Press Conference: "Up" - Festival de Cannes

Directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, along with producers John Lasseter and Jonas Rivera, fielded questions from journalists concerning Pixar’s tenth animated feature, over four years in the making. Highlights from the Up press conference:

John Lasseter on the origins of the film:
We are a filmmaker-led studio. All of our movies come from the individual, you know; ideas come from the filmmakers, from their hearts, their life experiences… What’s important to me is always the heart of the story. Where is the heart of the story going to come from, the emotion? …Walt Disney always said, ‘for every laugh, there should be a tear.’ And when I heard the idea for this one, I knew there was going to be tremendous emotion. I knew that this movie was going to be very unusual, but also loaded with heart.

John Lasseter on Up opening the Cannes Festival:
To have our movie open the Cannes Film Festival is one of the greatest things that’s happened to us in our careers. You have to understand what this festival means to a filmmaker, being one of the most prestigious festivals in the world, and to have your movie actually open it, you know, is really exciting … I think what I am looking for most is seeing that great image of people tonight in their tuxedos, gowns, wearing 3D glasses in that theater, that’s going to be the picture. I can’t wait!

Pete Docter on the main character, Carl:
Carl is kind of an amalgam of a number of different actors and real people in our lives – our grandparents, my grandfather had the locks of white hair – but Spencer Tracy, Walter Matthau of course, James Whitmore; he’s kind of the squishing together of our favorite bits of those actors.
‘He’s kind of the greatest hits of our grandfathers,’ added Bob Peterson.
Drawing for those characters, it’s almost like you feel it first and you understand who he is. This is a guy stuck in his house and doesn’t want to go out. We just kept drawing these square box shapes; you’ll notice that his head is very square, his body is very square. It felt appropriate. We wanted the body to feel like he was inside.

Pete Docter on how to use 3D:
3D is like any new technical invention – something that John taught me – to him, to us it’s like a fun toy. As soon as somebody gives us something, we’re just, like, ‘oh boy, what does it do, how can we use this?’ And you start messing around with it and you start to realize how you can use it for storytelling. And in this case, we really tried to use depth in the same way we use color, cinematography, and that is to further the emotion of the scene. So when Carl is by himself, we tried to limit the depth and make it very small and claustrophobic…And then as he lifts off, we tried to pull the depth out and make it more dramatic, uplifting, really trying to use it for emotional effect.