From Script to Screen - Taking Inside Out to the big screen

Pixar’s Inside Out opens this week and I have a bit more about this fun movie to share with you. Check out all my Pixar coverage about Inside Out, and take a look at what it takes to go from an idea bouncing around in your head to a full-length feature film!

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While visiting Pixar in California, we had a chance to sit down with story supervisor, Josh Cooley, and co-director, Ronnie del Carmen. Check out what they told us about figuring out how to capture emotions.

INSIDE OUT Story Supervisor Josh Cooley. Photo by Debby Coleman. ©2015 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

INSIDE OUT Co-Director Ronnie del Carmen. Photo by Debby Coleman. ©2015 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Can you imagine starting a whole feature length film on just an itty bitty idea? Well that is where it all begins, and Inside Out was just an idea at one point. A concept thought up by Director, Pete Docter (thinking about his own daughter growing up).

The movie itself started to come to fruition thanks to Ronnie del Carmen’s drawings. Pete and Ronnie would sit across from each other and just bounce ideas off of each other and Ronnie would start drawing whatever would come to mind when thinking of emotions. Although there are only five emotions in the final product, the movie actually started out with lots of different ideas for what emotions should be used and all of this came to life right before their eyes in the very beginning stages of Inside Out, about two years ago!

Director Pete Docter, script supervisor Emily Zulauf, co-director Ronnie Del Carmen, Story Supervisor Josh Cooley and Producer Jonas Rivera with Saturday Night Live writer Bill Hader during an INSIDE OUT story meeting on May 27, 2011 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)

The big idea – what do emotions look like?

This was a difficult thing to figure out. They basically took whatever they were thinking inside their own minds and put it on paper. Then it was shared, discussed, changed….. over and over and over!

Storytelling is key here as well so it wasn’t only about getting the images right. To figure out how this would all play out and work together, Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen discussed their lives and the things going on around them at the time. As mentioned before, Pete’s daughter who Riley is based off of, was going through some changes from childhood to teenage years… this is where the true story came from. Sharing life-experiences, throwing ideas around, and drawings off of each other… that is what gives you the making of a GREAT Disney Pixar creation!

The “Inside Out” Long Lead Press Day, including presentations by Story Supervisor Josh Cooley, as seen on March 31, 2015 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Marc Flores / Pixar)

To get some ideas for younger Riley they turned to Josh Cooley, whose daughter is much younger. She even voices young Riley! I think it is so neat that they were all able to use their own life experiences with their daughters and capture some of that to place into the movie.