This scene, we worked on a lot.
This idea is something you only do in a Toy Story movie,
where these characters know each other,
would love to talk to each other, but they just can't.
They are completely still.
And so we always thought of this like our toy version of Casablanca,
where it's, "Of all the sandboxes and all the playgrounds in all the world,
he comes running into mine."
Working with Annie Potts was just such a joy.
She's so funny and so warm and just has so much heart.
I feel like her performance
comes right out of her and through the screen.
It is Annie. It's her onscreen.
NIELSEN: She is incredible.
COOLEY: I love that taco sticker. Somebody in art put it on there.
- I love tacos, so... - (NIELSEN CHUCKLES)
(CHUCKLES) It makes no sense, but I love it.
NIELSEN: I don't think we ever knew the sheep had names until Toy Story 4.
COOLEY: Yeah, Woody didn't know either. NIELSEN: Yeah.
We had to give the sheep a little bit of an upgrade
from the earlier films.
It's been almost 20 years since they've been in Toy Story movies,
so we brought them up to code in this film
and give them a little more charm and a little more personality.
COOLEY: There's an Up reference right there.
Giggle McDimples! Played by the amazing Ally Maki.
She's so funny, and she is Giggle McDimples.
The second she came into the room for our first recording session,
she just lit up the room.
It was like a receipt that we made the right choice immediately.
NIELSEN: And she has a fantastic laugh, which you need for a Giggle McDimples.
COOLEY: One of the things that I miss that we didn't get in there was,
she used to have a partner named Officer Rib Tickles.
NIELSEN: Yes. COOLEY: He was a little dog.
Was her partner, but he was not in the movie
because he had been swallowed by the store cat years ago.
And Giggle didn't wanna go into the antique store
because of that trauma that happened.
And she used to have this little, like, noir film moment
where she'd say,
"Ugh. Officer Rib Tickles was the best darn cop Pet Patrol's ever had.
He was eaten right before retirement."
- NIELSEN: It was very upsetting. - (COOLEY CHUCKLES)
NIELSEN: There's poor Carl.
COOLEY: Stay tuned to the very end. He'll get his high-five. Don't worry.
NIELSEN: There is a payoff.
COOLEY: Carl Weathers,
this is the first time I got to work with him.
I don't think I've ever been more intimidated in my life.
He's the nicest guy in the world,
- but just... He's Apollo Creed. - NIELSEN: Yeah.
- And the handshake. - COOLEY: The handshake.
NIELSEN: Solid. COOLEY: My hand, it still hurts.
The skunk-mobile. (CHUCKLES)
This was always a weird idea to pitch to the talent.
"You know how lost toys build a skunk
out of a remote control car. You know how that works."
But we wanted to show how clever Bo is out here.
She's been living a whole life out here without a kid,
and just to see that she's been able to adapt,
and that's something that she needed to teach Woody.
And, also, Woody's been afraid of that since the first Toy Story film.
So it was really cool to see their two world views colliding here.
I love that sticky hand.
That's always something I wanted to get in there
for quite a while.
The one that she was just pulling on. She uses a little bit later.
I had those growing up. My kids have them now.
Everything that I used to do, try and hit my brother in the eye,
my kids are doing it now with theirs,
and such a nod to all childhoods. (CHUCKLES)
NIELSEN: She even needed to teach the sheep
- how to drive, apparently. - (COOLEY LAUGHS)
NIELSEN: Which they are not great at, we find out later,
but they give it a good shot.
You see that it says the store was established in 1986.
That is a reference back to Pixar also being established back in 1986.
COOLEY: Also, the address of the antique store is 1200,
which is the address of Pixar...
NIELSEN: Animation Studios right here in Emeryville.
So that dummy with the red bow tie is named Benson,
and he is named after our first head of story, Erik Benson.
Now, our current head of story, Valerie LaPointe,
does not have any dummies named after her.
But what she does have is a short film that she's directing
called Lamp Life,
and she's making that right now for Disney Plus.
COOLEY: This scene was really important to start to show Gabby's human side.
That she has more than just being freaky in the first time you meet her,
that she does have a want that is exactly the same as Woody's.
And so she starts to see
that there are parallels between her and Woody here through Forky.
And if you notice the design of the little girl in the book
is exactly the same design as Harmony, little girl out there.
So this book became her instruction manual
on how she should be played with,
on how she should be out there in the world.
- Harmony's mom is played by... - NIELSEN: Patricia Arquette.
COOLEY: Who had a much bigger role early, early, early on,
and we recorded with her some fantastic stuff.
And then as the story developed, it got smaller and smaller, (CHUCKLES)
and I felt so awful.
And we called her and said,
"Patricia, this role has just become a handful of lines.
We totally get it if you don't wanna do it."
But she was so great. She said, "No, I'd love to do it.
- I wanna do it." - NIELSEN: She was fantastic.
COOLEY: She was wonderful.
NIELSEN: That shot of Forky putting his hand on Gabby
may be one of my favorite shots in the film.
- (COOLEY CHUCKLES) - NIELSEN: It's so sweet.
COOLEY: All the plates up there in the top row where Gabby lives,
they all represent a Pixar film.
They're designs from Brave, from Up. You'll have to rewind and pause.
That might be Boo.
- I don't know. - NIELSEN: I don't think it is.
COOLEY: Yeah, maybe not.
And the carnie there is named Axel
after our very own Axel Geddes, our editor,
who is not a carnie.
NIELSEN: And there is Ducky, who is played by Keegan-Michael Key
and Bunny played by Jordan Peele.
COOLEY: There is nobody funnier, hanging in a carnival booth...
NIELSEN: Yeah. COOLEY: ...than Key and Peele.
NIELSEN: We recorded them together whenever we could
just because the energy they've got
and their ability to play off of each other
in their line readings,
they gave you a really different take on every line.
Every take that they gave you, they're just so funny.
COOLEY: Even this right here, Ducky talking about having tiny legs,
that was improv'd in the moment.
That was what was so amazing about their improvs,
is that they were hilarious and different every time,
but they were always on point
and always having to do with the story, not just funny for funny's sake.
I encourage you to pause the movie whenever Buzz gets kicked in the head.
You can see how far his head goes into his own body. (CHUCKLES)
Did that on purpose
just to get the feeling that he's getting hit hard,
but there's one frame where it's practically horizontal.
(NIELSEN LAUGHS)
Part of the fun of Toy Story
is always seeing and going into places that we can't go as people.
Going inside of the carousel like this
was an opportunity we had to take advantage of.
NIELSEN: Yeah, we had the chance to go out to a couple of carnivals
that were local in the Bay Area
to just really look at the detail, to take a lot of pictures,
and get the camera down on the ground and look under these rides.
You know, they're all made to pack up in trailers and drive around.
There's a lot of detail you don't notice when you're at a carnival,
but we wanted to capture that, really make it feel believable.
COOLEY: Even those little shields right there,
they're beautiful on one side,
but, on the back, they're just not painted at all
because it's not meant to be seen from that point of view.
Having Bo's arm break off was something we always had in there.
Sometimes, it would be a story point.
It's a great gag and just shows that she's cool with being broken,
and that she's lived life, and she can fix herself,
where Woody has always been, (WHIMPERS) "Don't break me."
NIELSEN: Bo's animation in this scene is so great.
I love how it just shows how cool and adventurous she is,
how much she just has mastered the art of getting around.
- Just her agility is pretty spectacular. - COOLEY: Yeah.
NIELSEN: And the way she uses her crook.
COOLEY: And she's porcelain.
We never forgot the fact that she's porcelain,
which actually is a pretty strong substance,
but we didn't want her to jump and land like Thor,
(CHUCKLES) breaking the cement or anything,
'cause she would just shatter into pieces.
So we were very careful as to show how smart she was
and how she would either absorb the roll
or just bounce on soft things or use her crook to get around.
NIELSEN: The characters team just dug deep, too,
in the research on porcelain and what it looks like and how it's made,
and they went and saw some demos and just did a lot of homework.
When you see her up close,
it's pretty spectacular, the detail that they were able to capture
in just what porcelain looks like.
COOLEY: The detail on this roof blows me away.
Just the texture of that, you can feel it.
Like, you rub your hand against it, you'd know exactly what it feels like.
NIELSEN: It's another fun place to explore that the toys need to go
to get around where they can't be seen.
COOLEY: She calls him "move-in buddy." Little nod to the first film.
NIELSEN: We love that Ducky and Bunny's moral compass
has been defined
by their observations from the back of a carnival booth.
Their whole lives, all they've done is watch rigged games
and people being cheated.
COOLEY: Yeah, probably a couple of knife fights, too.
NIELSEN: (CHUCKLES) That's everything they've ever learned.
COOLEY: Having them attached was something that was always intriguing
just because there are a lot of toys out there that do that, where they're...
"We're holding hands," or "We're hugging each other."
So I remember doing a drawing, like,
what if Ducky was always hugging Bunny, just his legs dangling?
But that was restrictive when it came to animation.
But having them attached at the hand gave them a lot more movement.
NIELSEN: Just the fact they've never been able to
get away from each other,
they're the best of friends
- and the worst of enemies. - COOLEY: (CHUCKLES) Yeah.
NIELSEN: And they go through the range of emotions.
NIELSEN: We're so proud to have the voice of Don Rickles
as Mr. Potato Head in this film.
He had signed on to be a part of Toy Story 4
before his passing,
and we have such great recordings with him
over the last 25-plus years
that we were able to go back into earlier sessions
and pull a lot of great stuff
that had never been featured in any movies or commercials
and bring his voice to the film.
COOLEY: This is probably every dad's frustration,
going on a trip like this with the family.
I remember some of mine with my dad,
and so just seeing him trying to have to deal with the problems
feels right to me. (CHUCKLES)
NIELSEN: That is a time when a lot of dads do "use some words."
COOLEY: So this was a big scene, just going back into the antique store.
We really wanted it to feel like they're going back into the lion's den here,
and so this is gonna be super-dangerous.
The lighting here is gonna be very ominous,
and they're gonna be up in the rafters, dust and dirt and webs everywhere,
and just really treating it like they're going back into the enemy's lair.
NIELSEN: The effects and the sim team
did such a great job with the dust and the cobwebs
back here in these behind-the-shelves areas.
COOLEY: We purposely put a red light right there
next to the sheep so it just looked like they're demons.
The idea behind this cabinet was
that this building was an old appliance store.
NIELSEN: Yeah. COOLEY: A store from the '50s.
NIELSEN: Like, that was our backstory for what this used to be
before it became an antique store.
COOLEY: That was an old make-up counter, or...
We try and build history into the building
so that it feels real.
There's a scuba mask from Nemo next to a cookie box from A Bug's Life.
NIELSEN: We could actually do that through this whole scene.
COOLEY: We probably could. NIELSEN: We're not gonna do that.
COOLEY: We're not? NIELSEN: No.
COOLEY: Okay. NIELSEN: Let's not do that.
COOLEY: Having Forky brush Gabby's hair backwards
not only was a funny joke,
but, also, I just didn't want to hear the sim people complain anymore.
(BOTH LAUGH)
COOLEY: No, I'm joking. It was a way to get around
not having to have the brush go through her hair,
which is, technically, extremely difficult to do.
So it's always those little things you think,
"Oh, we can make the building explode. Sure, no problem"
or "We can light up an entire carnival." And I'm like,
"Can we have them touch their hair?" "No."
NIELSEN: (LAUGHS) But it's also so true to Forky.
He doesn't understand how anything works.
So it's really what he would do.
COOLEY: That customer is holding some sort of item from Brave.
I think it's something that's in the witch's castle. I don't know.
NIELSEN: I love the athleticism in Bo's pose right there.
- She's just getting ready... - COOLEY: Yeah.
NIELSEN: ...to go after him.
COOLEY: Woody's pose is a nod to the old Mickey Mouse phones.
NIELSEN: These scenes with characters sneaking around
between the dressers and the shelves
was fun, I know, for the layout department,
but also really challenging.
Finding a way to shoot all the action that takes place in this space
that's six inches wide.
The layout artists are just so gifted
at finding these creative ways to shoot
in these impossible spaces,
and, at the same time, really maintaining the emotion.
COOLEY: Oh, what do we say about this scene?
I always love it when we have scenes
that you think are real, but they're not.
NIELSEN: And they surprise you.
COOLEY: Yeah, it's just a way to wake up the audience.
NIELSEN: It's also a great window into the minds of Ducky and Bunny
and the life lessons that they've learned along the way,
being hung up in the back of a carnival booth.
COOLEY: They're such fun characters
because they have no connection to our characters,
and they're brand-new.
The fun of this movie to me was
all these new characters that we can create and bring to life
and just mix up with the ones that we know and love already.
And this is all a build-up to this next part, which is,
these are the same shots you've seen. You know exactly what's gonna happen.
NIELSEN: Think you do. COOLEY: But then we trick you.
And it keeps going, and it keeps going. (CHUCKLES)
But what you don't know, while this is happening,
is it's actually a setup for the end of the movie.
"Winner, winner, chicken dinner" is actually the same move that they do
to get the girl to actually see Gabby Gabby.
And Margaret, the shop owner, lives at address 237,
if you look closely, which is another nod to The Shining.
NIELSEN: That's for you, Lee.
NIELSEN: I love what the animators did with these dummies.
They've got these unstructured arms and legs
just 'cause they're made to sit on a lap,
and they had a lot of fun with that.
COOLEY: A smudge of grease on the glass. (CHUCKLES)
- It's still there in all these shots. - NIELSEN: Forky's face.
COOLEY: This just shows the genius of Tony Hale.
He's just so loving and funny
and innocent at the same time,
and he brought Forky to life on so many levels.
- Spider webs. - NIELSEN: Yes.
COOLEY: There's a lot of spider webs in here,
and they look amazing.
Did they have to create something for this film to make spider webs?
NIELSEN: Yeah, they did write a tool that could spin those webs into place.
COOLEY: They have virtual spiders or something.
COOLEY: I always wanted to do this.
- I love pinball. Mark loves pinball. - NIELSEN: I love pinball.
COOLEY: These vintage machines are awesome.
We actually brought one into the building,
belonged to one of the artists,
and opened it up, and stick our head inside it,
and this is what it looks like from inside. It's a dance party.
- Star Wars toys, right there. - (NIELSEN LAUGHS)
COOLEY: I played with those things, growing up, so much.
I'm sure most of the world did
'cause it's one of the biggest toy lines of all time.
NIELSEN: Jonas Rivera, the other producer,
would want me to point out
the A's bobblehead that's in the background.
Thank you, Oakland A's.
COOLEY: Yeah, but I'm talking about Star Wars.
NIELSEN: Oh, sorry.
COOLEY: Being that we're in an antique store,
this give us a chance to do toys from all different eras,
all different types.
There's metal toys in there. There's tin toys. There's plastic toys.
There's stuff that's aged, and it just has history to it.
And Duke is no exception to that.
He's based on the '70s toys and action heroes.
We just thought it would be fun to make him Canadian.
There was no reason for it besides that.
It's like we've never seen that before.
- We looked for Canadian actors. - NIELSEN: Yeah.
COOLEY: And the voice that popped the most was Keanu.
NIELSEN: When we were talking about the character with him,
we were touring around the building here at Pixar
and talking about his character,
and there was a time where he actually jumped up on a table in the atrium
to illustrate the idea of striking poses as Duke Caboom.
COOLEY: Yeah, that was all him, and it was just too funny
that we were like, "That has to be in the movie."
NIELSEN: We didn't fully understand the connection he has to motorcycles
at the time that we had cast him,
but we learned on our first time with him
that he owns his own motorcycle company.
COOLEY: Yeah.
NIELSEN: And the casting became that much more beautiful.
COOLEY: Also, he is hilarious.
He's so funny, and he doesn't even have to try to be.
He's just naturally funny. It's not fair.
The announcer on the commercial for Duke Caboom
is none other than Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I love this about Duke, that he is tormented by his commercial. (CHUCKLES)
That's such a true toy thing where the commercial, sometimes,
would just look so much cooler than the actual toy.
And he just can't live up to that.
This was an important scene, for Woody to see Bo
just taking charge here
and able to turn Duke from just crying like a baby
to back into having the confidence
to just be who he is and just own that.
If you watch this scene, it is about Bo and Duke,
but Woody is constantly watching what's going on here.
He's taking all this in.
And in Act 3, when they need Duke to do the jump again,
the two of them worked together, doing the exact same thing
to get him to jump.
This was just an answer to...
- We didn't know how they'd do it. - (BOTH CHUCKLE)
And we knew it had to be fast and funny,
and this was fast and funny, so...
NIELSEN: That's about as fast as it could be.
Yeah, this scene really shows off just the incredible work,
and the collaboration between art and sets
in this particular set was extraordinary.
COOLEY: And the lighting department
because we needed to build to this beautiful moment up
on top of all this antique stuff.
All this is all mapped out ahead of time.
It's all designed, knowing exactly where the characters are gonna go,
but we wanted it to still feel natural and improvised
on the toys' parts.
But this is all planned out ahead of time,
and every single thing is just designed, knowing exactly what they're gonna do.
What's on the film strip, again? Is it the beginning of Up?
NIELSEN: Yeah, it's the news reel from the beginning of Up,
if you look really closely.
COOLEY: That duck makes an appearance throughout the entire movie
for no reason
besides the fact that the animators just thought it was funny.
They just kept adding it.
So you can see a couple of people picking it up and moving it around,
but it... (CHUCKLES) For no reason at all.
Every single booth is themed after some sort of era.
So this is the '50s booth.
So a lot of jukebox and diner stuff, and then right next to them
is the '70s booth on the other side.
There's a lot of lava lamps and shag carpeting.
And this part here, we wanted to make sure
that we didn't show off the lamps that are coming up.
So everything's framed so that you can't see them
up until this moment.
NIELSEN: Yeah, lighting and sets worked really closely on this scene,
getting this to play just so,
so that this was a spectacular moment for these guys.
I mean, it's just the ceiling of an antique store,
but it had to be this beautiful, magical thing.
It was just that right time of day when the light hits the chandeliers.
COOLEY: Yeah, the magic hour.
In the beginning of this movie, we were told, "No glass.
No reflections."
NIELSEN: Yeah, and then we just broke every rule in this scene.
COOLEY: We said, "How dare you tell us what to do!"
And we made a movie full of glass and reflections.
(NIELSEN LAUGHS)
NIELSEN: I think the hardest shot to render was part of that moment.
COOLEY: It was the one where they're looking
back down at Bo and Woody
as they're looking up into the chandeliers.
That just was 1,000 hours of frames, something like that.
NIELSEN: Yeah, at least.
COOLEY: So here's the greatest moment in Toy Story history right here.
- It's the return of Rejean. - (BOTH CHUCKLE)
NIELSEN: Disapproving Rejean. COOLEY: Disapproving Rejean.
NIELSEN: And Duke Caboom's animation is spectacular.
We actually animated all of Duke's scenes
with animators that were Canadian,
that were invested in that character.
COOLEY: This was the hardest sequence in the entire movie
on every single level.
- From story to writing to editorial... - NIELSEN: Editorial.
COOLEY: ...to animation to the layout, all the way up to music.
Even just trying to figure out
how exactly to get all this action across.
And it's complicated. There's a lot happening.
There's a lot of characters. They have to go
from one side of the aisle to the other.
So, even the lighting, you could see
in the cabinet here is warmer
'cause the light that's coming in and hitting it.
On the other side, it's a little cooler.
It's just so, visually, you can tell where we are in the space.
And that string, (CHUCKLES) that was a technical nightmare.
It's always those little things that you have no idea...
You think, "Oh, that'll be easy."
But, no, that's the hardest thing in the world.
- It's like, "A cat? No problem." - (NIELSEN LAUGHS)
- COOLEY: "Wait. You want a string? No." - (NIELSEN LAUGHS)
Every single antique store we went into had a cat
just sitting there on the counter.
And so it just felt like a natural threat, these animals.
We've never seen a cat in Toy Story.
NIELSEN: Yeah, a lot of love went into this cat, specifically.
We've got a lot of cat-loving folks on the crew,
both within animation and characters and art.
We picked just the right people to model and to shade
and build and design this cat.
COOLEY: The fun thing is, like,
from a human's point of view, it's just a cat.
But from a toy's point of view,
it could be a tiger. It could be a lion.
And, in fact, there's one of the shots.
Any time like this, where it comes super up close,
there is sound effects of lion roars and grumbles in there
just so it feels more intimidating from a toy point of view.
NIELSEN: Some of the best dummy animation is also in this scene.
COOLEY: The best dummy animation ever...
- (NIELSEN LAUGHS) - COOLEY: ...in the history of animation.
These shots here. Go through these frame by frame.
There is multiple Easter eggs in every single shot here.
NIELSEN: Love this sweet move by Bo with the drawer.
Big shout-out to the effects team for Giggle McDimples,
and the surrounding materials.
COOLEY: Those were the worst meetings on this movie.
They'd say, "Come on in. We want you to look at some effects of cat spit-up."
- I'd be like, "What? No, I don't..." - NIELSEN: Yeah.
COOLEY: "Just make it. I don't wanna look at it."
NIELSEN: How clear should it be? How viscous?
COOLEY: Yeah, they kept saying "viscous." So gross.
This was an interesting scene.
Everything needed to read like the back alley here
'cause if it was too dark, it would read like the store again,
like they hadn't really left the store.
And there's definitely pools of light to show that it's night time.
There are some shots where you see the sky.
We spent a lot of time on the animation in this scene
to make sure the performances of the characters
was just right.
This scene is all about Woody just sticking to his guns,
and sticking to what he's thought is important,
basically, for four movies now,
is that you're there for your kid, no matter what.
It's almost like he does his job too well,
and he's willing to put everybody at risk because of that.
And that's what Bo's calling him out on here.
She's saying, "Look around. Look at us.
We're broken. We've been beat up, and we're not gonna last,
but you want us to go back in there and do it anyway."
Having Bo really force him to admit
that he has nothing else left to do in Bonnie's room
is a huge moment for his character,
not just in this movie, but actually all the movies.
NIELSEN: You get some insight into Bo's point of view too,
talking about how there are other kids out there, right?
This has been her experience
since she left Andy's room and Molly's room.
You really get to see their point of views face to face.
COOLEY: This is a scene where we spent the same amount of detail
that we did underneath the car with Bo and Woody.
And we made sure that we looked at these shots back to back
as all one chunk as opposed to just each individual shot,
just so the acting on their faces was so perfect for what was being said
and what was not being said as well.
There's a lot of subtext in that scene.
NIELSEN: Those garbage bags in the background are another example
of something that shouldn't be hard but is.
COOLEY: Yeah, the characters couldn't interact with them.
(NIELSEN LAUGHS)
There's a couple of shots where the sheep are touching them,
but not really or something. I...
They tried to explain it to me. I'm like,
- "I don't understand." - (NIELSEN LAUGHS)
So Buzz here, this is continuing the joke of his inner voice,
which does pay off at the very end,
but this was a way to get him to go back to the RV
so that Woody could be alone with Gabby.
It didn't make sense to have Buzz just chase after Woody,
and it would have just caused more story problems.
This location in the back of the store
where all the stuff is being stored used to be
where Gabby's original lair was.
We actually built it as if it could be her place,
and so we reused it here.
This is a really important scene story-wise and a tough one
because we needed to go from terrifying villain
who wants to rip him open to,
all of a sudden, we understand her and empathize with her,
and we want her to get what she wants.
And we want Woody to get what he wants.
We did the same thing like in the opening,
where we looked at all of it together
constantly with the animators to make sure
that every blink, every single footstep,
was putting the right information across,
and then, at the end of that,
the music to sell it perfectly as well.
So we started off with this big bang of her showing up.
Music here is going into her theme
when she was talking to Forky about wanting be with Harmony.
That way, we know that this is true what she's saying,
and we didn't want the audience in any way
to think she was trying to trick him.
NIELSEN: The lighting also,
it's like every department had to deal with that transition
from the dark and scary
to the empathetic, including the lighting.
COOLEY: Exactly. She walks into the warm light where he is.
The dummies stay back in the cool light back there, or cool darkness.
There's nothing false about any of this.
It's all real emotion from both of them.
And, even here, when she is looking away from him,
is the first time we're doing that
because she's admitting what she wants.
Even animation-wise, we treated her a little bit more realistic.
It wasn't as doll-like as when we first meet her,
just so that we can empathize more and feel more with her.
NIELSEN: I love Christina in that scene.
COOLEY: Oh, she's great. She's right there with Tom Hanks.
The two of them, it balances perfectly.
It was a tough balance to show Woody's story
and the story of all these other toys
and Bo's story and all these new toys.
There's just a lot of characters in this movie,
and so it was really difficult to try and balance out the story
because we knew it had to be Woody's story,
and everybody needed to support his story.
But we also want to see all the other characters
we know and love from all the other films.
It's a tough one.
NIELSEN: Often, as a parent, my kids will have battery-powered toys,
and those batteries will fritz out, and the toy will go off.
It'll be making sounds.
And I'll have to take that toy
and relocate it somewhere where it won't bother me.
COOLEY: When Andrew first pitched this idea of Buzz using his voice box
as his inner voice, it was so crazy and yet made sense.
And I think it's because it's a toy feature.
And Buzz is not always the brightest crayon in the box.
This idea of him just yelling out inside the thing,
and Bonnie yelling it from that
was just so funny in the pitch. It worked. (CHUCKLES)
NIELSEN: I know we see Woody talk directly to Sid in the first movie,
but I don't know if it's been since then
that we've had the toys...
COOLEY: I think that's it. NIELSEN: ...so directly say something
that influences the humans.
COOLEY: He does talk to Sid directly, and then, also,
in the same movie earlier,
he imitates Sid's mom's voice
to get Hannah to go downstairs. (CHUCKLES)
So it's been done before.
We had a joke at the end of this movie at one point
where Woody got left behind,
and the RV was gone and Bo was gone,
and he was accepting that he was going to be a lost toy forever.
And it felt like, "Wow, that's a hard ending."
And then, all of a sudden, the RV showed up.
NIELSEN: Yes. COOLEY: And Bonnie jumps out
and grabs him,
and they go inside,
and Bonnie's dad said, "How did you know he'd be here?"
- And she went, "Forky told me." - (NIELSEN LAUGHS)
(CHUCKLES) And so, off-screen, Forky talked to Bonnie.
And then at the end of that version,
Woody was like, "Listen, I'm glad you did it,
but don't talk to Bonnie." And he'd go, "Why?"
(BOTH LAUGH)
NIELSEN: That bottom side of the carousel
was such a great environment
to actually be treacherous.
(CHUCKLES) If you look under a carousel,
that's what's actually going on there.
You've got the poles from the horses going up and down,
and it was a perfect tricky thing for toys to be able to get across.
COOLEY: Yeah, don't ever do that.
This scene, I love. The animation and the lighting and the music
and all of it is just so beautiful.
Christina's performance is just so heartwarming here.
I just feel the complete opposite for Gabby
that I did at the beginning of the movie,
and that's the idea is that we see
all she wants is the same thing that Woody wants,
the same thing that all the toys want.
NIELSEN: I actually grow to love this relationship
that Gabby and Forky have, and I love seeing them together,
and it makes me sad, seeing them splitting up after their time together.
Forky just has such love for Gabby right here,
and it's probably Stockholm syndrome,
but it seems like a really beautiful relationship. (CHUCKLES)
COOLEY: The reason for the part where
Woody and Gabby have their little standoff in the darkness
and for this moment where Gabby was happy is,
we're all building up to this right here, which is,
she's finally getting her chance.
And it's not going to work out for her at all.
And Woody can't, in good conscience, walk away from that.
NIELSEN: And this is a moment that Gabby's been waiting for
literally since the 1950s.
COOLEY: This was an interesting balance in animation.
We wanted to show that she was looking at her
and make it feel like there was a connection between the two,
but allow that to happen where she just drops her.
We couldn't let the needle go one way or the other
so that you can read both ways happening.
And we allow Forky to be the innocent
that just voices what we're all thinking, which is,
"What? Wasn't she supposed to be her kid? What about her?"
And so these are all the things that Woody's thinking,
but we're able to vocalize it with Forky.
NIELSEN: It was such a tightrope to walk
to have people be as scared of Gabby as they were in the beginning
but have them really have a heartfelt response
to her being dropped by Harmony.
COOLEY: Yeah, it's a tough turn. I think we got it close.
I learned from Andrew a lot of things on this movie,
but one thing is, a joke can help tell the story as well.
That's where it's essential.
So just writing, "We need to go to the carousel. That's the thing.
That's the goal for Act 3."
And so to underline it
with Forky going like,
"I don't know what that is," and then, all of sudden, knowing what it is,
it makes it more memorable, so that for the Act 3,
we all remember what the goal is.
This scene breaks my heart. I just love it so much.
I wanted Gabby to be turned away from the camera when you first see her,
just like in The Rescuers
when the little girl is sitting on the bed, and she isn't adopted,
and the cat comes and sits next to her. Similar staging.
NIELSEN: Some of my favorite scenes in this movie
are where we really slow it down,
and we have these quiet moments between characters,
and you've got these subtle performances
and just some of the great acting by our animation team.
And you just really soak it in and really feel these moments.
There is a lot of action in this film as well,
but, again, it's some of these quiet moments, really,
that stand out to me.
COOLEY: This was an idea we always had,
that the carnival would be right outside the antique store.
Gabby has been stuck in here.
Right outside that window are all the kids in the world.
You can hear them laughing and playing and trying to win toys,
and it's not going to be possible inside this store.
We played around with a lot of different relationships
between Bo and Gabby, being that they were in the same antique store.
We had thoughts like maybe they were friends.
Maybe they were enemies this whole time.
Maybe Gabby didn't want Bo to leave, and that's how she got broken.
We had all these different types of backstories,
but, at the end of the day, we realized it doesn't really matter.
All we need to know is that she doesn't want to go back in there,
and then we get to this point where she does want to help her.
NIELSEN: You might think that's a baby buggy,
but what I've learned on this show, if I've learned anything, is that
that is indeed a pram.
COOLEY: Here, we pay off our skunk-mobile
just to get the toys out there.
I think, from day one, once we created Duke,
we always had the idea of doing a big jump.
At one point, we had him jump off the store and into the target,
and then I remember Stephany Folsom
pitched the idea of having him jump off the Ferris wheel, and I was like,
"Oh, that's the answer. You can't get any bigger than that."
NIELSEN: Stephany Folsom was one of the writers on this film.
COOLEY: We've seen the toys always drive cars around in previous films,
but this felt like a fun way to do it in a different way.
NIELSEN: This Ferris wheel really showcases
the work of the sets department in such a spectacular way.
Thomas Jordan and Steve Karski led this team,
and just the detail in this Ferris wheel blows my mind.
COOLEY: You can see all the different welding pieces.
It's just insane, the amount of detail.
The other thing that's crazy is the light pattern.
They showed me about, I feel like, 50 different light patterns
of the ways that this Ferris wheel could light up and move and everything.
So we specifically wanted those lights
along the side to feel like runway lights for Duke,
and they're going the opposite direction of Duke just to make him feel faster.
Every single thing is thought out here.
NIELSEN: The fireworks was a late-breaking idea,
to have fireworks behind him.
COOLEY: Yeah, it makes no sense at all. We never see fireworks
for the rest of the movie. (CHUCKLES) It's just behind Duke.
This shot right here where he hits was actually a joke
that was done by our editor, Axel.
We were having trouble seeing Duke hit that in real time,
and he said, "Here. I'll make it work,"
and he slowed it down about three times the speed,
and it just made us laugh. And we could see it now.
- It actually works. - NIELSEN: Yeah.
COOLEY: So we had the music cut out.
We added the sparks and the light breaking,
and I think even the idea
of having him hit was a joke
that was done by the animator during one of the reviews.
He just did it as a side joke, and I said,
"That's too funny. We got to put that in there."
NIELSEN: It's Duke's biggest moment.
COOLEY: I love Bonnie being asleep for all of this.
This is so real. My kids are always like this.
This was another one in animation that I just knew
that the expressions were going to have to carry a lot of this.
There's not a ton of dialogue.
In fact, we stripped a ton of dialogue out of this
because, as we were watching it, we realized we didn't need it.
The acting could just carry it.
Randy did an amazing thing here, which is,
the music here is the same music
from the classroom scene where Woody is helping Bonnie in the classroom.
And so this is Gabby helping this little girl.
When I heard it on the stage, it was just... It was genius.
I just realized he connected those two scenes in a way that
(CHUCKLING) I hadn't even really thought of myself.
NIELSEN: Poor sweet little girl.
Being a lost kid in an environment like this,
there is a truth to that, right?
COOLEY: Sure. Yeah. NIELSEN: Carnivals are so chaotic.
It's really easy for that to happen.
COOLEY: So this whole time, whether it's the Duke jump
or getting Gabby with this kid,
it's always about Woody and Bo working together,
being on equal standing,
just working together to get Gabby to a kid,
and that's so that, when we get to the goodbye scene,
we wanted to make it feel wrong that they're splitting up
so that you want them to stay together.
"Winner, winner, chicken dinner."
That move of rolling the softball
is an actual thing that carnival workers do
to get people to play their games.
If it's a game where you're throwing the ball to knock down bottles,
they'll roll the softball out in the middle of the midway,
and then yell at you to come,
(LAUGHS) or ask you politely,
to pick up the softball and bring it back to them.
And when you do that, you're already standing in front of the game,
holding the ball. And then they offer you a free throw.
And they sucker you in that way.
So we're always using things from real life in the carnival
for Ducky and Bunny to have experienced.
The guy on the left hand side of that frame was doing sign language.
I think he's saying something about Pixar.
I don't remember exactly what it was.
NIELSEN: You really see it register on their faces
what they were able to accomplish
and the hope in that.
COOLEY: I love the hook on Bunny's head.
(NIELSEN LAUGHS)
COOLEY: Jeff Pidgeon drew that as a gag sketch,
and I was like, "Yes. That has to happen."
NIELSEN: For those of you who don't know him,
Jeff Pidgeon is one of the original story artists at Pixar,
and he's one of the few members of the Toy Story 4 crew
that has worked on all four of the films.
He is an avid toy collector,
and when you bring some helium into the recording studio,
he is also the voice of the Aliens and always has been.
COOLEY: This was important just to show
that the toys have no control over their lives,
but we needed to give them some time to have this goodbye,
and Forky was the key to that.
He's keeping them all busy while it gives the toys
the chance to have this emotional ending.
So, starting here, this was where we were like,
"We need to look at all of this together as one piece,"
the same as we did with the prologue,
same as with Woody and Gabby having their confrontation.
It all needed to work together smoothly,
and we couldn't just final one shot at a time. It had to be one piece.
These shots here, there were some emotional moments
in animation as we were working on these,
sitting in rooms for hours looking these shots over and over again,
and just talking about where the blinks are,
how hard they squeeze, just really breaking it down.
We came out of one of these meetings, and we just all looked at each other,
and we were just exhausted emotionally and mentally.
It's a lot of work just to stay in this mindset for hours at a time.
NIELSEN: So much subtlety in the acting
in these scenes that the animators did. It's incredible.
COOLEY: And subtlety even, like, the footsteps
on the top of the awning here.
We worked it to see how much give there would be
in the footsteps, so it didn't pull away from the emotion of the scene,
but still feel like an awning. All these crazy details.
And this is really important. I think that Woody and Buzz's relationship,
this is the only way he would stay with Bo,
is having Buzz give permission for him to stay.
He's so loyal to his kid. We've seen that over so many films.
He's only going to do it when he knows that Bonnie is going to be okay,
and his friends are going to be okay, and that it is the right thing for him.
He finally gets to do something for himself.
And Randy's score here is beautiful.
NIELSEN: Working with Randy Newman all these years,
being part of it from the beginning,
he really just brought so much to this score,
and I think that piece that he did at the end
for that goodbye is one of the most emotional in the film.
COOLEY: The lighting back there is really important.
We wanted to make it feel
like the light from her lamp at the beginning on the ground,
where it's the same style, being out of focus
and just implied lighting back there
just to raise a romantic feel between the two of them.
Carnivals at night are stunning. They can be stunning.
During the daytime, they're horrible places.
(NIELSEN CHUCKLES)
NIELSEN: Working on this scene was really emotional for all the crew,
really, every part that they played, as we'd watch this played back,
watching these characters say goodbye to each other,
these characters that have been in our lives for decades.
And we've been working with these. They're almost like family.
They're in the fabric of Pixar, going back to the beginning.
COOLEY: Absolutely.
NIELSEN: So it really hit us hard
that this was going to be the big final moment for them.
COOLEY: I think this is the only way you can go
another step past Toy Story 3.
Toy Story 3 was the end of Woody's time with Andy.
Woody's always said, "I gotta be there for your kid."
And this is how he goes past that.
Now, he'll be there for all kids.
He and Bo and a new gang are going out there,
and they're doing something bigger than just being there for one.
We didn't have that ending right out the gate.
That was something that evolved over time.
NIELSEN: Yeah. COOLEY: And it was interesting.
When we didn't have it, it didn't feel
like the movie was... It just felt like another adventure.
It didn't feel like there was any emotional depth to it.
The end of this movie had to end on these two lines.
Watching those two deliver those lines...
Tom had to turn away from us as he did it.
And Tim, I could tell, was seconds away from cracking.
Those guys have been playing these characters for over 25 years
and to have them perform this last scene and watch them do it was a real treat.
It was a huge honor to be working on this film.
I love Toy Story.
I saw the first two before I ever started working here at Pixar.
And so to be asked to direct this movie was such a huge honor and terrifying
because I didn't want to mess it up.
And Mark, you've been here since the second one.
NIELSEN: Yeah, I worked on Toy Story 2
as a coordinator for modeling and shading,
and so, yeah, these characters have been part of my life for such a long time.
I jumped at the chance to be a part of this film and to work on it.
It was a great challenge but, also, just the greatest of honors
to be working on a film with Buzz and Woody, these characters
who have been infused in every character in every film we've made since.
They go back to the very start.
They have such a special place in our heart.
It's just been a real honor to be a part of this film.
COOLEY: How long were you on this movie?
NIELSEN: Um, pushing five years.
COOLEY: Did we start around the same time?
NIELSEN: Uh, I think you started a little bit before me.
COOLEY: Is there anything you want to say?
NIELSEN: You know what? Josh, it was an absolute pleasure working with you.
No. I've had such a great time.
I've had the pleasure to work with Josh ever since Cars 1.
So we go back more than 15 years,
also working together on movies like Up and Inside Out.
COOLEY: You called me and offered me the job on Cars.
NIELSEN: And I'm glad you said yes.
COOLEY: Thank you for calling. NIELSEN: Sure thing.
COOLEY: Also, you owe me $20.
NIELSEN: Okay, I'll get that to you in just a minute.
NIELSEN: The epilogue we felt was important to include
because we, as an audience, wanted to know
what Woody and Bo's life would look like
as they're out there helping toys get with kids.
And so we wanted to show the promise in that.
We also had a lot of fun checking back in with Bonnie's room
and seeing what Forky and the gang had been up to.
So we had the chance to do both of those things with this epilogue.
COOLEY: And here's the real reason we made the movie right here,
for this shot.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
COOLEY: We just wanted to see this.
(BOTH LAUGH)
COOLEY: I love that the effects department came to me and said,
"Hey, could we make it bigger? Can we add more stuff blowing up?"
NIELSEN: "What do you think of Ducky breathing fire?"
COOLEY: Yeah, and I said, "I don't know. Will that be entertaining?
Maybe we'll try something." (LAUGHS)
NIELSEN: They went all the way.
COOLEY: I love it so much. NIELSEN: It's great.
COOLEY: I don't like that guy.
(LAUGHS)
He owes me money.
NIELSEN: We wanted to make sure we checked back in also with the toys
back in Bonnie's room to see what their life was like.
COOLEY: This was just a fun callback to show that life is continuing,
but also just to show that Forky has had an arc
in this whole movie as well.
He explains what it means to be a toy and how important it is,
but he's also completely lovestruck here. I love this shot.
This is so much fun, just seeing them try to walk to each other. (CHUCKLES)
We were also very specific as to where Forky's eyes were focused.
So right here, they're focused,
but most of the movie, they just wobble around in there.
Whenever he had a thought, or whenever he was in love like this,
it was like he can't keep his eyes off her,
and so having it just drop here at the end reminds you of what he is.
NIELSEN: I think Forky and Karen Beverly have a bright future together.
COOLEY: How so? Explain that.
(BOTH LAUGH)
NIELSEN: I can't.
Make sure to hang around and watch the credits.
There is a lot of really talented people
that worked on this film that deserve your time.
COOLEY: Ridiculously talented.
And we had people that were working on this film
that worked on the first Toy Story.
NIELSEN: We had a combination of experienced folks
that had worked on every Toy Story movie,
and then we also had people that would show us pictures of themselves
at age three, dressed up like Buzz Lightyear
that were working on the film.
The old and the new coming together.
COOLEY: But the excitement was exactly the same from both.
NIELSEN: It was. COOLEY: It was like,
"I can't believe I get to work on number four. I worked on the first one."
And also, "I can't believe I get to work on number four
because I wasn't born when the first one came out."
NIELSEN: Which made a lot of us feel sad.
(COOLEY LAUGHS)
COOLEY: Because of the way time works. NIELSEN: Yes.
COOLEY: This song, "Lonesome Cowboy,"
actually was originally written for the opening of our film.
We were going to put it over Andy playing with Woody
and then the transition to Bonnie.
But we did that, and it just did not work exactly right.
And then, we put "You've Got a Friend in Me" over it,
and it fit perfectly. And we were thinking, "What were we thinking?"
Because, of course, you want to callback to that original time
you use "You've Got a Friend in Me."
So it actually works perfectly here
because he was a lonesome cowboy but not anymore.
That's what the words say.
NIELSEN: The song was written by Randy Newman
and performed by Chris Stapleton. Amazing.
COOLEY: While we were working on this movie,
the amount of people in the studio that kept asking,
"Is Combat Carl going to get a high-five?
You have to let him get a high-five."
And I would say, "No, you don't because that's how life works.
Not everybody gets a high-five. Stop putting your good wishes on me."
NIELSEN: But, eventually, they wore you down.
COOLEY: (CHUCKLES) They wore me down because...
It first started with the idea of just changing the logo at the end,
doing something with Duke, and I think the first idea was,
"Well, can we have him go over the castle like Tinker Bell does,
like he's jumping the castle?"
NIELSEN: Became technically complicated.
COOLEY: Yeah, we couldn't do it for some reason.
We were like, "Well, we can mess up our own logo. Let's do that."
The idea was to have him come in and do exactly what the lamp does,
but doing it with his awesome poses, and Keanu going... (EXCLAIMS)
And then we said, "Well, what if, at the very end,
we had him come in and get his high-five?"
Because we had to end the thing with the lamp turning off,
is how we always end it at the end of these movies.
NIELSEN: Yes.
COOLEY: And so how can we signal the cut to black?
And the high-five was the way to do that.
And so we actually kept it a secret from the whole studio,
actually, that we were doing this.
NIELSEN: They haven't seen it yet.
We look forward to them reacting to that.
I think they'll see that at the wrap party.
COOLEY: That's right. We're recording this
- even before the movie has come out. - NIELSEN: Yes.
NIELSEN: We recorded the score there at the Fox Newman Scoring stage,
which is named after Newman, who are family of Randy Newman.
He has a great and rich history of music in his family, going all the way back.
COOLEY: That Newman is Alfred Newman.
He actually did the score for a lot of Charlie Chaplin movies.
And Randy told us these crazy stories about how...
On the stage we were on, Randy said,
"Yeah. I used to run around this stage when I was eight years old
and watch my family record movie scores."
NIELSEN: It was incredible.
COOLEY: Fascinating, hearing him reminisce about it.
Randy Newman is one of the funniest people I've ever met.
NIELSEN: He's hilarious. COOLEY: He is hilarious.
He would always say things as he was working with the orchestra.
He'd say, "Uh, second violins, can you play a B there?
Let's see how that sounds." And they'd play it.
He goes, "All right. There. I saved the picture."
(NIELSEN CHUCKLES)
COOLEY: Or he'd say, "You guys, don't play as loud.
Yeah, you don't need to... Don't try as hard. It's Toy Story 4."
NIELSEN: Weren't you keeping a running list of the great things he would say,
just 'cause you wanted to keep track of them all?
- COOLEY: I do. I have them written down. - It was gold.
COOLEY: I have pages of them.
NIELSEN: We wanted to make sure that we paid special tribute to Don Rickles.
He has just meant so much to the Toy Story films from the beginning.
We couldn't not do that.
COOLEY: And the film is dedicated to Adam Burke, our friend,
and one of the most talented animators
and just one of the greatest guys ever in the world,
just always with a smile.
You'd bump into him and... Been here for over 15 years. He's one of a kind.
We are almost to the end of the commentary here.
So make sure that you take your Blu-ray out,
and turn it over, and listen to side B.
NIELSEN: I don't think that's how this works.
COOLEY: I'm pretty sure I know how this works, Mark.
So, when you hear the chime, turn the page.
(NIELSEN CHUCKLES)
COOLEY: Remember those things? NIELSEN: Yes, I do.
- I miss those things. - COOLEY: Me too.
(EXCLAIMING)
NIELSEN: Come on, Combat Carl.
COOLEY: Where are you? Where is he? NIELSEN: Come on. Where is he?
COOLEY: There it is. NIELSEN: This is your chance.
COOLEY: And thank you!