Hello, this is Dan Scanlon, director of Onward.
And Kori Rae, producer.
SCANLON: This is Kori and I's second project together as a filmmaking team.
And we wanted to make something personal this time around,
and really try to do something that comes from a really honest place,
just because we feel like a lot of times that's what really gets you
to connect with a movie, is...
It's something human, it's something that's happened
maybe not specifically that way to you, but it's a general human question.
RAE: Yeah. And a thing that connects universally
with the audiences around the world.
The more personal it is,
the more you realize that people can really connect to it.
SCANLON: And that's really what became the beginnings of Onward.
We also really wanted to make a film that got the whole crew behind it,
where the crew was really partnering and collaborating.
I think that was a big part.
RAE: Yeah, that was an intention from the very, very beginning.
We were thinking about the philosophy for the show.
It was really wonderful to have a team that worked together so closely
and were so invested in the film.
SCANLON: And they bring a lot of themselves to the film
and their personal experiences,
which I think then translates to you, the audience,
and makes something that really connects.
We also wanted to make a film that was very, very funny, so...
- (BOTH CHUCKLE) - RAE: That's right.
SCANLON: You know, talking about this prologue,
this was an opportunity to set up this fantasy world
and see what it used to be like in the old days,
just to remind everyone the fantasy world
that they know or maybe they don't know.
- Maybe they haven't seen fantasy before. - RAE: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
SCANLON: It also establishes, I think,
- that this is gonna be a comedy. - RAE: (CHUCKLES) Yeah.
SCANLON: That this isn't like some of the more
serious fantasy films we've seen.
But there was talk about whether or not to even have this prologue.
RAE: Yeah, we went back and forth on it a little bit, I think, to see,
but then decided that we really needed the audience
to kind of see what the world was like before the modern day.
SCANLON: And also, kind of to the point we just watched,
to see why people would give up on magic.
I mean, magic is so cool, why would you ever give up on it?
So, we really needed to show that it was dangerous,
or not just dangerous, that it was a lot of work...
- RAE: Right. - SCANLON: That it took effort,
and that there was an easier way to go.
And we've always said this is not an anti-technology movie.
Uh...
Technology is great and brought wonderful things into this world.
It's really just about comfort and ease and just finding your balance.
Not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
- Still challenging yourself. - RAE: Exactly.
SCANLON: And so, now we get into the modern day
(CHUCKLES) where things have gotten a little convenient,
and there's been a price for that.
And this really gets to the personal story once we meet Ian Lightfoot.
This was loosely based on my own personal story growing up,
and kind of my relationship with my older brother
and questions we had about our father, who had passed away
when I was just a year old and my brother was three.
And we don't really remember him, and there was a lot of question
about who he was and how we were like him.
And I think that that became the germ that became this film.
(CHUCKLES) So, now we get into the Lightfoot house,
and we wanted Ian's life to be really chaotic.
We wanted to show that he loved his family,
but that he was the odd man out a little bit.
(CHUCKLES) Everyone was very big and broad,
and Ian was a little more shy and reserved.
RAE: Yeah, always looking for his place and his quiet place to be
in this chaotic household.
SCANLON: And that's why we added the dog or the dragon, Blazey.
We were like, "Oh, well, then they should have a dragon
"that's jumping all over 'em at all times.
"How can we get as much chaos as possible?"
And with his mom, Laurel Lightfoot, we thought,
well, she would be probably more like Barley, in that,
she is a little more comfortable and confident, and boisterous.
And we even, in the designs of her,
made she and Barley look a little more alike
- than Ian... - RAE: Right.
SCANLON: So that Ian would be the odd man out.
- He looks a little bit more like Dad. - RAE: Dad, yeah.
SCANLON: And then, of course, (CHUCKLES) Barley,
we just wanted to be the exact opposite of Ian in every way.
Just a big, wild, confident, a little too confident of a guy
who challenges Ian
and again, but Ian loves Barley,
but doesn't want to be like him was what we'd always said.
RAE: No, yeah. He's constantly embarrassed by him.
SCANLON: I love that Laurel wrestles with Barley,
this idea that he's always trying to challenge Ian,
and that Mom has no problems dealing with Barley.
(RAE LAUGHING)
This is something I saw my nephews doing with their mom,
where they would kind of wrestle her, and it was so sweet,
because they're teenagers like these boys.
And I think that sometimes, that's the only way
you can hug your mom when you're a teenager
- and not... You know, is to wrestle. - (RAE LAUGHING)
There was this weird love behind it, that they were too old to hug anymore.
- RAE: You give her a nuggie. - SCANLON: Yeah.
(BOTH LAUGH)
SCANLON: Colt Bronco is... Just this idea came up of, "In this world
"we could have a centaur who's a policeman."
So he'd be a mounted all-in-one mounted police officer.
And just it worked nicely with this idea of, he is a stranger
in the house to the boys. They're just not used to him.
So, he sort of physically feels out of place, that's...
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: Or to them.
That's why he's knocking all this stuff over.
RAE: Totally. He doesn't fit in in any way really just yet.
He's working on it, but it's a little awkward.
SCANLON: It was so fun to create this Quests of Yore game.
We have a lot of people at Pixar who are big fantasy fans,
big role-playing, fantasy fans. And there were people,
you know, bringing in their actual pewter figures as reference.
And I think that we all really geeked out over the details of the game.
RAE: Yeah, and we're actually creating a real-life game of Quests of Yore.
We're super psyched about it.
They were playing a test-run the other day here at the studio,
and I observed. I did not partake
because I don't really understand role-playing games.
But it was a blast to watch.
SCANLON: There's a great little detail here, this second breakfast,
which, I guess, is a fantasy reference.
I'll be honest, Kori and are not well-versed in fantasy.
RAE: We learned a lot though, on this film.
SCANLON: We learned a lot.
And luckily, we were surrounded
- by a lot of people who were. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And we set the story in this fantasy world
because we wanted a world
where you could have someone you loved for a day, and that meant magic.
- RAE: Magic, yeah. - SCANLON: And neither of us
really wanted to make it a period piece, which a lot of fantasy is.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And that came to,
"Well, what if it was this sort of personal,
"very everyday story in a fantasy world?"
And that's where the combination of the two came together.
RAE: Right.
SCANLON: And I think a lot of humor came out of that,
but over the years, it was helpful to have
more of our Pixar fantasy authorities help us find what's great about fantasy,
what is serious about it. You know, not just making fun of it,
- but having fun with it. - RAE: Yeah. Exactly.
SCANLON: And we started a group...
RAE: ...called the Fellowship. (CHUCKLES)
SCANLON: And they would go and find little areas where we could have jokes,
like, for example, it was going to be in that scene we just watched,
was someone was gonna order a "huzzah-melet."
Which I thought was great, but there was no room for it.
(RAE LAUGHING)
RAE: There's a lot of shots in the film with lists and writing in them
that are really important to the story.
And we're going to be translating our film into 41 different languages,
and all of those shots are gonna have to be translated.
We're super thrilled
that it's gonna be in that many languages,
but it's a lot of work.
SCANLON: So now we're into Ian’s life at school,
which is really the umbrella for all his insecurities, his life at school.
This is the place where a shy, awkward kid like Ian struggles.
This theme that plays is Ian’s theme, written by Mychael and Jeff Danna.
We really love their work, you know,
- especially on The Good Dinosaur. - RAE: So much.
- Yeah. - SCANLON: And what was great about them
is they can write very emotional stuff as well as big adventure.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And that's really the movie,
is emotional and big adventure.
RAE: With a lot of unique instruments,
they brought in a lot of various kind of different instruments
that referenced fantasy. And it really pokes through.
- It's really nice. - SCANLON: Yeah.
Originally, this opening scene was set at the DMV
because Ian’s afraid of driving. And we were gonna have the big dragon
at the end be the DMV monster. And we boarded versions of that.
- It felt too specific to driving. - RAE: Yeah. Yeah.
SCANLON: What was... And then we discovered the school, again,
was the umbrella for more of his anxieties.
RAE: Yeah, it encompassed all of the things he was struggling with
as he was trying to figure out who he was and how he could
kind of grow into the person and the man that he wanted to be.
SCANLON: We did a lot of work in creating the characters in this world
and wanting to have a variety of species and all the fun of fantasy.
Elves, trolls and all that type of thing,
but we also wanted it to be a very modern world.
And so, we talked a lot about, "Well, the modern world
"is made up of all kinds of people from different ethnicities and races,
"and why don't we combine those within the species as well?"
RAE: We had the opportunity, 'cause we were creating
this world from the ground up.
And in a modern fantasy world, you know, what could that entail?
And yeah, if we look at our own world or look
at any large city or suburban area,
it's incredibly diverse.
And so, we wanted to kind of mimic that and match that.
SCANLON: So to have elves of color and, you know,
just different varieties of people,
so that everyone could really relate to every different type of species.
RAE: Exactly.
SCANLON: I love that the animator had Barley take his hands
- completely off the wheel. - (RAE LAUGHS)
RAE: There are a few moments in the film where Barley's really not driving.
- SCANLON: No. - (BOTH LAUGH)
SCANLON: And, you know, I'm not above a butt-crack joke.
(RAE LAUGHING)
You know, I think it's a percentage issue.
You put one or two in amongst all your highbrow comedy moments.
- But, you know... - RAE: Yeah.
- SCANLON: And it's character-based. - RAE: It is. (LAUGHING)
SCANLON: Barley is that kind of guy. He's embarrassing.
We had shown this scene where Ian gets ink all over his face
to some audiences early on, and it got a fun reaction.
But our head of story, Kelsey Mann said,
"We gotta go further. He has to get more ink on his face."
Originally, it just said the word "cake" and then he walked away.
And Kelsey said, "No, no. More, more and more ink."
(RAE LAUGHING)
This is such a sweet parent thing
to lick your finger and wipe your kid's face.
Wherever we could, we tried to give Barley parental stuff to do
as little hints of the role
that he had unconsciously taken on.
Just that idea that he's being parental.
RAE: Yeah, just small things throughout,
but everyone had a story
of how their mom or their parent
kind of tried to get something off their face.
(RAE LAUGHING)
SCANLON: This scene was written by Jason Headley, a writer on the film.
And it was loosely inspired by a story again in my life.
With my father, we had found a tape of him,
because growing up, all the videos I had,
well, they were films of my dad, there was no sound.
So I had never heard his voice before.
And then when my brother and I were about the age of Ian and Barley,
an aunt and uncle sent us an audiotape
that they said they think his voice might be on.
So my family and I played it, and we're listening to the tape,
and little by little, my dad is always out of the room.
They're always referring to him and saying,
"Oh, he just went to the store to get stamps." And the tape
is nearly running out, and finally they corner him and they say,
"You know, say something into the machine, Bill."
And he says, "Hi!" And then they say, "Well, say something else,
"so they know you can talk." And he says, "Bye."
And that was it. That was all we got. "Hello" and "goodbye,"
but again, to my brother and I, it was like super magical,
and it was really wonderful,
and it was also a big inspiration for the film and...
RAE: Yeah, it really was.
Yeah, when you brought the tape in, and we played it for the crew,
and it brought everybody to tears. And it was just hearing those two words
and knowing the impact that it had on the two of you,
even though it was just those two words and hear you talking about how...
Even in those two words, you could kind of hear
how you were like him or who he was.
SCANLON: Yeah, he was very boisterous on the "hello,"
which told me he's a nervous person who's not used to talking to people,
and then very shy on the "goodbye." I realized, "Oh, he's like me."
- RAE: Right, yeah. (CHUCKLES) - SCANLON: Awkward and shy.
But really that's what the movie is. It's one brother asking for a "hello"
and another brother asking for a "goodbye."
And I never really quite put it together that way,
- but that is what they're going for. - RAE: Exactly.
SCANLON: This scene was really important to us,
just to show how close Laurel and Ian are.
This is, again, not a film about needing two parents.
- RAE: Yeah, exactly. - SCANLON: I grew up with one parent,
and it was wonderful. Ian’s not missing something parental from his father,
he's just missing who his father was as a person.
And Mom is there for Ian, she's there for Barley.
She understands each one of them in individual ways,
and I just love the history that they have.
- Even with the little sewing moment. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: They have things that they share in common.
And it's a beautiful piece of animation done by Gwendelyn Enderoglu.
She just does this phenomenal...
She does some of the stuff earlier on in the scene.
It's just some very phenomenal small emotional expressions.
RAE: Yeah, so subtle. Micro-expressions almost.
SCANLON: So, early on, we wanted to make sure
that the boys had some big gift from their father.
Something that would magically allow them to get Dad or half of Dad.
And so the staff was a way to introduce magic back into the world
and allow them to bring Dad back.
I don't know that many people notice, but obviously, this is the letter
that was being read at the beginning of the film,
and it's Dad's voice in the beginning of the film.
I'm not sure how many people will clock that.
RAE: Yeah, I think audiences will get it,
especially on the second, third, fourth time they watch the film.
Some of these drawings were really hard to land
because of their simplicity, not because they were actually complicated.
But our artists are so amazing here that having them do anything
that's not perfect is almost more of a challenge
than some of the really more challenging stuff.
SCANLON: The splinter stuff is really just a gag
to set up the splinter in the end.
And it's always good if you're trying to set something up
to try to make it at least remotely a joke as opposed to just exposition.
People are more likely to remember it if they kind of snickered at it.
There's a sweetness and sadness to the fact that Barley can't do the magic.
A lot of people said, "Well, why isn't Barley jealous about that?
"Like, he loves magic, wouldn't he be jealous of his brother?"
RAE: We had a lot of discussion around that
'cause we couldn't decide if that was believable.
The general audience might think, "Of course he'd be bummed out.
"This guy's, you know, he's done role-playing games
"and played Quests of Yore his whole life, he's so into it.
"And it would be obvious that he's the one who could do magic."
SCANLON: Normally, of course, a big brother would be jealous.
(SCANLON CHUCKLES)
But in the case of my brother,
he actually strangely wouldn't be jealous.
And I think it's because he sees me more like a son who he is proud of.
We thought that was a unique take,
and it was very much in Barley's character.
It is a really beautiful performance by Julia Louis-Dreyfus
- who plays Laurel Lightfoot here. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And Julia we chose 'cause she's so funny
and could bring humor to the character.
And also, we knew she could handle Barley.
- You know... - RAE: Yeah, yeah.
SCANLON: But what was such a surprise, I mean, we know she's a great actress,
but seeing this sweet, vulnerable
side of her was a real delight, you know?
RAE: It was. It was.
SCANLON: She really knows how to deal with Ian, too,
which is a little softer touch.
RAE: Right.
This section of the scene
was one of the first things we put into production
because we kind of knew it had to be in the final film.
So, it was considered safe in our eyes,
(LAUGHS) it wasn't probably going to change.
And it was when we were still figuring out kind of who Ian was,
and so, there was a lot of great exploration.
And it was really the early exploration of magic,
and specifically, this challenging spell,
the first one that we really see in the film
and wanting to make it great.
But it's where we did a lot of early work
and spent a significant amount of time.
SCANLON: This was one of the first scenes we did
that really featured how magic was going to look
and how we would all work together, again, the collaboration as a team...
- RAE: Right. - ...to sell the excitement
and drama of magic.
Where the idea of half-pants came in, we originally were doing this idea
that Ian had to go collect items owned by Dad from other people
and use them to create a new part of him.
RAE: That's right.
SCANLON: So, you know, if you went and talked to someone and they said,
"Oh, I have your dad's old glasses," or something.
And you used them
to somehow make his feet appear or his legs appear, or his waist.
And, so, Dad was kind of appearing as the journey went on.
And at some point, I think it just got too episodic,
or it was a lot of people talking about Dad.
RAE: Exactly, exactly.
And not really enough between the brothers, I think.
We lost a little bit of Barley in that version.
SCANLON: And I think we all thought,
"Well, the pants version is the funniest anyway."
- (RAE LAUGHING) - And then that led to the idea
of what if they just did one thing wrong,
and the pants were a little bit of the punishment for Ian’s mistake,
which is both not believing in himself and being afraid,
- but also not believing in Barley. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: When Barley comes to help him, he pulls away.
So, it's really Ian who feels the shame here
of being stuck with this awkward pants-man.
- (BOTH LAUGH) - Which I love too, 'cause I think, like,
part of family and really knowing someone,
there's awkward moments.
I mean, family is messy. Relationships are messy.
And so to be... People have said like,
"It's kind of weird that he's just pants."
- But I think that's the fun of it. - RAE: Absolutely.
SCANLON: That's just really, really awkward.
RAE: Yep.
And I think this section of the scene is
kind of the culmination of a lot of discussion and talking
with animation and camera even about, how do we make a pair of pants emote?
How do we kind of make this an emotional scene?
And we knew we were gonna have to have this,
and we were gonna have to have this relationship
with the boys and this half of an elf.
SCANLON: 'Cause it's great for comedy to laugh at it, but you're right.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: It's not all comedy.
RAE: No. We had to have the emotional, especially this scene.
And they did such an amazing job to really make you feel
Ian’s sense of loss and kind of also wonder
at like, "This is really my dad," and then the disappointment.
BOTH: Yeah.
SCANLON: And where we could, we tried to find opportunities
to do things in this quest movie that couldn't be done
in any other quest movie because it was modern.
- RAE: Yeah. Yeah. - SCANLON: So the idea
of using a game as their map and using Barley's knowledge
was, again, super fun, and we've always said like,
this game, presumably all these quests, they really happen.
So, Barley is more like a Civil War re-enactor or something
- where these were real adventures... - RAE: Exactly.
- ...that they created this game about. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: We used to have a scene right after this
where the boys snuck out of the house,
and it really featured them like, dressing Dad and writing a note for Mom
and walking out of the house. And it was kind of funny
because you saw them leaving the neighborhood
and all the neighbors looking at Dad and the goofy costume.
RAE: Yeah. And just a snapshot
of what the quest was gonna be like,
having to walk around with this crazy character.
SCANLON: There was a gag I liked where the neighbors are all looking,
and they bring Dad into the van,
and then they slam the door on Dad's arm,
and then open it and go, "He's fine." But really it just felt like
after Barley says, "We're going on a quest,"
we all kind of wanted to just go on a quest.
RAE: Exactly. (CHUCKLES)
SCANLON: So, a lot of that material from that scene
was then put into later scenes.
For example, they now built Dad here in the van
- while they're on the go. - RAE: Right. Yep.
SCANLON: And it was a really good lesson.
And luckily, we caught it not too late.
We had put it into production and started animating it.
It was the first scene we started animating.
Chances are the first scene you start animating
is probably the one you shouldn't animate
'cause you're like, "We can start on this,
"it doesn't affect the story in any way."
And we're like, "Well, maybe we should ask ourselves why."
RAE: The interior of Guinevere was so much fun to design and create
because it's so janky.
So it was really fun to see how far we could push the visuals
of how Barley put together this van with duct tape and screwdrivers.
SCANLON: Sharon Calahan, who is our lighting director of photography,
did such a beautiful job of just making this world,
this modern world still feel like a fantasy at all times,
and really looking for bright fantasy colors where she could.
And there's a great example of it
as they're driving away and we see the city.
We only see the city in this one shot.
We hadn't really given it a lot of thought.
But I was so blown away
by how she used these super colorful lights
to suggest this wild fantasy city.
- I think, well, I want to go into that. - RAE: Yeah. Totally, totally.
SCANLON: Blazey's pretty hard to animate, right?
RAE: Yep, very.
Anything with that kind of S-shape, S-curve,
- (CHUCKLES) it's always complicated. - SCANLON: Yeah.
RAE: Like Heimlich. That was our first, the caterpillar.
- SCANLON: Oh, yeah, anything kind of... - RAE: It was incredibly hard.
SCANLON: It's worth it for those characters
'cause they're so beautiful, but yeah.
It's tricky.
RAE: So then generally just like a handful of animators
- kind of get proficient... - SCANLON: Yeah.
...in animating those challenging characters.
So those shots really have to go to kind of a select few.
SCANLON: And some of those early Blazey shots,
they were doing like two-dimensional drawing on top of the computer.
Just to loosen up and really get the feel of her
before going in, and the nuts and bolts of trying to do that in the computer.
It was really cool to see. And it gives her a very fluid quality.
- We spend a lot of time in the van. - (BOTH LAUGH)
- RAE: We do. - SCANLON: We do. But again,
the van was another thing where
only in a modern adventure could you go in a van.
I mean, every other quest they're on foot or they're in a horse.
- And we have a van that is a horse. - RAE: Yup. Exactly.
SCANLON: And so we just loved the idea
that they could have that kind of adventure.
And as a result we really wanted to make this van home for Barley
and as beautiful as possible, since we'll be shooting in there a lot.
Different lighting setups for it.
And times where it seems more uncomfortable,
when Ian isn't as comfortable with Guinevere,
and then times where it feels more comfortable.
RAE: And the lighting as you drive up to this tavern is just so amazing.
Again, Sharon just killing it with these darks and the atmospheric fog,
really making it feel scary and creepy which is exactly what we were going for.
SCANLON: This Manticore's Tavern section was a really difficult one.
We worked on it for years. It was one of the earliest ideas,
this joke of, well, there's always a tavern in one of these movies,
but what if one of them had changed over the years
and gotten really kind of all the edges rounded off
and had become this kind of family restaurant.
But the story of it
and the journey that the Manticore sends the boys off on is very difficult.
- Involved a lot of writing. - (BOTH LAUGH)
- And... - RAE: Multiple, multiple times.
SCANLON: But as is often the case with making these movies,
when we're reworking a scene over and over again,
the story and particularly the editorial staff really, really work hard.
'Cause they're editing version after version of this and our lead editor,
Catherine Apple, worked so hard to help us craft this scene,
and she was always the first to tell me when the scene wasn't working.
We'd watch it and she'd go, "It doesn't work."
- And I'd go, "I know." - RAE: "It still doesn't work."
SCANLON: And she was also the first to go,
you know, if I said, "Well, what if we tried this with that?"
Like just barely an idea to solve it. And she'd go, "Yeah, yeah."
And then get the whole editorial team to recut a version in a few hours.
RAE: Yup.
SCANLON: And that positivity
and that drive to always be looking for the right answer,
- I think just rained down to everyone. - RAE: Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, we might have done 20 versions of this...
SCANLON: Probably.
RAE: ...this scene over the course of the film, always trying to get
the information we needed have happen, but also make it entertaining.
SCANLON: And editorial and story weren't the only people
that worked hard on this scene.
From a sets point of view, it's very complicated,
there's so much stuff to make it look like one of those family restaurants
with a bunch of tchotchkes
- and junk on the wall. - RAE: Exactly.
SCANLON: And to get it just right and to not have it be overpowering.
Also there's a lot of crowds in this scene,
and there's a whole department at Pixar
that focuses on the background animation of all those characters.
Every one of those characters has to be designed and animated.
RAE: Yep.
SCANLON: And they can't be too distracting,
- but they should be fun and lively. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And then, of course,
Octavia Spencer worked hard for this scene.
She is such an amazing actor with so much energy.
The whole scene she's yelling.
She's playing sort of two versions of one character.
She has to be stressed out, and kind of beaten down.
And then she has to transform into who she was, which is this powerful warrior,
and do it with this
- like meltdown of frustration. - (BOTH LAUGHING)
And so she and I would be working in the room,
- and we'd be sweating by the end of it. - RAE: Drenched in sweat.
SCANLON: And just feel like we had a workout.
But her performance gave the animators
just something to really hold on to and to have fun with.
RAE: Yeah, I remember when you were directing her,
and she'd just go crazy and give it her all.
Then you'd go, "Okay, that was amazing. Now just a little bigger."
- SCANLON: And she'd go bigger. - RAE: She did it, yeah.
SCANLON: One of the writers, Keith Bunin, and I realized early on,
"We need some adventure, we need some danger now.
"Something has to happen big."
And so, the idea of the fire came out of that.
"We need something exciting to happen."
So we needed a real justification
as to why the Manticore would go wild and burn the place down.
I love this ridiculously stupid mascot. And just the idea of it.
It's the perfect representation
of how the Manticore let her own fear
over time and just comfort
turn her into the ultimate sellout,
and I love that she just takes out all her aggression on this thing.
I think that idea was even in some of the earliest pitches of the movie,
that she would blowtorch this goofy walk-around character.
But I was so happy when I saw
the art department and the character department's designs for this thing.
RAE: Ah! But yes, it was one of the best art reviews ever.
They nailed it pretty quickly.
SCANLON: "Just make it look stupid," was really the direction, and they did.
RAE: (LAUGHING) Exactly, they did.
SCANLON: We went to great lengths to make sure
that the Manticore wasn't deliberately destroying the tavern.
She's really attacking the new stuff, the posters, the signs, the drywall.
RAE: (CHUCKLES) Exactly.
- SCANLON: The beautiful stone behind it. - RAE: Yeah.
Well, let's talk about the cast,
specifically, uh, Tom Holland
and Chris Pratt.
SCANLON: We love the cast that we have,
and we worked forever on just trying to figure out
who these brothers were and what their personalities are.
And we always write the character first and design the character first...
RAE: Right.
SCANLON: Then look for someone who embodies that, and we wanted someone
for Ian who was...
Who could play sort of shy and awkward and sweet.
Also what was so great about Tom Holland and why he was perfect for that role is,
he can be kind of shy and awkward
and do this fumfering goofy thing that's really funny.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And he's also very sincere.
RAE: So sincere. And really such great acting chops
that during the emotional scenes and the serious moments,
he just absolutely shines.
- SCANLON: Plus he sounds like he's 16. - RAE: He does.
- SCANLON: Which is amazing. - Which was a tough thing. (LAUGHS)
SCANLON: Yeah.
And then Chris, Barley is wild and chaotic
and out of control,
but he's also pretty loving and well-meaning underneath it all.
And Chris Pratt is obviously very funny
and can improvise, and has just boundless energy.
- But he also has this big heart. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: We knew that Barley had to get away with some wild annoying things,
but Chris can get away with murder
because he's so well-intentioned and so funny.
RAE: Exactly.
SCANLON: We didn't deliberately choose the two of them
because they'd worked together,
but we realized after the fact, yeah, they were friends.
They knew each other,
and there's a sort of brotherly quality between the two of them.
RAE: It definitely comes through in these scenes and in their acting.
And we were able to record them together once,
which was really great.
Kind of got to see a glimpse of that friendship in that session.
- It was really, really fun. - SCANLON: Yeah.
So as Laurel heads off looking for the boys, um...
We always wanted Laurel to be involved in the story,
uh, but it was really the story team and the editorial team
who pushed us even further
to give her an even bigger purpose on the journey.
- And also to include the Manticore. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: The Manticore was supposed to be done by this point, after she
- tells Mom where the boys went. - RAE: Yup. Yup.
SCANLON: And we loved the character,
we loved the idea of a side adventure for both of them.
But the team really encouraged it and sold me on it in a way that is...
I'm so happy they did now
because we didn't want
Laurel and the Manticore going on a side journey
that didn't matter to the rest of the story.
RAE: Exactly, yeah.
SCANLON: And then this is where the idea of this Curse Crusher sword came from,
that there actually is one part
that the boys need and won't succeed with without.
And what I love about it is it then leads to Laurel and the boys,
the whole family, saving the day in the end
and working together so that they can meet Dad.
RAE: Yeah, and as soon as they started writing the Mom and Manticore scenes
just knowing what we would get from Julia and Octavia
kind of becoming friends and going on this journey together, and the humor
and the amazing acting that would come out of that was a huge bonus.
- SCANLON: Yes. - (BOTH CHUCKLE)
SCANLON: There's some great Barley animation here
by Allison Rutland, one of our animation leads.
She did a lot of animation of Sulley
in Monsters University that we worked on.
And what I love is Allison is so wise
and calm, and sweet and smart.
But she animates sloppy dudes better than anybody.
- Like just messy, sloppy guys. - (RAE LAUGHS)
SCANLON: We were trying to find ways throughout the film
with our production designer, Noah Klocek,
of how to keep this feeling like a fantasy film
even though we're in this modern world.
So we started to think about, are there subtle connections to fantasy tropes?
And we were saying like, a lot of times in a fantasy movie you get stuck.
That's a part of the story, and you usually get stuck in a swamp.
We thought, "The boys are stuck here,
"can we just make this feel like a swamp?"
Even though I don't know that that's something anyone will ever notice.
Just the idea of the way that, again, Sharon Calahan lit the scene
very green and kind of yellowy. It's muddy, it's wet.
- Just to give you that sense of fantasy. - RAE: Exactly.
SCANLON: When we would bring people onto the film,
crew members, especially in story or edit, we would ask,
"What's missing from the movie? And what do you wish was in the movie?"
Just as a way to get to entertainment
and better set pieces than we had at the time.
And Adam Kimble,
who's one of the story artists on the film,
did a bunch of gag drawings. And one of them was a tiny Barley,
an idea that Ian had somehow mistakenly shrunk Barley.
And it got a big laugh from everyone,
but the thing I loved about the drawing was,
it was Ian driving the van because Barley was tiny.
And I thought, it's not just funny and fun, it's a great story point,
which is that Ian has to be the big brother
and that Ian has to see what it's like to take responsibility.
- RAE: Yeah, exactly. The tables turn. - SCANLON: Yeah.
That's when I felt like, "Oh, this is when the movie's working best,
"when the magic and the set pieces really relate
"to the bigger overall arcing story of your relationship with your brother."
We always wanted magic to be very chaotic
because that would make Ian uncomfortable.
And Barley is very chaotic
and a lot of this journey is Ian having to live in Barley's shoes a little bit
- and learn some lessons from Barley. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: So if Barley is wild and chaotic,
if Ian’s family is wild and chaotic,
then magic should be, too.
And so the effects department worked really hard to design
a magic that felt natural, a magic that felt unpredictable.
In particular, in this scene because the goal,
or Ian’s goal is to focus on this can without distraction.
RAE: And Barley's there just making everything worse for him.
- Which is also good for the story. - SCANLON: Yeah, absolutely.
Barley's just... We're asking Chris, "Just be as annoying as you can."
He did takes that were really annoying.
- RAE: Yeah, he did. Yeah. - SCANLON: I said, "Not that annoying."
(BOTH LAUGHING)
- He was just whispering, "Focus." - RAE: Focus.
SCANLON: Obviously from Ian's earlier driving test in the movie,
we can see that he gets in his own head, and distraction causes him to choke.
RAE: Right.
SCANLON: This is meant to mirror that moment.
So, again, now Ian has to take the lead,
and he has to take care of Dad, and he has to carry all the stuff.
We were thinking Ian should feel like a parent
who is carrying groceries, holding a dog on a leash,
- and having to deal with a baby. - RAE: Right.
SCANLON: Again, that idea of a swamp area is why we call it the Swamp Gas,
- just little suggestions. - (RAE LAUGHING)
RAE: And here's the introduction of our terrifying sprites.
SCANLON: Yes, we were like,
"In this modern world who's gonna really cause trouble?
"Who could really be after them?"
And we started playing with this idea of a sprite gang
'cause we're always trying to look for the opposite...
Sorry, I have to interrupt myself.
This character has one line in the movie,
but everyone on the film loves him.
- They named him Theo for some reason. - RAE: Theo.
SCANLON: And the whole time, we spent way too much time designing him.
We just all thought he looked like the nicest guy in the world,
which was the idea.
"It should be the nicest guy in the world getting yelled at by them."
RAE: Then he got put in every single scene.
SCANLON: Yeah.
RAE: We'd have to go through the scenes and go,
"Ah, you can't put Theo in every scene."
SCANLON: He's still in a lot, if you look.
RAE: (CHUCKLING) Yes.
SCANLON: If you look. He's got a lot of siblings
who look like him, I guess, twins.
But yeah, the idea that always looking for ways to do
the opposite of what's expected from a fantasy movie.
So this idea that sprites would have lost their ability to fly.
We're saying it's like wiggling your ears.
It's something that apparently we could all do at one point.
And now this idea of this gang of sprites.
I like that we said, "Oh, they'll be on motorcycles.
"Like, individual little tiny motorcycles."
And someone drew it. And like,
"Oh, no, I thought you meant like one big motorcycle with all of them on it."
- It was almost a mistake. - (RAE LAUGHING)
And then we thought, no, that's funnier, that's really weird.
RAE: There are a ton of Easter eggs in this store.
The graphics team went nuts and had a blast
creating things such as Mountain Doom soda.
So, yeah, it's filled.
SCANLON: We wanted to make sure that the end of the movie
had a promise of danger and death, and real stakes.
Something that felt huge,
again like a fantasy film, a giant monster at the end.
And early versions of the film,
we had a phoenix that the boys were gonna fight,
a giant phoenix.
But a phoenix really isn't something that's evil.
- RAE: Right. Right, exactly. - SCANLON: It's usually a positive.
And it was kind of too much like a regular fantasy film.
It was just a monster that could be in anything.
And so we worked really hard to figure out how can we make something
that is definitely scary, definitely dangerous,
but is also kind of goofy and funny in our modern fantasy world.
Something that still has that vibe to it.
RAE: Yeah.
This is one of my favorite shots in our movie by Priscila Vertamatti.
It's just great animation of the Manticore.
It's so funny. It's got so much character.
I like that Barley is always trying to bring the best out in people.
- He's really well-intentioned. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: He loves the old days
because he just loves that people could be their best selves
or challenge themselves or go on adventures.
He's truly a fan of the fact that sprites could fly.
But he just... His heart is in the right place,
it's just his head is always in the wrong place.
(BOTH LAUGH)
And I would assume that if they had continued to talk,
Barley probably could have smoothed this over.
Everything would have been fine but, again, Ian doesn't trust his brother.
So all these things that go wrong are really Ian’s fault.
RAE: Yeah. Masked as Barley's fault.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
SCANLON: We wanted to design Guinevere to be the...
For someone who's afraid to drive,
which I'm not a big fan of driving myself,
so this was easy for me to figure out.
Just the worst car you could ever have to drive.
Just... You know, it doesn't work,
only works certain ways. It's a big pile of junk.
This was again a big action sequence that we wanted to be...
Have it be funny,
but we also wanted it to be truly scary,
and Maddie Sharafian did the first pass of this scene.
And she's someone who storyboards a lot of comedy amazingly
- and emotion really well. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: But she wanted to challenge herself to do something more exciting.
In talking to her about it, I realized that
what I value from the team of artists
- is usually emotion first... - RAE: Mmm-hmm.
SCANLON: Can you show me something
that's gonna make me and the rest of the team cry?
And then, comedy second. Can you show me something
that's gonna make me and the rest of the team laugh hysterically?
But what I realized is I wasn't valuing thrills enough and action enough.
And so in talking to Maddie beforehand,
I said like, "Show us something that's gonna make the team be thrilled.
"That's gonna scare the team. And that that has value, too."
And as a result she came up with this chain part,
and we all saw that and we're all like, "Oh, my... He's gonna die."
And it was so great to see that response valued in the room
and to see her go for it.
'Cause I think when you only value certain things,
that's all you'll ever go for.
- RAE: Right, right. - You'll always be going for emotion.
You'll always be going for comedy, and you'll undercut thrills.
And so it was a really great,
not only breakthrough for her, but breakthrough for me.
And she went on to then storyboard the scene
where Ian and Barley are walking over the bottomless pit,
which is really, really thrilling and funny and emotional.
RAE: Yeah, yeah, and it's great that even though these are sprites
and it's kind of a ridiculous concept,
that it's this kind of motorcycle gang of sprites,
they are really threatening, and you feel it.
Like, from Maddie's boarding all the way through to the animation.
It's just a terrifying scene.
SCANLON: And the design. They've got these horrifying sharp teeth.
I like when... Again, I think we both do,
when things can be funny because they're scary.
RAE: Yeah, exactly.
SCANLON: Or emotional because they're funny.
And again, this idea was,
how could the boys be bringing a little bit more magic into the world?
The idea is the sprites haven't flown because they haven't had a reason.
Well, Barley and Ian just give them a life-or-death reason to fly.
RAE: And here's one of the most
technically challenging shots in the whole film.
(RAE CHUCKLES)
SCANLON: It's great when you can be in a meeting
and look at that shot and go,
"It's correct 'cause it looks so wrong."
RAE: (LAUGHING) Exactly.
This is a fun example of again, lighting a scene.
Sharon Calahan chose to light the scene completely black.
Which you don't see a lot in animation, I think.
From a sets point of view is we didn't have to build a set here.
RAE: Yep. It drops off into nothing.
Yeah, a lot of times
those technical limitations really end up helping the story.
In this case not being able to see past that street
and it going off into black
really just aids in the isolation
and kind of the fear that these characters are feeling.
SCANLON: Yeah, and I think where you can,
if you can challenge yourself to be smart
and use your limitations, or create limitations
to make better storytelling, that's always a bonus.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: We're always trying to find ways that the magic is a test
or the magic is something
the audience could put themselves in the shoes of Ian and say,
"Would I be able to do this? Would I be able to not lie?"
As opposed to just casting a spell and saying a magic word.
And there's great cameos by Lena Waithe and Ali Wong here.
We wanted Specter, who is the taller Cyclops character played by Lena,
to be someone who is smart and had an eye on them.
RAE: Yeah, super authoritative.
SCANLON: Yeah, you couldn't get away with anything with her.
She's watching you. And Lena just did amazing improvs here.
RAE: Yeah, she's so smart.
We were done with her actual lines in a half an hour,
and then she improv-ed for about another hour,
and Dan and I just sat back and enjoyed.
SCANLON: It's clear that she is a writer.
RAE: Yes.
SCANLON: Because she was adding backstory to the character,
adding all these wonderful things that we were...
"This is great. We can't use all of it."
RAE: But we did use some of it.
SCANLON: We did use some of it, yeah.
And it was just so great.
And I wish there were more of both these characters in the movie.
RAE: Yeah, I know.
SCANLON: And Ali Wong is, we wanted a character
who could be the opposite of Specter
who was more of the boorish,
kind of, lazier, one of the two,
because she's got to call out Barley on being a mess.
- And that's kind of a rude thing. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And, you know, Ali was perfect at just playing up that part
of being just like a know-it-all
or kind of, arrogant or lazy and all that,
and the two of them together just play off really nicely.
So it's important that we start to feel like the boys are coming together here,
that things are starting to work out for the best.
Just so we could have this drop
that Barley realizes what Ian thinks of him.
And I don't even know that Ian is fully aware consciously
of what he thinks of Barley. I think Ian puts up with Barley,
- and he avoids conflict. - RAE: Yes.
SCANLON: When Barley annoys him, Ian avoids it.
And what's fun about this scene is, he can't avoid it anymore.
And if Ian spent his life avoiding his true feelings for his brother,
they're never gonna be close.
RAE: Right.
SCANLON: Relationships are about truth, too.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And you have to
be able to have those conversations.
And so this is a major turn in their relationship.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: This was another reason why I was glad
that we chose to go all black outside
because you really can't read Barley anymore.
There's no information behind him.
Barley, who's been so boisterous and fun, is now
- quiet and scary. - RAE: Yeah.
- SCANLON: Ian has broken Barley. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: This song, written by the Dannas as well, was very difficult,
strangely, to do, to find that right balance between...
- RAE: Yeah. - ...a bit of rock,
a little bit of fantasy feel,
and also something that you can dance to.
(RAE CHUCKLES)
RAE: Yeah, we had set up the premise of, you know, what does Barley listen to?
And this fantasy rock
and trying to get something that had a beat,
that had a danceable beat was tough.
SCANLON: There's some beautiful animation here.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: Between the boys, really subtle stuff and, you know,
great performances by Tom and Chris...
- RAE: Yeah. - Really finding the fine line between
Barley being upset...
But he's upset like you would be for your child, you know.
He's kind of scolding him or teaching him.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And Ian again,
is still trying to avoid conflict.
He's doing everything he can to avoid really saying how he feels.
We felt like we wanted to see Dad dancing.
It doesn't really make logical sense
how he would feel the vibrations of the van,
especially once he steps out of it, but... (CLEARS THROAT)
But it's just so fun to use these legs in a fun way.
Plus, from Dad's point of view,
he knows things didn't go the way he planned,
but he's just so happy his boys are together...
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And that they
clearly must love each other.
He's gonna make the best of this in any way he can,
- and he's gonna have fun with them. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: But the other important thing about this scene was,
part of really knowing someone and loving them
isn't just revering them
the way that Ian and Barley had been looking up to Dad,
it's realizing their flaws and Dad's a terrible dancer,
and he's a Dad, you know. He's corny and embarrasses them,
and so I love the idea that they would be making fun of Dad
at one point and, you know, like we kept saying it's like
- two siblings at a wedding... - RAE: Yeah.
...watching their dad on the dance floor and going,
- "My gosh, look at that." - RAE: "Oh, no. Make it stop."
SCANLON: And in a weird way it brings them closer to Dad
and them closer to each other.
- They have a sort of in-joke about Dad. - RAE: Right.
And it's amazing how it just works so naturally
that Dad starting to dance in that van breaks that tension.
And that fight,
who knows where it was going to go, and then it comes back
both around Dad, and then leads to their honesty.
SCANLON: And so Ian is gonna give Barley's way a shot.
Even if he's not 100% sure it will work,
he realizes it's very important,
and he owes it to his relationship with his brother.
Great performances by Julia and Octavia here,
but we only have so much time to talk about Tracey Ullman's.
- RAE: That's right. - SCANLON: So, we better get on it.
We love this character, and it was such a joy
to have Tracey Ullman perform her.
You know, I was thinking it's like when you go to the movie theaters
and they have those soda machines that can
give you all the different kinds of soda.
- Tracey Ullman's like that. - RAE: (LAUGHING) Yeah.
SCANLON: She can give you all the sodas.
RAE: Do it all, yeah.
SCANLON: We did several versions of the character with different voices.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: I mean, it was just a dream come true.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: The character itself we've really enjoyed.
The character came later in the making of the movie,
and was partially designed by Zaruhi Galstyan.
We just all had so much fun exaggerating this character,
making her really like,
- swarthy and weird, and creepy. - RAE: Yeah.
Like a real pawn shop owner,
you take all those characteristics and lay them on her.
And she's so great.
SCANLON: We wanted to do this idea where Mom gives this impassioned speech
and really shows why this is important to her to meet the boys.
And even as we were writing it, we thought, "I don't want to hear this,
"just stab her in the neck."
And we thought, "What could we do to just get this over with,
"with some surprise to it," and that was it.
Again, she's fine. She'll be fine and only...
- RAE: She's not dead. - ...paralyzed for a little while.
But, in a movie of a lot of dialogue
and some speeches, it's kind of refreshing.
We feel like Colt is really well-intentioned.
The thing he cares most about is Laurel.
He loves her. He wants her to be happy.
- He doesn't understand teenagers. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: He doesn't understand that with kids
comes responsibility and hard work.
And so he's really... What he does wrong here
is he just takes it on himself to try to fix the situation.
RAE: Exactly, exactly.
He doesn't seem to understand that Mom will do
absolutely anything in the world to protect her sons,
and he just thinks they're causing trouble.
SCANLON: This is an example of the big,
swelling, fantasy theme music that I was saying
- that the Dannas do so well. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: You know, this is it. This journey music.
So we always have Dad just checking in on the boys.
The most important thing to him is just that they're together.
We originally designed this set to just be kind of a flat,
plain, boring area,
and our production designer, Noah Klocek,
he called me on it one day and said,
"This has just gotten boring. It doesn't feel like a fantasy movie."
And we realized we had lost the story point,
which is that Barley is off-road.
He's not on the expressway anymore.
The expressway was smooth and easy, and this should be
- bumpy and just terrible terrain... - RAE: It's the Path of Peril.
...and a mess, and so, luckily,
Noah got the whole team back together and back focused on story,
and we made it into this big, crazy, messed-up...
This Path of Peril that looks not like it's gonna work out.
- RAE: No. - SCANLON: It should look like
- it's not gonna work out. - RAE: Exactly.
SCANLON: And, of course, having a giant bottomless pit
- in the middle doesn't help either. - (RAE CHUCKLING)
SCANLON: So we see Ian starting to use his magic,
starting to get a little more confident.
But Barley again is still the know-it-all
and still has things to teach him.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: We worked on a lot of different versions of this sequence.
RAE: Absolutely, yeah.
And even logistics were hard.
Staging this scene was kind of challenging.
- SCANLON: Yeah. - RAE: From the beginning,
we did it many times, their arrival at the bottomless pit.
How do they get to the bridge? How do we not see the bridge?
SCANLON: And there were versions where Ian couldn't create the bridge,
and so Barley was gonna jump out onto nothing
just to give Ian the confidence.
It really wasn't until we added the rope that the scene started to work
because they were just going to step off,
- and that seems insane. - (RAE LAUGHS)
I mean, that's just not worth it.
And so the rope gave you this false hope of security,
which I think made the scene make sense now.
RAE: Yeah, yeah. Plausible.
SCANLON: And it led to this lesson that,
okay, that's the worst thing that could happen.
It wasn't so bad.
And that led to the idea of, "Ooh! But then if the rope fell off,
- "that would be more terrifying." - RAE: Right.
SCANLON: Rope is really hard to do.
RAE: Oh! Technically, yeah. I know.
SCANLON: So the simulation department worked really hard
on figuring out this rope, making it look good.
RAE: Yeah, we actually had a rope task force
where a group of people were charged with figuring out
what type of rope would we even use.
We sat in a room with, like, ten different types of rope.
We went through each rope and tried tying knots
to see if it was doable 'cause some of them were too stiff,
some of them were... They just wouldn't go into a knot properly, so...
Yeah, it was really fun.
SCANLON: This is a scene that really works well in 3D or in stereo.
- It's really gut dropping. - RAE: Yeah.
We did some VR as we were scouting the scene.
I chose not to do it.
- SCANLON: Yes, because it's nauseating. - RAE: Too scary.
SCANLON: And by "VR," you mean virtual reality?
RAE: That is what I meant.
Yeah, we used VR in order
to really get a feel for the scale and the size of the set.
But also, it gives you a sense
of what the character's feeling in the set.
So when you do step over that ledge,
you can really feel that terror,
and it helps you kind of understand
more greatly what that character is going through.
So it's really useful as well as nauseating.
SCANLON: This is one of those moments
where it's hopefully comedic
and emotional, and Barley is literally crying
because his brother will die.
And sometimes that mix of both emotions can be really satisfying.
Even the design of the bridge had to be designed that way,
because if it was just a straight-up bridge
it would be off the top of screens, it was so big.
So then someone came up with the brilliant idea
- to break it in half like that. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: Which gives it a unique structure.
RAE: I love that kind of throwaway line of Barley
because it's so impactful, and it really
is what makes Ian look inward a little bit
about his own confidence and "I did do that."
SCANLON: So we wanted a way to show that Barley trusting his gut
and taking the Path of Peril was the right thing to do.
As the second half of the movie goes on, we really want to show Ian
that maybe his brother isn't wrong, isn't terrible at everything,
- isn't full of bad ideas. - RAE: Yeah. Right.
SCANLON: And even to start to show Ian starting to think like Barley.
So we start to see Ian trusting his gut.
We start to see Ian taking risks.
We start to see Ian using what he's got.
We start to see Ian looking for the less obvious choice.
All things that
are Barley's behavior more than they are Ian's.
So Colt Bronco played by Mel Rodriguez.
Part of the reason we wanted Mel is he is such a...
Just a comic genius. And we knew we were gonna have the scene
where Ian is pretending to be Colt, and really,
- Mel was cast for that moment... - RAE: Yeah.
...'cause he's so good at being awkward,
and fumfering. I mean, he does what Tom does well...
- RAE: Yeah, exactly, yeah. - ...as well,
so he really had to play Ian.
That and we knew that Mel has a kind of a big voice,
but he also has this sweet heart.
So we knew that Colt was gonna have to say
some kind of tough things
and be the authority, but we never wanted to take him too seriously.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: We also wanted to see
- why Laurel loved him. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: That there's this sweetness to him.
He tries to be an authority figure,
but can't quite pull it off.
And Mel just brought that.
Lines that sounded too mean before,
- sounded really right with Mel. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: Originally, we had Barley get in the van and take off,
and sort of trick Ian to get in the van,
and we realized this seems kind of obvious now,
that this should be the turn for Ian. This should be Ian taking risks
and Ian causing them to get stuck.
And therefore, Ian feeling guilty
when he can't use his magic to block off the road,
and therefore Barley having to step in
- and sacrifice something. - RAE: Yeah, yeah.
SCANLON: Our feeling was that Barley has just watched
essentially his son, whether he knows it or not,
Ian is like a son to him, take a major risk in life
and break out of his comfort zone.
And as can be so hard, I would imagine when you're raising kids is when they
take a risk and it doesn't go well,
- which is just part of life. - RAE: Yeah, yeah.
SCANLON: You don't want them to never take that risk again.
And so I think that Barley really realizes,
"I need to make sure my brother doesn't live with this regret
"of having taken this risk his whole life."
And so we needed Barley to sacrifice something.
And that's where Guinevere comes in, the van.
Obviously, as I mentioned earlier,
we wanted her in the movie because she's a van
and they can drive in a car.
But we wanted to make it clear that Barley loves her
and that he's proud of the work he's put into her,
and that he wants to show her to Dad,
to show that he made something wonderful.
RAE: Yes, yeah.
SCANLON: It all comes off as jokes early on,
but it's really something special that Barley wants to share.
And that was all in favor of just showing a sacrifice
and showing how Barley would sacrifice something so special to him.
So as much as we could, we tried to also treat her like a character.
Barley is always talking to her, as if she's not a van, but a horse.
The sound designers gave her
- sort of a whinny in her engine. - RAE: Whinny, yeah.
SCANLON: We even have a little relationship between her and Ian.
Ian starts off not really liking her,
and then getting more comfortable with her.
- RAE: Right. - SCANLON: All leading to this very
serious goodbye.
- (RAE LAUGHING) - Which, again, I would hope
you're laughing, but also moved.
RAE: Yeah, when this scene was first pitched...
Yeah, I was like, "That is the most absurd thing
"I've ever seen, and yet so wonderful and so poignant."
SCANLON: And Kelsey Mann, our head of story, would slap his legs...
RAE: And do... To do the horse sounds, yeah, exactly.
SCANLON: For Austin Madison, who had boarded the scene, he would do that.
Accompany him, just sell the idea
that the legs... Guinevere finally gets to be a horse.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: A real Pegasus,
before she goes.
Even Colt has his own little story. He's having
- to get off his butt and move. - (BOTH LAUGH)
He loses his car, he's gonna have to run. He's gonna have to get back
to his natural abilities, which he does by the end of the film.
- So another moment just for music. - RAE: Uh-huh.
SCANLON: Some of the Dannas' big themes.
RAE: And a real fantasy moment.
It's, you know, this really montage
of kind of an adventure of trekking
through this fantastical world.
And this is really a kind of fantasy moment, too.
SCANLON: Yeah, we argued, well, not argued, but we...
It's not an argument,
- I have the final say. - (BOTH LAUGHING)
We talked a lot about whether there should always
- be something modern in the world. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And for a while I really felt there should.
But then, as the story progressed, by this point, I thought,
"No, it's okay at this point."
They're really getting into a classic fantasy.
And this is again a moment where we really want to see
Ian learning from Barley.
He doesn't look for the obvious choice
- that Barley actually does. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: He looks at it a different way.
I love the unicorns at the beginning of the movie,
and we wanted them to be in the movie more,
but with exception of a shot outside the pawn shop,
this is really the only other time you see them.
But, you know, I think that's good.
I think that makes them a little more creepy,
that they're not around often.
We added this beat, where Barley is whistling and eating a cheese puff,
originally because we wanted to pay it off later,
in one of the flashbacks between the young boys.
We were going to show Ian and Barley in their room at night
during a thunderstorm,
little Ian and Barley when they were kids,
and Barley was going to be whistling the same song and feeding Ian.
We thought that would be a really nice setup.
We ended up not doing it for whatever reason...
- RAE: Yeah. - ...but we kept the setup in
because it was just kind of a sweet moment
that told you a little bit about the relationship.
RAE: Yeah, and that Barley's trying to,
kind of, calm Ian down a little bit
in a scary situation.
- SCANLON: Again, being parental. - RAE: Yes.
SCANLON: These cheese puffs found their way into the movie
in a number of different ways.
Early on, the story department was pitching a giant cheese puff.
At one point it was a pillow Ian used after he had grown it really large.
They desperately wanted it in the movie,
and they found their way to get it in there.
- RAE: (CHUCKLING) Yeah. - SCANLON: Ideas don't always die.
I always... Whenever I cut an idea from a film,
I always tell people like, "Don't worry."
- RAE: Don't worry. - SCANLON: "It's not what the idea is,
"it's when the idea is, and it could show up again."
RAE: Yeah, and the other thing we found out
is that it's a real thing.
Gamers love their snacks.
Especially cheese puffs.
So they were really, really psyched that we got this into the movie.
This is more amazing acting and animation
of the Manticore in the scene, when she's hyped up on energy drinks.
SCANLON: We didn't originally have the "energy" in "energy drink,"
that clearly stated on the side and kind of looked like,
- "What's she been drinking off there?" - RAE: "What's she drinking?"
(RAE LAUGHING)
SCANLON: This idea also came late, the idea to bring the sprites back.
And what I like about it is it just shows
how Ian and Barley affected some people in the world
to live up to their potential, to bring their magic back.
And now we're seeing that spread to the Manticore.
They see that the boys are in small ways affecting people
and bringing them a little bit back to magic.
In the early versions of the story,
we always really had Ian and Barley
not necessarily getting to Dad in time.
We had Ian sacrifice his opportunity to see Dad
- in order for Barley to see him. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: We've had that for a long time as kind of our north star...
- RAE: That's right. - ...and our point for telling the story,
as well as the idea that Barley was like a father to Ian.
That was what we were always shooting for.
But we did get some notes about, well, why should
- Barley meet Dad over Ian? - RAE: Yeah. Yeah.
SCANLON: I think it's because Ian realized,
"You were like a father to me,"
but that wasn't really enough, and so this idea
of a backstory for Barley where he didn't get to say goodbye
came out of that.
And it became this discovery for Ian
that, "Oh, my brother wants to say goodbye.
- "I want to say hello." - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: "We're both gonna get to do that,"
and then in the end, Ian making that choice.
It's a really nice performance by Chris Pratt
and great animation by Sean Chaco and Dovi Anderson here.
My brother says he thinks he has two memories of our dad.
They're not this emotional.
One of them is my brother waving to my dad out a window
as my dad is downstairs,
near the doorway.
And my... He said, "That's how I remember him,"
and my mom said, "I remember that too, your dad was locked out of the house
"and he was saying, 'Get your mom,
"'to let me in, ' and you were waving, 'Hi, Daddy! Hi!"'
(BOTH LAUGHING)
I think that the dungeon area also kind of came out of asking
the story and edit department, "Like, what's missing from the movie?"
RAE: Yeah, exactly. We needed this kind of gauntlet idea.
Again, like a fantasy trope,
and an action-adventure trope, kinda.
SCANLON: Yeah, you know, we wanted to be in a dungeon,
and so this was all kind of born out of that.
And then the gelatinous cube
is a fan favorite amongst all of us.
- All of the fantasy fans at work. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And I like that if you go back and look at the scene
where Barley and Ian are choosing which direction to go
and Barley says, "Okay, but if we
"run into a gelatinous cube, you're on your own,"
that the light turns green in that moment
- and reflects or sort of foreshadows... - RAE: Yeah, yeah.
- ...this big, creepy green thing. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: The point of this whole scene was also to make sure
everyone was working together finally, just to see everyone doing well.
- Barley thinks with his gut... - RAE: Yeah.
...and just acts, and Ian listens to that.
Ian is confident enough to use magic and takes a big risk.
- And even Dad gets a victory. - (BOTH CHUCKLING)
You know, we were thinking... We designed this whole scene,
this whole back part, to figure,
- how could Dad and only Dad help them? - RAE: Yes. Yeah.
SCANLON: It should just feel like a coming together of the whole family,
and in some ways should feel like a false climax
that everything has worked out.
RAE: That they worked together to achieve the goal,
and they all live happily ever after.
SCANLON: Both the movies we've worked on have false climaxes.
- Monsters University has this big... - RAE: Yeah. It's true.
...false, fake happy ending that comes way too early.
And I think if you're watching a movie, and that happens,
- you should question that. - (RAE LAUGHING)
The effects department just did phenomenal...
- RAE: Yeah. - ...water effects here.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And I mean, they're just
really terrifying and visceral feeling, going under like this.
RAE: Yeah, water is always a little bit challenging.
And the goal here was to kind of make it scary
and terrifying since the boys were trapped in there.
So they kind of went out of their way to do that
by adding the particulate,
and how they lit the water and everything.
And it's also the wet hair, wet clothing.
This scene, while somewhat short,
it has a lot of tough stuff in it.
SCANLON: This idea also came from, I believe,
the story department in sort of what do they want of the movie,
and this idea of, "I wish the final battle happened back home."
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: Because there's a promise from this movie that it will,
as I mentioned earlier, be a big, scary ending,
but that it has to have something modern about it,
and if they've gone all the way back,
then that will just feel like any fantasy movie.
And it also worked great to have them show up back home
because from Ian’s point of view, it proves that Barley was wrong.
Or that Ian was wrong to live life like Barley.
He was wrong to trust his gut.
He was wrong to look at things in a different way.
We wanted Barley to look
- a little crazy here, too. - RAE: ...crazy, yeah.
And just the acting here and the performance,
you're just questioning absolutely everything yet again, about Barley
and just like, "What?
"How could I have believed and followed this guy?"
SCANLON: And Tom does a wonderful job here.
He was phenomenal and really went for it,
and it was really cathartic.
I felt like by lunch, we were both like, "Yeah, I feel pretty good."
I'm not really sure how this scene came to be.
As far as having a list
where he crosses off all the things he didn't do with Dad...
I remember the story team
- pitching a version of this... - RAE: Right.
...and I think it might have come out of that.
But we wanted to make sure that we're at our lowest low.
That Barley looked as pathetic as possible,
that he'd be seen like the town fool
like he was in the beginning of the movie.
RAE: Right.
SCANLON: We used to have shots of people from the town really looking at him
and just being even more in public embarrassment.
And there's some of them back there. But just this idea
that Barley, even against good reason, won't give up.
He's basically just a cat in a tree here.
He has no plan. He's just trying to get away.
But he wouldn't give up.
And then revisiting the list and...
Kori, you had a great note really close to the end of the film.
(RAE LAUGHS)
RAE: Just about, you know, they came out of all this water
and it would be even more heartbreaking in that, that list
is like wet and ruined, and the instant that you see it...
SCANLON: And originally, we had it totally not wet.
RAE: Yes. (LAUGHS)
Because, you know, we were wrapping it up,
and we had to be judicious about those technical choices.
But it looks really great.
SCANLON: Emotionally, seeing those words a little...
- RAE: Blurred. Yeah. - ...blurred is really wonderful.
The layout department led by Adam Habib,
who really decide how the camera will work
in a scene and how a scene is staged,
they did something really beautiful here.
Where I tend to like to see characters looking right into their eyes,
but if you notice that the head of Ian’s shot,
we're to one side of him,
and then little by little, we come around,
and we get to the other side of him.
And what it did for me emotionally when I saw it
was I just saw a change in him, and I saw him
seeing things from another perspective.
And I found that simple choice of a camera move
- to be incredibly moving. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: All these flashbacks to them as kids
are also really moving. I mean, they're just cute.
- RAE: Yes. (CHUCKLES) - SCANLON: But the one in particular,
the pillow, I mean, my brother used to do that,
that is directly from my life.
We'd have pillow fights,
and I would hit him weakly, (LAUGHING)
And he would throw himself across the room
like I'd knocked him off his feet.
And I kind of knew it was fake,
but it made me feel great, and I believed it.
So when I see that, it gets me.
And now we head into the big climax of the film, which is really just
- the whole dragon fight. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And also the emotions of will or won't these boys get to even...
Will Ian get to apologize to Barley before it's too late?
- RAE: Right. - SCANLON: Will they get to see Dad?
Will Mom be able to help?
But it's also set in this enormous set piece, which was a lot of work.
RAE: It was a lot of work. A lot of planning.
A lot of, you know, trying to figure out
where all of the action would take place
and have it be intimate enough that you were with the characters,
but big enough to be able to accommodate such a crazy action scene.
SCANLON: As I mentioned the importance for Kori and I to have a team
- that collaborated early on... - RAE: Yeah.
...when we started this movie, this was that scene.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: It all culminated to this.
This has everything. It has effects, and beautiful animation.
It has a very complicated staging.
It has all of it. And so we would meet weekly or even daily.
RAE: Yeah, couple times a week actually. Yeah.
With probably 50, 60 people in a room
who were all working on these scenes together.
SCANLON: From all different departments.
RAE: From all different departments.
And 'cause they all had... It was all, you know, chicken-egg.
Effects has to do this before animation can do that,
before sim can do this,
and so it always interconnected.
And so it was constant communication.
And figuring out how to be smart
about the complexity of the scene.
SCANLON: And it led to I think,
- really great collaborative work. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: The scene went much smoother than it would have gone
had we maybe not kept ourselves in the loop
and done this as a team.
And so I'm just really excited by it
- and excited by how it came out. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: But again, from a story point of view,
the reason we wanted this school monster is it's, you know...
A monster is usually your greatest fear,
and everything that makes Ian nervous or uncomfortable happens
in his social environment of school.
And we also wanted to be a little dumb,
- which I think is the movie, too. - (RAE LAUGHING)
You want to be terrified by it,
but it's got this dumb cartoon face.
And then we wanted to see the Manticore be awesome again.
And so it was so fun to really get to see her
come out of her shell,
and see her get some really good hits in.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And help out and, you know...
And make sure that the whole family and a friend of the family,
which is so important to family too, is the friends around you...
- RAE: Yeah. - ...all come together to make sure
that Barley can say goodbye.
RAE: So the boys have to actually
kill the dragon in this battle, spoiler alert.
But you know, we had made the dragon.
It's made up of this curse that pulls in items from the school,
from the surrounding area,
and then animation-wise, we just wanted to make sure
that it looked robotic,
that it didn't look like a feeling kind of entity,
because we don't want to have empathy for it.
SCANLON: This entire set was very complicated, too,
because, as you can tell,
a lot has taken place in it.
Earlier emotional scenes, wild action scenes,
later emotional scenes.
Things have to be lost in certain areas.
Ian has to be covered by rocks so he can't get to Dad.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: I mean, this was a bear
for Amy Allen and her sets department to really...
- RAE: Yeah. - ...figure out.
They had to work with layout.
Sylvia Wong, who really kind of helped
us do location scouts on this scene, to make sure
we could get all these story points.
It's a lot of work.
RAE: Yeah, there are a lot of logistics that had to fit in.
It isn't just kind of like a fun romp,
kind of action scene.
We had to fit in so many story points
and so many logistical kind of locales.
SCANLON: And this idea that Mom would sort of pierce
- half of the core... - RAE: Yeah, yeah.
SCANLON: ...was really just to create an artificial pause...
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: ...for the brothers to be able to have this speech
about who's going to go and who's not gonna go.
RAE: Right. Right.
SCANLON: So much of storytelling is coming up with
believable ways to have the moments you need to tell the story.
My hope is, if you've done your job by this point in the movie,
people are kind of just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah,
- "whatever, just give me what I want." - RAE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
"I'm on for the ride." Totally.
SCANLON: "I don't care if it makes sense."
We figured Barley would distract it somehow,
the way he distracted it with the taillight.
- RAE: With the taillight, yeah. - SCANLON: We don't really know
what he's gonna do, but we know he could do something.
RAE: He would, he'd be thinking on his feet.
Trusting his gut.
SCANLON: This line had different iterations.
Originally, the line was, "I came on this journey to meet my Dad,
"and I did."
And that was our original take on it,
which was emotional, but maybe came off too literal.
And I'm really happy with where that landed.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: You know, I don't think Barley
has any idea that he's been a father figure to Ian.
It's all he's ever known, to have that instinct to take care of him,
to promote him, to support him.
I don't think that Mom, Laurel,
put any pressure on Barley to be that.
If anything, she probably worked very hard to avoid him
from taking on that responsibility.
But you can't stop him from emotionally supporting him.
And so this information that Barley was like a father figure to Ian
- is new to Barley, too. - RAE: Absolutely.
SCANLON: All right, back to the action.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
Again, paying off that joke earlier that he can use
the magic in the splinter.
And then him finally having the confidence
and having gotten all of it
to be able to pull off that spell.
Again, I love seeing that it's both Ian and Laurel.
Now, yes, Dad and Barley would have been blown to pieces in that.
I understand, but again, I'm hoping that if you go along with it,
- it was sort of a backward explosion. - (RAE LAUGHING)
We'd suggested that when Ian fell originally, he breaks his ankle,
and at one point I thought, "It would be cool to have him have a cast
"in the epilogue, and Barley's cast is gone."
That they like, turned into each other.
But I thought, "Oh, man, if he's got a cast on his foot plus the staff,
- "it's just too much stuff." - RAE: Yeah, yeah.
- He uses the staff like a crutch. - SCANLON: Yeah, that would work.
So, again, even in the early pitches, we wanted to make sure
that we didn't hear what Barley and Dad said.
That it's not really about that.
It's just about Ian.
I mean, Ian makes a sacrifice just like Barley did with Guinevere.
Ian gave up something he wanted very much
because he felt his brother needed to say goodbye.
So, the audience needs to make a sacrifice too.
We can't hear what Barley and Dad say.
Although, I will tell you it's the same thing that Bill Murray
says to Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation.
It's the exact same thing.
And then the reason Dad's color was purple,
he has the purple socks, was just for this moment.
We knew that the sun would go down
and the sky would turn purple.
It was just kind of working backward from that.
Sometimes it's really helpful to give a character a signature color.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And we had a logic when we were doing our effects
that maybe when people go away, their energy goes
and turns into little particles that go out in the world
and are always surrounding us.
And this spell brings them together
into one tight-knit human again.
When we talked to Tom and Chris doing this scene,
we would just say, like, "This is kind of
"a hospital hallway conversation.
"Someone has just passed in a positive way
"and you talk respectfully. You may joke around a little bit..."
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: "Just because you love them
"and that's life."
RAE: I love that you did that, that was really important.
That it wasn't too emotional,
too sappy, that it was real,
what two teenagers would do in that situation.
SCANLON: And again, Barley says, "Dad, you know, mentioned that, too."
- RAE: Yeah. - Barley doesn't fully understand...
- RAE: Yeah. - ...that he was like a father figure.
But maybe he kind of gets it,
- and maybe he kind of appreciates it. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And for Ian, he just hears that his father was proud of him.
And I think that that's, you know,
to know that a parent is proud of you is important to all of us.
RAE: Yeah.
We see Barley desperately trying to hug Ian
throughout the majority of the movie,
and Ian’s constantly pushing him away.
And it was all just to set up this one moment where Ian gives him a hug.
So now, we're probably a few months later, I'm not really sure how long.
RAE: Yeah, we didn't specify too much.
SCANLON: We don't see the whole world go back to magic.
We just see some of the people we met.
- We see the beginnings of it. - RAE: Mmm-hmm.
SCANLON: The tavern didn't burn down.
What burned down was the drywall and all the added stuff.
But what was revealed was the old tavern,
which, by the way, is about over 1,000 years old.
We never say it in the movie,
but the Manticore is like 1,000 years old.
That's why she's been around for so long.
But now we're seeing a Manticore's Tavern
that is still fun, still for families, but it's got an edge to it.
- The edges aren't rounded. - RAE: Exactly.
And then Ian, like, having gained confidence through this whole journey.
But he's still... You know, he's still Ian.
He's still a little awkward up there. He's got confidence,
- but he's just still a little... - SCANLON: Yeah, he's still him.
I like his new staff
- almost better than the old one. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: I loved the old one when we made it,
and then we said, "Oh, this one has to be
"a giant splinter," but it's kind of cooler.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: Yeah, now, you know, Ian walked a mile in Colt's hooves
in the scene where he pretended to be Colt,
and he understood that, "Hey, this is hard for Colt, too."
- You know, for a step-parent. - RAE: Mmm-hmm.
SCANLON: And so Ian does a better job.
(LAUGHS) And there's the end of Colt's arc.
He now runs.
RAE: (LAUGHING) Which I think we had from day one.
SCANLON: We at one point in a screening, brought old Guinevere back.
RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: We said that Ian used his magic.
He got all the rocks off her, he fixed her up and brought her back.
And being typical Pixar,
all of our people in the company went, "No!
"You can't do that. It's a cop-out.
"It's gotta be sad. It has to be a real sacrifice."
And I was like, "Man, I love working here."
Like, "All right, this will be a brand-new van."
The idea is that Ian did use his magic to paint that on the side, though,
- he didn't hire somebody. - RAE: No. Exactly.
(BOTH LAUGH)
SCANLON: And then we wanted one last curtain call for Dad in particular.
Um...
And then, of course, the family and to see that...
Just to remind us who he was
and remind us that they're still doing great.
And even this new photo of the boys and Mom,
seeing their relationship is even better than ever,
and then finally showing that little Ian has always been leaning on Barley,
- metaphorically and literally. - (BOTH CHUCKLE)
SCANLON: So then the song.
RAE: Yeah, the song, we talked about having a song,
not having a song... And we thought
kind of, maybe just a slight continuation of the story
or almost a wrap-up of the thematic nature of the story would be wonderful.
And Brandi Carlile, and Phil and Tim Hanseroth
are such amazing songwriters,
that we went out to them, pitched them the movie,
and they fell in love with it
and wrote this amazingly beautiful song.
SCANLON: Yeah, and we didn't want them to necessarily
talk specifically about the movie,
- we just talked about... - RAE: No.
SCANLON: You talked to them about very general ideas of,
- think of someone in their life... - RAE: Exactly.
...that went above and beyond to support them
and help them become the person that they have become.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: You know, that was really
the point of this film. It's a love letter for everyone.
It doesn't have to be your brother or your sister
or anyone in your family. It could be a friend, a teacher.
Anyone who put a little extra effort in,
into believing in you and to challenging you
that made you the adult you are today,
and it's really an opportunity to...
I would hope that people would walk out of the theater,
I think we both would, and thank those people.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And appreciate them.
And then maybe return the favor for someone else.
Put a little extra effort in to be there for someone else.
RAE: Pass it on. Yeah.
SCANLON: What I like about the song too
- is it's how I feel about the crew. - (BOTH LAUGH)
- Like, they were all there for us. - RAE: Yep.
SCANLON: And they were there for each other and supported each other.
As we mentioned earlier, we wanted a crew that...
I mean, all crews do, but we really wanted
to inspire everyone to work together and to be there for each other.
So when I watch these names up there with this song, I found myself
tearing up and just looking at how much they sacrificed
- to make this film as good as it can be. - RAE: Totally.
Yeah. The crew totally carried us through this movie,
and kind of brought the initial kernel of the idea
that we had come up with five or six years ago,
and just made it better than we ever could have dreamed it to be.
SCANLON: Early on, when we started to bring people in on the film,
crew members, you know, the film was obviously
loosely based on my own experiences, with my brother growing up
and my father who had passed away, that we didn't remember at all
and our questions of who he was,
and also the issue of how my brother was very supportive of me.
And so we would ask the crew,
"Have you had experiences like that?
"Was there someone in your life who was special
- "and went above and beyond?" - RAE: Yeah, and without fail,
we just heard amazing stories
and not all the same.
They were related to kind of the themes of the film,
but individual to their experiences.
And I think hearing those stories and connecting
with the crew members in that way was incredibly impactful
for both Dan and I as well as the crew,
and it really made
the story richer.
It kind of broadened the idea
of the theme of the film.
SCANLON: Yeah, things from other people's lives
started to really make their way into the film.
And like you said,
you get closer to someone
when you've heard that kind of thing from them
and heard who supported them.
And what was fun is in some cases,
people would say, "Well, I wasn't necessarily the one supported,
"but I kind of went above and beyond for my younger sister
"or whomever who was having a hard time."
And they would relate to Barley more than Ian.
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: And those people
were incredibly helpful to us because they helped us keep Barley real
and honest, and serious.
Sometimes Barley would become kind of a joke and become so ridiculous.
And they really protected Barley.
And they'd say, "Okay, I don't think he'd do that."
- RAE: Yeah. - SCANLON: You know,
"He is really trying to help."
It was cool to see who was an Ian and who was a Barley.
RAE: (LAUGHING) And it was a great mix.
And we're just so grateful to the crew
for bringing all of themselves to this
and making the movie so much better.
SCANLON: And it's sweet in talking to a lot of them
as we, on these movies, at Pixar, we usually have a wrap party
when the movie is done, and we all get together
and watch the movie and celebrate,
and people bring a guest.
And so many of them I've talked to are going to bring
their siblings or whomever that supportive person was in their life...
- RAE: Yeah. - Which I thought was really special
- and really, really wonderful. - RAE: Yeah.
SCANLON: And I'm gonna bring my brother to the wrap party.