Pete Docter famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

It's like you run into this dark tunnel, trusting that somewhere there's another end to it where you're going to come out. And there's a point in the middle where it's just dark. There's no light from where you came in and there's no light at the other end; all you can do is keep running. And then you start to see a little light, and a little more light, and then, bam! You're out in the sun.
-- Pete Docter

#Running #Dark #Light
Toy Story we found, sorta by accident, because we didnt know what we were doing, the idea of being replaced by somebody. Everybody has that fear, or encounters this jealousy at some point.
-- Pete Docter

#Ideas #Toys #Encounters
The drive of the story is sort of hinted at the beginning, is Joy and Sadness and those two characters. Especially Joy starting to understand that there's more to life than being happy. And so that's based on real life observations and things that we've learned as adults.
-- Pete Docter

#Real #Character #Sadness
When I was in middle school, I liked to make cartoons.
-- Pete Docter

#School #Cartoon #Middle School
In the end, passion and hard work beats out natural talent
-- Pete Docter

#Hard Work #Passion #Talent
You know there's always that kid in your class â€” and every class has one â€” the kid who draws all the time and is really good? That was not me. I was a lousy draftsman. But as soon as I figured out that I could make things come alive, like using the corners of my math book to make flipbooks, I was hooked.
-- Pete Docter

#Book #Kids #Math
Any great movie you watch has some element of darkness or loss or some suffering in it. That's what makes the fun parts fun.
-- Pete Docter

#Fun #Loss #Darkness
If you were feeling sad right now and you recall a sad - or, a very happy memory from the past, it will be tinged with more sadness based on your current feeling. So we felt like that was actually on solid scientific ground .
-- Pete Docter

#Memories #Sadness #Past
You have to think about good storytelling and characters first. Then hopefully, the rest of that stuff will follow, some more than others. But if you don't have a good film and strong characters, then you don't have anything down the road.
-- Pete Docter

#Strong #Character #Thinking
They're expecting us to make mistakes, and they've set up a process that allows us to correct for that and do it again and iterate. So I think that's a real key to the films that we've made.
-- Pete Docter

#Real #Mistake #Thinking
Sometimes suffering is a weird attraction.
-- Pete Docter

#Suffering #Sometimes #Attraction
It's, like, you know, if you're sad, it's a way of connecting with other people. And we - a lot of times we sort of feel embarrassed by being sad, and we go off by ourselves to hide and cry by ourselves. But, really, it's a way of re-establishing relationship.
-- Pete Docter

#People #Being Sad #Way
People are funny -- they are able to project personality onto anything. I remember as a kid I spent a $ 5 bill once and felt so bad because the other $ 5 bill was now going to be lonely without all the other bills I had in my wallet, you just invest these dead things with life and that is our tendency as people. So animation takes advantage of that, grabs on to it, and runs with it.
-- Pete Docter

#Life #Running #Lonely
And it sort of hit me that the very subject matter of the film that I'm dealing with is the key to the most important thing in our lives, and that's our relationships. And so we had done all this research showing the job of each individual emotion, you know, fear keeps you safe. It deals with uncertainty.
-- Pete Docter

#Jobs #Keys #Important
There's something really emotional about not having any sound. That allows, I think, the audience to participate more actively and kind of imagine what are they talking about there?
-- Pete Docter

#Emotional #Thinking #Talking
And in part that's good but then, like any emotion - and this is something we learned from the research as well - there are positive and negative aspects to all of these.
-- Pete Docter

#Negative #Research #Emotion
And usually I'm not watching the screen. I'm kind of sitting and looking off to the side, spying on people to see what they react to' cause it's - as Joe Ranft used to say, you know, animation is like telling a joke and waiting for three years to see if anyone laughs
-- Pete Docter

#Years #People #Laughing
Well, what if we did this in the mind as opposed to the brain? So instead of blood vessels and dendrites, what if it was consciousness and dream production? And that would allow us to have characters that represent emotions. And that felt like, man, that's exactly what animation does best - strong, opinionated, caricatured personalities. And that just got me excited.
-- Pete Docter

#Dream #Strong #Character
Well, what we do is we have a script, of course. But for us, writing is also like storyboarding. It's drawing. And so we will cut all of those drawings together with music, sound effects and dialogue. And we screen this kind of stick-figure version of the film.
-- Pete Docter

#Writing #Cutting #Drawing
Every time you recall a memory, you're basically making another copy of it and at that same point it is susceptible to new changes and adaptations. So, you know, if you remember from when you were, you know, in second grade and there was Christmas and you got a present from your grandfather and your mom was wearing a red dress, that may or may not all have happened.
-- Pete Docter

#Mom #Memories #Grandfather
And as I was sort of doodling, I was thinking, surprise and fear - probably fairly similar so let's just lose surprise. And that left us with five.
-- Pete Docter

#Thinking #Doodling #Surprise
But the truth is, at some point, our films - almost every single one of them - are really bad. And it's largely hats off to John Lasseter and Ed Catmull who have set up a system whereby they're expecting it.
-- Pete Docter

#Hats #Film #Truth Is
Dr. Paul Ekman, who worked in San Francisco - still does - which is where Pixar Animation Studios is, he had early in his career identified six. That felt like a nice, manageable number of guys to design and write for. It was anger, fear, sadness, disgust, joy and surprise.
-- Pete Docter

#Nice #Sadness #Writing
So we can sit with Lee Unkrich and Andrew Stanton, and all the other folks and experience what the film is going to be like. And then we go away into a room, and we talk about what worked and what didn't. And then we take all of those findings and we do that whole process again.
-- Pete Docter

#Going Away #Rooms #Film
One of the other experts we consulted with, this guy named Dacher Keltner, he was big on sadness as community bonding - I think is the word he used.
-- Pete Docter

#Sadness #Thinking #Community
And it's about a three-month process every screening. And that way we have seven or eight chances at the film before we have to actually build the models, build the sets, do the animation and all of that. So it's a - I think that's a real key to the way we make films.
-- Pete Docter

#Real #Thinking #Keys

You may also like:

Amy Poehler
Actress
Andrew Stanton
Film director
Bill Hader
Actor
Billy Crystal
Actor
Brad Bird
Screenwriter
Christopher Plummer
Theatre actor
Ed Asner
Voice Actor
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Writer
John Goodman
Actor
John Lasseter
Animator
John Ratzenberger
Actor
Lee Unkrich
Film director
Lewis Black
Comedian
Michael Giacchino
Film Score Composer
Mindy Kaling
Actress
Phyllis Smith
Actress
Richard Kind
Actor
Steve Buscemi
Actor
Taylor Kitsch
Actor
Willem Dafoe
Voice Actor