Kori Rae & Dan Scanlon on creating Onward

Kori Rae & Dan Scanlon on creating Onward

First off congratulations on film.

Ithink I'm just about emotionallyrecovered from it.

I'm not really sureyet.

Obviously, Dan, it's deeplypersonal story for you.

So just howdoes that change your approach?

Thatfilm?

How do you work out?

What toinclude?

What not to include?

Yeah,that's a great question.

Luckily, I youknow, I kind of put it all out on thetable, and my filmmaking partner, Corey,and and our other writers and storyartists kind of help me sift throughwhat's relevant and what's not.

Andthey even help me when I'm start topull back a little bit and say We couldstill use a little morebecause I was a detainee free last yearwhere you played that audio clip wasjust silent, waiting to hear that.

Sodid that plate.

Was that theinspiration for the same way it is thatlittle conversation?

Was there anyother moments that you took out thatyou felt just a little bit?

You'reright.

That was the inspiration of Ihad had a tape of my father's voicewhen I was growing up, and we have itseemed like that the movie and Itcertainly was an inspiration.

I'mtrying to think of any other scenesthat we that we have.

I mean, there'sjust sort of general, overall archingarc of film.

There's a scene where thebrothers little brothers are playinghaving a pillow fight and little Ianhits Big Ian really softly and biggieand barley, Big barley.

Sorry, bigbarley sort of throws himself into theair and falls on the ground.

And thatis something my brother used to do allthe time.

He would make me feel like Iwas strong.

I'd hit him and he'd belike, Whoa, man, you really knocked meoff the bed.

That's a very little tinypersonal moment.

And you had a previousworking relationship together with mostuniversity.

Is that what made you towant to work together again because youknew it worked?

It is easier.

Secondtime room.

It kind of is.

I mean, youhave you have a shorthand, you learn alot.

We spend a lot of time together.So you learn a lot about each other andmonsters.

University.

I think we foundout that we had kind of a lot in common.Similar tastes similar ways offilmmaking and someone we started ononward.

When we started developing theidea, it felt really great.

And it wasit was a wonderful comfort.

We welearned a ton from one another and, uh,yeah, it's just a kind of great dynamicworking together and the fences in forthe film.

What was it about that thatmade you decide?

That's the right Well,to tell this story because it's such afantastical world.

Yeah, we wanted tobring the father back for a day and wethought, Where else could you do that?And the idea of a fantasy world or theidea of a magical world, you know, sofelt critical to to have magic in theworld.

And we want it to be fun, too.So we thought, Well, then it should bea full on fantasy world with unicornsand elves, but keep it in our world sothat it still relates to this verymodern story.

And that led to just thehumor off the mash up of these twothings.

Yeah, And when we were talkingbefore you mentioned you had afellowship to work out, Yeah, the fancyelements were there any Are thereparticular?

He strikes in the the old,especially proud off like a dungeondragon.

Parents are gonna love oneparticular one matter with those kindof one's.

Is there anything that youguys particularly proud of?

I love thewhen they go to the gas that you're notthe gas station.

The fast foodrestaurant that says, like secondbreakfast on me, huh?

That's a good oneon.

And I love there's a store calledSword in the Scone or skunk.

Um, yeah,there's a lot of a lot of good graphicsgraphic eggs, Um, and now for gottenbiggerwith Tom Onlookers.

Private always.They're perfect for it.

They're It'slike it's like a spider man, just withmagic instead of super pals.

Did theywork on the characters himself whenthey came to develop in the script andwas there much survive eightimprovisation allowed?

They I mean, theweed.

Yeah, we had written the scriptkind of beforehand.

It gets it getsrewritten here and there.

Tom did talkto us early on, wanted to talk aboutthe character.

I mean, we're gonna calljust to talk a little bit about him andAnd the nice thing is, you do, sir, Onesession and you learn a lot from that.I think you both come back with aslightly different idea or adjustments.Yeah, but they both really came into itright away.

I mean, they really foundtheir characters pretty quickly forsure.

And Chris really became kind ofthe protector of barley and protectorof the type of character that he was.He didn't want to push him too far andmake him, you know, super goofy or, youknow, not believable.

And he would kindof say, I don't know the Barley woulddo that.

Let's try this other thing.

Soit was really, really great.

They'resuper invested.

Yeah, And because it'ssuch a times is an incredibly aboutyour family.

Even when I was talkintomy colleague about certain things thathappened in it, I was, like, stilltearing up like So how was it, toe,Actually, film it.

Did you have to,like, have Tom and Chris do emotionalscene and have, like, a look about oneoffice just to get everyone back upagain?

I do think as a director you dokind of you try to think about wherethe actors had is gonna be and notshift them around too much or build toit.

You know, when they come in with alot of energy, may be warm up with somea simpler seen or some comedy, but workyour way toward an emotional scene to acouple leading into it cause it's a lotto ask.

I mean, they really put theirheart out there.

They're not machines.And so we always try toe slow the mooddown in the room, and and then if youcome in and you're in a grumpy moodwill do all the yelling stuff like Getout!

Did you have a bad traffic?

Justyell and screamand the father character during thefilm The silent character.

And it'sjust a pair.

Alexe, disembodied legs.Did they have diddle the cast havesomethingto work on when they wereinteracting with that in voice beforethey just saw?

Thanks, Toph.

I mean,it's their imagination.

Yeah, and youplay against them, you know, vocally.Um but, um but yeah, mostly they justtheir imagination.

Yeah, I usually playthe character upset.

Who has lines?

Soin your question.

I guess I was thepants.

Should maybe I should have beenjust walking around and touching themwith my feet.I didn't dance.

Actually, I danced isridiculously as I could to try to getTom toe laugh while he was watching thedancingand from working almost university.

Itcould just be me gonna live in that.But what's the driving instructor?

RockBut Bob PearsonKinda gravelly voicethat's so funny that it's not, Actually,um, it's Ah, it's another actor that wehad in the Loop group, but no, but thatwould have been a good idea there, Toolate for homeroom.

Yeah, is everycrossovers from that that you try tofit in from what's, youknow, I mean to be hot.

We had to tryto avoid it because because the world'scould be a little similar, we needed tomake sure that we were rehashinganything from monsters.

I think havinghumanoid characters helps differentiateit exactly