I was provided an all expense paid trip to Los Angeles. All opinions are my own.
Photo credit Louise Bishop / MomStart.com
If you have been following me on social media, you would have seen I was pretty busy last week. I was invited to the red carpet premier of The Good Dinosaur event in Los Angeles. One of the highlights was that we were able to meet and interview the director and producer, Peter Sohn and Denise Ream of The Good Dinosaur. It was so fun to learn about how the movie happened and other things that go on when producing a movie.
Did you know that they didn’t have time to audition for the voice of the animal collector – so Peter voiced the character!
He was incredible talented but humble and it was very fun to see how the story evolved. We interviewed them for about 30 minutes and I want to share with you some content from this interview. I hope you can understand more about this film.
When you see this movie you are going to be amazed at the animation. It really feels like the water is real! The way the character skin moves is incredible. So we asked them if there was new technology used and I was shocked when they said “not really”.
They used USGS topological survey maps from Google maps to create a lot of the locations in the movie. They did use some new technology – It was the first time they used 3-D clouds, which they call volumetric clouds, throughout the entire film.
They got their inspiration by “getting lost” in the wilderness in the Rockies. Peter Sohn, a New Yorker, and Denise Ream headed for the wilderness – this was a completely new and inspiring experience for them. My favorite part of their research was how the McKay family effected them. They live on a large ranch out in Oregon. This unique family is composed of the mom and dad, both white and then they adopted five black Haitian kids. Peter Sohn was really inspired by this family. He said, “When you get there it was like whoa, this is like a whole unique kind of family here. But they would change my life. The way that family lived in love really blew me away.”
Question: Once you decided it was going to be set in the West, is that when you decided to bring in a lot of the Western elements?
Peter Sohn : It started off with the kind of idea of like doing a frontier story but where we would do it was just a little, like it could’ve been in the south, like a Southwest kind of look, even though Monument Valley is in Utah but there was that kind of a thing. But I grew up on the Western and it’s all I did was watch these movies. Shane was one of my favorite movies and in the opening of that film was this farm in front of the Teton Valley. It was the Grand Tetons and I was like let’s go there. And so that’s where we started everything.
And then it was lucky that there was a Snake River that went through there that we were like oh, my goodness, this is exactly what we need for this story. And so the whole idea like when you go out there all you ever think about is how did people survive out here? How did they get across these mountains with nothing? How did they do that? Growing up in New York my dad had a grocery store and so it was a small family. All of us in this little grocery store trying to survive in a city. And then all the research that we would do in meeting farmers and ranchers out there it hit me so hard that these were the same types of families surviving but on thousands of acres each member of that family was an integral part for the survival of that thing.
And so it was a universal thing all of a sudden like, oh, my God I totally connected. Look at these people. They’re living in love and working together and up here in this really beautiful yet tough landscape. So it was really inspiring for us to try and say you know what, let’s have our little dinosaur, be a part of this family and he already feels like– I can’t contribute. I want to. Everyone has to do something for the survival of the family. And so a lot of the Western movies are about survival and when we first started doing this story board it became a cliché.
Like we were, the first version of this movie was literally like Sheriff, let’s go into a saloon and find us a Lunasaur or whatever it was. And then like you know, it just felt like we were making fun of it. And then once we started meeting the family and doing the research and all these people out there it was just like no, I want to honor this. I’m American and born in this country. I love that people fought to live through this and so it’s, it was something that you know–.
Question: We have had an opportunity to meet the young men who voiced Arlo, Spot and Buck. They were also very complementary of the direction you provided them. They said was very inspiring to them.
Oh, that’s very nice. I love those guys you know. What’s funny is that I do scratch voice at work. I do a lot of temporary voices and I’d been through like all the directors at Pixar and how they like kind of direct you. Sometimes it can be tough…
…and so every director has their tools. And I learned a lot from that. And so when I’m getting to work with these kids it was always like you know what, I’ve been in those shoes. This is all going to be about trust. If we don’t get through the lines don’t worry about it you know. Like, we’ll have some fun and whatever– and very observant.
And sometimes you have to be very emotional and I would be uncomfortable like if I’m in front of you guys and I’m like okay you have to cry now in this scene. And then sometimes we’re like let’s turn out the lights, don’t worry about it. It’s always just try to find a secure place where you can be vulnerable. Those kids are such pros. They were so amazing, all of them.
Question: You use the word trust a lot. You gave them a lot of trust.
Yeah, well, I did. I really trusted them.
Question : What type of direction did you give them specifically with Spot? He didn’t say a lot and with Arlo.
Yeah, there were two different things. Spot was mainly like painting the situation for him and explaining that like there were rules to Spot’s world where we didn’t want to go into kind of like a primate world because there was Tarzan and there was all that kind of stuff. We really wanted to stay in this kind of canine world. I would just say like you come as a character that’s brave, strong and tenacious and you know, Jack, I already know you are like that.
But, as we grow we’re going to kind of take some of the layers away and find, the little boy that Spot is and then he would understand that. And then it would be basically like okay, we’re in the woods. It’s raining. You’ve just pulled some animal out of the woods and I need some breathing down so let’s get into it. And so it’s just about painting a picture with Spot until we got to the emotional places. With Jack he would always be okay, let’s start, like you howl now, you’re teaching or learning how to mourn and it’s almost like you’re telling your buddy you know, it’s okay. Can you give me a mourn or howl like that? And then we’d play and experiment with that.
But with Raymond he can get into emotions so fast. You know, you paint the picture then you sit with him and you go okay, Raymond — and you would save some of the emotional stuff for in the middle because if you save it for the end of his voice would be tired but if you go to early then you may not be able to get to the emotion real quick. So you would do some fun stuff in the beginning and then let the story play out until we get to the mid part.
And then once we hit this one, I’ll start painting the picture again and then feel where Raymond’s at but Raymond would go okay, I’ve got it. Let’s do it. I’m like okay, are you sure you’re in this thing right now? Like you know, you’re talking about loss here you know, your father — I mean your father just appeared in front of you. You’re sure you’re okay? Yeah, let’s do it. Come on. And it’s like okay. And then he would go and he immediately go from like this like okay, you ready? And he would just like jump into this like performance and you’re like oh my goodness. And then he’d be like dad and then okay, was that good? And you’re like yes you were incredible. How did you do that you know? But it would just be, yeah, each performance it’s so different and so you’re just listening to what did they like or you know jumping around. Like Jack is such a sports guy and so you’re like what was the last game man? What did you do?
The Good Dinosaur opens in theaters on Nov. 25, 2015.
“The Good Dinosaur” asks the question: What if the asteroid that forever changed life on Earth missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct? Pixar Animation Studios takes you on an epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo (voice of Raymond Ochoa) makes an unlikely human friend. While traveling through a harsh and mysterious landscape, Arlo learns the power of confronting his fears and discovers what he is truly capable of. Directed by Peter Sohn and produced by Denise Ream (“Cars 2”), Disney•Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur” opens in theaters on Nov. 25, 2015. For more information, check out http://movies.disney.com/the-