“Seize your moment” is one of the key mottos within Pixar’s next film, Coco, but it could easily be applied to the team that brought the movie to life. Most of Pixar’s previous films have been very American stories starring toys, bugs, superheroes, and robots. Coco is a Mexican story, but its themes and characters are universal. It’s about a young boy named Miguel, and his dreams of becoming a musician in a family that despises music. Miguel’s quest to achieve that goal leads him to uncover a family secret that will ultimately send him into the Land of the Dead. But returning from the afterlife may be easier for Miguel than winning the acceptance of the family that he loves.
IGN recently visited Pixar’s headquarters in Emeryville, California for a crash course in everything Coco. Several members of the media were invited to take part in the two-day presentation that broke down the film’s inspirations, story, characters, and the lengths that the story and animation teams went through to get every detail absolutely right.
Adrian Molina played a major role in bringing Coco together, after he was promoted to co-director alongside Lee Unkrich. “It was really important for us to dig into the research and really put the time into it because we knew that Coco shouldn’t just be a film that takes on Dia de los Muertos,” said Molina. “We wanted the themes and the meanings of Dia de los Muertos to be a part of the story. The foundation or the structure of the journey.”
Family is at the very heart of the story, as Miguel struggles to relate to his relatives while they stifle his ambitions and attempt to bring him into the family shoemaking business against his will. Pixar screened a rough cut of the film’s first act, which set up Miguel’s conflict with his family, as well as the legend of the late Ernesto de la Cruz, a musician whom Miguel idolizes.
“With Miguel, we always knew that he would be moved by a deep passion to play music,” said Molina. “As artists here at Pixar, we all kind of intuitively get how to be passionate about art or music. I feel that everyday. So it was something that we all agreed on, that we wanted to convey. But it’s a different thing to feel it than to create a scene that makes someone else feel it.”
“We knew that Miguel needed to do some pretty crazy stuff over the course of this film,” continued Molina. “He needed to run away from his family, he needed to break into a tomb, he needed to risk his life to pursue this dream. And in order to buy that it was worth doing, we needed to buy that music was the air that he breathes.”
The solution that the team arrived at came in the form of an ofrenda. While the family creates an ofrenda for the relatives that have passed on, Miguel creates an ofrenda dedicated to de la Cruz’s career in his own secret space where he could play music without his family catching him. More importantly, the creative team decided that Miguel didn’t need to say what he felt. Instead, they let his music do the talking.
“We thought ‘let’s not have Miguel say what he wants. Let’s let the guitar be the voice of Miguel’s passion for music and his longing for connection,’” related Molina. “‘And let’s let Ernesto de la Cruz be the support in this duet, and let him give voice to this passion for music and see if this communion across the void can work.” By inventing clips of de la Cruz’s movies and interviews, the creators were able to let him to “speak” to Miguel without actually talking to him.
When I say that Pixar schooled us about everything that went into Coco, that is not an exaggeration. Part of that education included a nearly hour-long presentation by the senior animators as they explained the challenges that came with creating the skeleton characters who inhabit the Land of the Dead. Apparently, it’s very difficult to get skeletons to emote and show personality. Those details will probably fly past the audience, but the onscreen illusion wouldn’t have worked without that level of preparation and insight.
One of the things that we can’t quite talk about yet is the Land of the Dead itself. Several production paintings of the Land of the Dead’s buildings were on display, and it may be considered a spoiler if the details are fully spelled out. We didn’t see enough footage to know how much of that will be apparent on the big screen, but the initial reveal of the Land of the Dead was definitely a breathtaking moment. It’s one of the most jaw-dropping visuals in Pixar’s history, and that was just scratching the surface of it.
The level of forethought that went into making this film was impressive, but Pixar also went through great effort to ensure that the Mexican culture was treated accurately and with respect. As Unkirch explained it, every screening of the film in its earliest stages was shown to their team of cultural consultants from the Latino community around the country to get their input and notes. Additionally, the Pixar team took several trips to Mexico to immerse themselves in the culture and the music of that country and its people.
When Coco hits theaters on November 22, we’ll see how those efforts paid off. But if the early look at the film is any indication, it may be one of Pixar’s best movies to date.
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