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00:00Pete Hammond here for Contenders.
00:02So happy to welcome the director
00:06of the highest grossing movie of this year.
00:10And I think at about 1.7 billion and counting so far, not bad.
00:16Also one of the most acclaimed,
00:18nominated for an Academy Award as best animated feature
00:22and so many other places too,
00:24where it's getting this kind of recognition.
00:26Please welcome the director of Inside Out 2,
00:29Kelsey Mann.
00:30Hi, Kelsey.
00:31Hey, thanks for having me, Pete.
00:34It's good to see you again.
00:35Absolutely, absolutely.
00:37And since I have seen you,
00:38you've now become an Academy Award nominated director.
00:42Congratulations.
00:44Wow, wow.
00:46You always hit me with these things
00:49that I haven't really heard out loud, you know?
00:52And so it kind of just happened there.
00:55Yet again, the last time we were together,
00:56you did the same thing,
00:57where you kind of emotionally hit me with a statement
01:00that I'm like, is that real?
01:01You did it again.
01:02But I, I mean, talk about, I'm so excited.
01:06Like I grew up watching the Oscars.
01:09I held Oscar parties.
01:10I was the guy that was printing out the Oscar ballots,
01:13you know, for everybody to kind of, you know,
01:16do their whole thing.
01:17And the fact that I've got a film on that ballot
01:22that I directed is incredible.
01:25It's, well, it's, if you've seen the movie,
01:29it's obvious that this would happen
01:32because it's very difficult to make any kind of film,
01:36but to make a sequel to something as successful
01:39as Inside Out that you did not direct, Pete Docter did,
01:44and take it on and take it to a whole new level
01:49is a real achievement, let's see.
01:51It really is.
01:52Yeah, yeah, thanks.
01:54I really appreciate that.
01:55I really, it was really important to me
01:57that we do something that was a worthy follow-up
01:59to the first film.
02:00And I did try to literally, you know,
02:03go in deeper with what Riley's going to experience
02:10because those are my favorite sequels
02:12are the ones that kind of enhance and grow
02:15and kind of explore things are a little more complicated.
02:18Yeah.
02:19I like that, you know, I think that,
02:22I think that worked really well
02:24with doing any great sequel
02:26is that you kind of further along
02:28what people are dealing with in more complex ways.
02:31And of course, Inside Out is about emotions.
02:35It's all kinds of things that we're dealing with
02:37in our head as this teenage girl
02:41has running through her here.
02:43And you came up with all kinds of new ones
02:47to go with the ones from the first film,
02:49including anxiety, which is a work of genius here
02:53because everyone is full of anxiety.
02:56So before we talk about that
02:58and how you thought about this,
03:00I've got a clip from Inside Out two
03:03featuring anxiety and inaction.
03:07So here it is.
03:09Great, we need to help Riley prepare.
03:11Now's the time to send up every possible thing
03:14that could go wrong.
03:15We are looking to the future,
03:17every possible mistake she could make.
03:20Come on, 17.
03:22I'm not seeing anything from you.
03:27Riley misses an open goal,
03:28coach writes about her notebook, yes!
03:30More like that.
03:32Oh no, they're using Riley's imagination against her.
03:35Val and her friends like us now,
03:37but if we don't make the team, will they like us tomorrow?
03:42Okay, let's go to number three.
03:44Three and Grace's team win and we look stupid.
03:47Number 22, Val passes to us and we miss it.
03:52We can't let her do this to Riley.
03:53We have to shut this down.
03:56Love it, 37.
03:58Riley hits the puck into her own net.
04:01Why are you drawing a hippo?
04:02I'm not, I'm drawing Riley.
04:05Joy, you forgot her ponytail.
04:06Oh, I love her ponytail, yes.
04:09Riley scores and everyone hugs her.
04:1181, that is not helping.
04:12Riley paints her nails to match her jersey.
04:14Everybody copies her and she is so cool.
04:17Riley wears knee pads.
04:19We buy flowers for the losing team.
04:22What?
04:23I can't always be the rage guy.
04:25No, no, I liked it.
04:27Nail polish knee pads?
04:28I'm starting to think you guys
04:29don't understand the assignment.
04:31What?
04:36What?
04:37Who sent that projection to Riley?
04:39Why would I know?
04:39Not at all me.
04:40Ugh.
04:43What is going on?
04:44Who is sending all of this positive?
04:48Joy, I know you're in there.
04:54The mind police are on their way.
04:57Well, I think we gave it our best shot.
04:59Don't listen to anxiety.
05:01She's using these horrible projections to change Riley.
05:04Joy, I'm doing this for you.
05:06This is all so Riley can be happier.
05:08If you wanted her to be happy,
05:10then you'd stop hurting her.
05:13Who's with me?
05:17Really?
05:18Nothing?
05:19Sorry, Joy.
05:21Yeah, I see you, 87.
05:24A cat.
05:25A little off topic, but I'll take it.
05:27So when you're sitting down and working on this
05:30and taking it, first of all,
05:32Pete Docter is the head of Pixar now.
05:34So he's sort of your boss in all of this.
05:36And you've worked in many different kinds of projects
05:40in different capacities and things.
05:41But first time as a director,
05:44when you go in and you work with somebody
05:46that did the original,
05:47what was your, how did that work?
05:50Were you intimidated?
05:52Did he give you leeway?
05:54What was the creative situation there?
05:57I mean, luckily with Pete,
05:59we have a relationship even before this film
06:04where, you know, I worked on Monsters University
06:07and it was a following up Pete Docter directed movie.
06:13And so I think that's how I really got kind of to know him.
06:16Yeah.
06:17The only difference is that was a prequel
06:18and this was a sequel.
06:19So I think I got to know Pete from kind of that angle
06:22and working with Dan Scanlon,
06:24who directed Monsters University.
06:26And Pete's a wonderful collaborator.
06:29He's a wonderful human being.
06:31He's really fun and funny and incredibly smart
06:34and very creative and I get along with him very well.
06:38And so I'm more intimidated by not wanting to let him down
06:45than it is like, you know,
06:47he's such a wonderful collaborator.
06:49And what I loved about working with Pete
06:51on this particular film is that he allowed me the space
06:55for me to bring myself to the project, you know,
06:58like he didn't come to me and say,
07:03I want to do another Inside Out movie
07:05and I'm thinking it should be about A, B and C
07:08and it should progress from here to here to here,
07:12go direct it and try to make that movie.
07:15He was more like,
07:16I think there's potential for another story here
07:18and I think you'd be a good person
07:20to go off and think of an idea.
07:22So he allowed me the space to bring my ideas
07:27and who I am personally as a human being to the movie.
07:31So I really felt it like it was,
07:33I treated it like it wasn't original, you know,
07:36that it wasn't the, I knew it was a sequel,
07:39but I was gonna approach it with an original mindset
07:43and Pete allowed me to do that.
07:46Yeah, that's what it feels like.
07:47You took it to a whole different level
07:49as I mentioned here.
07:51And now what do you bring from your own life
07:53when you're doing something like this?
07:55You have kids, you know, and look at them,
07:58you get inspiration from that
08:00or does it suddenly dawn on you that your kid has anxiety?
08:03There's the one, okay, we'll do that.
08:06Yeah, I mean, well, I mean,
08:08it's an emotion that we all have at different levels,
08:10you know what I mean?
08:11Like it's different for everybody
08:15and I do have two teenagers in my house, a boy and a girl.
08:20And all you're doing is pulling from your own experience
08:25and that includes yourself,
08:26but also the people that you're with.
08:28And so you end up talking a lot about your family
08:31and your friends and the people in your life
08:35and you try to put that up on the screen.
08:38The scene we just watched,
08:41there's a lot of me in that scene.
08:44I think a lot of people can relate to that moment
08:49of when your head hits the pillow at night
08:53and your mind is supposed to quiet down,
08:56but it does the opposite.
08:58It gets really busy and you can't,
09:02you're just thinking about the next day.
09:04And boy, as a director of a feature film,
09:08there's a lot to think about
09:09when your head hits the pillow.
09:11You know, you got a lot of things going on
09:14and there's a lot of things
09:15that are gonna happen the next day.
09:16You're wondering like, okay, am I ready for that?
09:18Do I have that ready?
09:20What could go wrong?
09:21I gotta make sure I practice that.
09:22I should get up, maybe I should get up early.
09:25So many people can relate to it.
09:26And it came from me talking about that feeling
09:30of when your head hits the pillow
09:32and you can't go to sleep because your mind gets so busy.
09:35And that idea came pretty early on
09:40about anxiety coming in and doing these like projections
09:45as to what's gonna happen tomorrow.
09:48And I remember talking with Meg LeFauve.
09:52We have two writers, Dave Holstein
09:54and Meg LeFauve.
09:55And Meg was first on the project.
09:59She was one of the writers on the original project.
10:01And I can't remember who had the idea,
10:05but we thought it'd be really interesting
10:06to take the power of imagination land
10:09and use it against Riley
10:12and kind of use it for quote unquote, negative reasons.
10:17And cause there takes a lot of creativity
10:20to think about what could go wrong tomorrow.
10:23But it's all in service of trying to help Riley
10:28and trying to think of what could go wrong
10:30and how could we avoid them.
10:33And so I really identify personally with the scene
10:37cause I've had a lot of sleepless nights,
10:40not only in my life, but even on this film,
10:42because there's a lot to juggle
10:44when you're making a big giant film like this
10:46with 500 people.
10:48Yeah, you talk about a big giant film.
10:50It's become the most giant film in the history of Pixar,
10:54which is saying a lot, it's eclipsed all of that.
10:58But when you're taking on a project like this,
11:01you're not thinking about that.
11:03Like you say, you're just wanting to tell the story
11:07and that's what you're doing this, right?
11:10Yeah, you're just trying to tell the best story possible.
11:15You have thoughts come in your head,
11:17which is like, what if everyone's gonna hate this?
11:19And what if it doesn't do well?
11:20What if no one goes to the theater?
11:22What if you lose your anxiety again, Kelsey?
11:25Yeah, yeah, completely.
11:28And now that I'm thinking about how the film did,
11:31it's almost like joy needs to come in and go,
11:34or what if it crushes it on opening weekend
11:39and it continues to go up and up in the box office
11:42and does great all over the world
11:44and becomes the top animated film of all time.
11:48It almost feels like that's what joy is doing
11:51in that moment, but I did not think that
11:54at the time of making it whatsoever.
11:58But you kinda do need to make room
12:01for those positive thoughts of what could go right.
12:08Can you talk about visually how you created this?
12:11The visual look, 2.39 aspect ratio.
12:16Oh, aspect ratio?
12:18Yeah, aspect ratio.
12:20Separating the real world from the world inside her head
12:25and making that seamless for the viewer.
12:29Yeah, yeah, that's where we have the benefit
12:33of the first film where they have established a look
12:37between the inside and the outside of the mind.
12:40And they completely leaned into that
12:42where if you look at the outside,
12:45things are a little bit more tactile and real
12:50and a little more like scuff and dirtiness to it.
12:54And inside has a cleaner look to it.
12:57It's a little more stylized.
12:59It's almost like the outside is closer to our world
13:03and the inside kinda has a whimsical,
13:06like it's a small world Disneyland kind of feel
13:12or has the feeling of like an Apple store.
13:15It kinda has that kind of, it's a little cleaner.
13:19It's a little bit cleaner.
13:21We wanted to dirty that up a little bit more
13:23with this particular film.
13:26And you kinda mentioned it earlier of like,
13:29you were talking about earlier
13:30about having an original mindset versus just doing a sequel.
13:35And actually I can connect this
13:36to Monsters University a little bit
13:39where I was working with Dan Scanlon
13:42who directed Monsters University.
13:44And he gave me some advice when I was starting this film.
13:49He said, one thing I've learned
13:51from doing Monsters University is
13:55I answered a lot of questions by saying,
13:59oh, what did the first film do?
14:01And he gave the example of the film aspect ratio.
14:05And they asked him that question,
14:07what aspect ratio do you want?
14:09And he's like, oh, what did the first film do?
14:12And they're like, oh, it was 185.
14:14And he's like, okay, well then just do that.
14:16He realized in hindsight,
14:18I should have paused for a second
14:21and thought what does this particular story need
14:24in order to tell a story the best way?
14:28And I tell you, that's my advice, pause.
14:31And so they asked me that, what aspect ratio do you want?
14:35And I almost was gonna go, what did the other film do?
14:37But I went, wait, no, pause and think about it.
14:41What does this film need?
14:42And the first film was 185 a little bit,
14:46not as widescreen.
14:47And I thought Riley's going through changes
14:49and she's going through puberty
14:51and her world is literally expanding.
14:53She's getting more emotions.
14:55And so I thought, oh, it'd be really cool
14:57if the aspect ratio changes along with that.
15:00So I went to Pete and I said, hey, I've got an idea.
15:05The first film was 185, what if this one's 239?
15:08And I even mocked up some examples
15:10of what it could look like.
15:12And I think this would be really cool to kind of open it up.
15:16And it also was a practical thing
15:19because the console got longer
15:22like at the end of the first film.
15:25And I'm like, I'm gonna have more emotions.
15:27I literally need more room width wise to fit everybody.
15:32And we kind of showed them,
15:34the proof was in the pudding when we showed the images,
15:36like, look how much better this is.
15:38Not only is it good for the story,
15:40but it actually looks better visually.
15:44And so he was like, that's awesome, go for it.
15:47In the inside out world,
15:48I know there's no studio in their right mind
15:51that wouldn't want to continue on with this now franchise
15:55that has made a mark around the globe,
15:59not just as entertainment,
16:01but also in psychological realms and dealing with our kids
16:05and dealing with all kinds of things
16:08beyond just the entertainment of a movie.
16:11Congratulations again on everything
16:14that this film's received,
16:15including an Academy Award nomination
16:18and have fun at the Oscars, man.
16:21Thanks Keith, thank you so much.
16:22It's so lovely to talk to you.