Chatting with Riley's First Date? Director Josh Cooley & Producer Mark Nielsen #InsideOutBloggers

  

****Disney provided me with an all-expense paid trip for me to cover this great event **** 

Have you seen the smash Disney/Pixar hit Inside Out?  Then you know how great it is to have Riley and her emotions back for the short Riley’s First Date?  This adorable short is a must see, and is included in the DVD extras of Inside Out, this movie is available in stores and online everywhere! To celebrate the release of Inside Out on DVD I recently sat down with Riley’s First Date? Director Josh Cooley and  Producer Mark Nielsen to see how they felt about making this short and much more.

                                           photo taken by Silvia Martinez -mamalatinatips.com

There is so much that goes into making an animated feature movie, but what goes into making a short?  Also, did you know you wanted to do this short when you were make the original movie or is this something you came up with after? According to Josh Cooley, “This was an idea we came up with while doing the film for 4 plus years."  Mark Nielsen said, “Towards the end of production Pete and Jonas though about doing a short film for the DVD.” How long did it take to make this short? "From the idea to when the show was completed..10 months from the first pitches to the time we had our final sound mix."

All of the original cast and animators just moved from the film to the short.” Sure Riley’s First Date? was funny and cute, but were there any idea for other shorts? According to Josh Cooley “There were a few, the other was a Bing Bong idea.” I would have been interested to see the other stories pan out, a Bing Bong short would have been great. There is always a chance for another short, Pixar starts each of its movies with an original short so you never know we just may see another Inside Out one, one day. 

                                      Photo courtesy of Chris from http://www.dadofdivas.com/

Both of these guys have daughters, and coincidentally most of the staff did as well! So they really had a lot to go on for the mind of Riley. Josh Cooley, has younger daughters and while talking to a co-worker with older daughters, the co-worker said that is nothing just wait until she brings home her first date! Then the idea of Riley’s First Date? was born. Did you ever wonder if doing a comedy vs an emotional piece what is more challenging? To make people laugh or to make people cry? According to Josh Cooley,  “comedy is what I go towards, when you have a four minutes to tell a story, I think you just want people to come out laughing… it is harder to do…the emotional stuff” Mark Nielson said “The more emotional scenes of Inside Out are the ones we struggled with the most, we spent most of the time on these and we re-worked the most”.

We love the five emotions they are great for the film and really make you love the movie Inside Out but what if there were more emotions.. Did you know that they originally started out with 30 emotions? They whittled it down to 5 for storytelling purposes, it was easier to keep track of less emotions. When they were looking into the emotions there was the emotion Surprise, which they folded into Fear…. According to Josh, “I always thought it was funny if surprise was a character, he gets freaked out all the time or that he is kind of jerky guy that is just like...HEY!! AHHH!! But that would get old after a couple of times.” I have to agree with Josh on that one, I am sure it would be funny at first then it would get annoying. 

Do these guys have a favorite emotion, one that is close to their heart? They both related a lot to Joy, Mark was drawn to joy, “ I love Amy Pohler and what she brought to that character. I am an optimistic person by nature.” And Josh “I would say Joy as well.. although I had a lot of fun writing Sadness because without sadness, joy had nothing to play off of.”

  Photo courtesy of Chris from http://www.dadofdivas.com/

So what is up next for these guys? Josh is working on “a small independent film called Toy Story 4…. I am the Co-Director along with the Director John Lasseter, it is going to be so exciting.” We started clapping at the mention of Toy Story, because hey, who does not love Toy Story?! Mark is working on “a  future Pixar film… I am not allowed to talk about it at this time.” Both are exciting to me, it must be amazing to work at Pixar and work with the great John Lasseter… But is there any pressure working for John Lasseter? According to these guys not at all, Josh said “I have worked with him since day one at Pixar. I love working with this guy, he is so talented and so awesome, he is the best storyteller. No pressure at all…

So if you are looking for a great film for the entire family be sure to pick up a copy of Inside Out, it is a wonderful film the whole family will love. You will laugh, you will cry and you will want to watch this again and again. Inside Out is on DVD in online and in stores everywhere.

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 Inside Out is on Blu-ray and Digital HD on now! 

****Disney provided me with an all-expense paid trip for me to cover this great event **** 

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