Inside Out



Inside Out is Pixar's fifteenth feature film. It is directed by Pete Docter and co-directed by Ronnie del Carmen, with Jonas Rivera as producer. It was released on June 19, 2015 in the United States, and July 24, 2015 in the United Kingdom.

Movie Title
When first announced at the 2011 D23 Expo, the film was presented under the working title of "The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside The Mind". In December 2012, Bleeding Cool published an article stating the name of Pete Docter's next film would be The Inside Out. On February 8, 2013, ComingSoon.net reported that the film’s title would be Inside Out. Disney/Pixar officially announced the title on Twitter on April 17, 2013 during Cinema Con.

Plot
A girl named Riley is born in Minneapolis and, in her mind, five personified emotions are created over time: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger. The emotions are charged with reacting to Riley's circumstances and forming her memories, which are housed in spheres that produce a certain color depending on the emotion of the memory. The most important memories, which are known as "the core memories," power five "islands" that each reflect a different aspect of Riley's personality: Family Island, Friendship Island, Hockey Island, Honesty Island, and Goofball Island.

Each emotion also has a defined purpose in Riley's life: Joy makes sure she is happy, Fear keeps her safe, Anger keeps her life fair and Disgust prevents her from being poisoned, both physically and socially. Sadness, however, doesn't believe she has a purpose in her mind, or that of the other emotions, and is constantly ignored as a result.

When Riley turns eleven, her family relocates to San Francisco after her father gets a new job. Joy tries to make the move a pleasant experience, but Sadness messes things up when she turns a happy memory into a sad one and and causes a core memory to fall out of the container it is housed in. Aware that memories can't be changed back once turned sad, Joy keeps Sadness occupied by having her memorize a stack of "mind manuals" all through the day and into the night.

On Riley's first day at her new school, Joy attempts to keep Sadness from touching anything by having her stand completely still inside a circle of chalk. But Sadness, who wants to know what it feels like to hold one of the memories ventures outside the circle and creates a new core memory after making Riley cry in front of her new classmates. Joy attempts to dispose of the new memory, but her struggle with Sadness leads to all the core memories being knocked out from their container. Before Joy can put them back, both she and Sadness are sent up a memory tube with the core memories and into the far reaches of Riley's mind.

As Joy and Sadness make their way through "Long-Term Memory," a labyrinth-like place where all of Riley's past memories are stored, they run into Riley's former imaginary friend Bing-Bong, who is desperate to reconnect with Riley via a memory of his song-powered imaginary wagon. When Bing-Bong discovers that his wagon has been dumped into "The Abyss," a pit where obsolete memories are erased, he breaks down in tears and is comforted by Sadness as Joy watches on in confusion. Meanwhile, back at "Headquarters," Anger, Disgust, and Fear attempt to take charge in the wake of Joy's absence. But Disgust accidentally instigates a confrontation with Riley's parents and causes Goofball Island to fall into the Abyss. The three soon realize that tampering with Riley's personality will cause it to slowly destroy itself with potentially disastrous results.

Joy, Sadness and Bing-Bong hatch a plan to ride the "train of thought" back to Headquarters and trek through the various parts of Riley's mind, unaware that Riley's life is slowly starting to crumble. She alienates both her parents and her Minnesota classmates, struggles in her new surroundings and quits hockey team after failing to do well in the first tryout. Anger, Disgust, and Fear reason that the only way to restore Riley's personality and keep the remaining islands from falling into the Abyss is to persuade her to run away to Minneapolis.

Later that night, as Riley sleeps, Joy, Sadness, and Bing-Bong arrive at the loading dock for the "Train of Thought" only to realize the train will not arrive until morning. In an attempt to jumpstart the train, the three infiltrate "Dream Productions," where Riley's dreams and nightmares are created, and infiltrate a dream created by Fear with a monstrous birthday clown who wakes Riley up. As Joy, Sadness, and Bing-Bong board the train of thought and make their way towards Headquarters, but Anger enacts the "backup plan" by persuading Riley to steal her mother's credit card and causes Honesty Island to crumble. With the train of thought destroyed, Joy, Sadness and Bing-Bong take refuge on Family Island only for the island to fall into the Abyss when Riley boards a waiting bus to Minnesota. The island plunges into the Abyss with Joy and Bing-Bong still on it while Sadness manages to escape in the nick of time.

Joy, in despair and on the verge of giving up, shifts through Riley's core memories and locates one in which Riley missed a shot in a hockey game and cost her team the win. Realizing that Sadness was the one who caused both her teammates and her parents to console her, Joy helps Bing-Bong find his rocket and attempts to jumpstart it only to realize it falls short every time. Bing-Bong, in a moment of self realization, starts the rocket again and jumps off before it flies away. As Joy looks over her shoulder, Bing-Bong thanks her for letting him be important one last time and fades away.

Joy emerges from the Abyss and finds Sadness, who has come to the conclusion that Riley is better off without her. Using various tools from their journey, Joy launches herself towards Sadness and grabs her before flying towards Headquarters, where Anger and Disgust work together to get them inside. Everyone then looks to Joy to save the situation, but she steps back and lets Sadness take control. Riley, now in control of her emotions, gets off the bus before it leaves the station and returns home to her parents, where she breaks down in tears after admitting she misses her old life. As her parents comfort her, Joy and Sadness create a new core memory that fully restores Riley's personality. With Riley now adapting to life in a new city and Sadness finally treated as an equal by her fellow emotions, everyone works together to help lead Riley to a happy life.

Voice Cast

 * Amy Poehler: Joy
 * Phyllis Smith: Sadness
 * Bill Hader: Fear
 * Lewis Black: Anger
 * Mindy Kaling: Disgust
 * Kaitlyn Dias: Riley Anderson
 * Diane Lane: Riley's mother
 * Kyle MacLachlan: Riley's father
 * Richard Kind: Bing Bong
 * Paris Van Dyke : Meg
 * Sherry Lynn: Mother's Joy
 * Lori Alan: Mother's Sadness
 * Laraine Newman : Mother's Fear
 * Pete Docter: Father's Anger
 * John Ratzenberger: Fritz
 * Josh Cooley: Jangles
 * Carlos Alazraqui: Brazilian helicopter pilot / Father's Fear
 * Paula Poundstone: Forgetter Paula
 * Bobby Moynihan: Forgetter Bobby
 * Paula Pell: Dream Director / Mother's Anger
 * Dave Goelz: Subconscious Guard Frank
 * Frank Oz: Subconscious Guard Dave
 * Flea: Mind Worker Cop Jake
 * Peter Sagal: Clown's Joy
 * Rashida Jones: Cool Girl's Emotions
 * Lola Cooley : Young Riley

Additional voices include Ronnie del Carmen, Mary Gibbs and Dawnn Lewis.

Production
Early reports at the time of D23 Expo 2011 indicated that Michael Arndt was working on the script. In April 2014 Arndt stated that he left the project in 2011. The final film credits Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley for writing.

Pixar first revealed the following information on the upcoming film at D23 Expo 2011: "From director Pete Docter comes an inventive new film that explores a world that everyone knows, but no one has seen: inside the human mind."

In an interview with Charlie Rose in early December 2011, John Lasseter revealed the film takes place in a girl's mind, and is about her emotions as characters. In June 2012, he made a similar statement to Bleeding Cool, and gave further details: "Pete [Docter] has this way of constantly trying to figure out something that we’re all familiar with in some way… he's constantly looking for these kinds of things. You look at people oftentimes and they do something to make you go "What are they thinking?" or it's like how a song gets stuck in your head and you just can’t get it out. Little quirky thing like this that we all do. Certain emotions just seem to take us over, anger or happiness, where you start giggling and laughing and you can’t stop. He thought "I want to take a look at that, explain that." His idea is that the emotions of this little girl are the characters and it takes place in the head of this little girl, and shows how they control things that go on. It's very, very clever and it's truly unlike anything you've ever seen, yet it explains things you've seen."

Docter said to have first pitched this project's idea in June 2009 and to have started work on it in 2009.

Inspiration
Docter said that when thinking about his next project following Up, one of his goals was to make a film that would be new and innovative animation-wise, while keeping with some of his previous themes.

Docter took inspiration from the personal experience of watching his daughter Elie as she grew up into adolescence. It was moving for him, as she seemed to have lost her childhood joy and became more withdrawn. The film stemmed from his reflection on these events, from his perspective as a parent and adult, and on his own experience of change. He said: "I thought I was making a film about my daughter, but the truth is, I’m more making a film about myself in relation to my daughter and understanding that. The film is told from a parent’s point of view, and being a parent, I just sort of slipped into that, I guess. It’s definitely made me think again about the way I grew up, my adolescence, and even on a day-to-day basis what I’m doing and why."

In their research, the team consulted psychologists and read scientific theories regarding the workings of the mind. The film's design was influenced by what they learned, such as the idea that memories are sent to long term memory during sleep. Much of their work was to simplify complex ideas to get a simple and comprehensible concept. Nevertheless, Docter says they are "approaching it from a poetic viewpoint. It’s not even trying to be scientific at all."

At one point, to fit with some scientific theories, the team considered having 27 emotion characters, but they found this to be too complex. The set of emotions in the final film is based on the six universal emotions as identified in works by Paul Ekman, with Surprise being omitted. The five emotions also correspond with the eight basic emotions defined by Robert Plutchik's theory, with Trust, Surprise and Anticipation missing. Docter said he would consider Surprise to be the main emotion missing, but felt it was somewhat redundant with their Fear character. Other emotions which were considered but not used include Pride and Trust.

Design
At the 2013 Siggraph convention, Pete Docter said the story was "one of the most challenging I've ever had to put together", because the film has to tell simultaneously what is happening to Riley and what is happening inside her mind.

Docter has insisted the film's setting is independent from the biological, physical reality of the brain, and that it is rather set in the mind, with a more metaphysical, abstract viewpoint.

Emotions, because of their nature, were made as strong, highly caricatured and distinctive characters, in a way Docter compared to the seven dwarfs from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. According to Docter, each emotion is based on a basic shape: Sadness on a teardrop, Joy on a star, Fear on a raw nerve, Anger on a fire brick and Disgust on a broccoli.

Continuing with the idea the mind is independent from reality, and in an effort to have emotions look the way one would feel them, emotions are not made of flesh and blood. As Docter says "They are made up of particles that actually move. Instead of being skin and solid, it is a massive collection of energy." Similarly, to animate them the team took a style with more stretching and exaggeration of movements than is usual for Pixar, closer to classic cartoon animation. Inspiration was taken from Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, as well as Milt Kahl and John Sibley.

Regarding how the genders of the emotions were chosen, the process was intuitive, according to Docter; he felt Anger was more masculine, while Sadness was more feminine. Casting was also an influence, notably for Disgust with Mindy Kaling. The main characters were made female also to reflect their location inside a girl's mind. Regarding the emotions of Riley's parents, he said: "We skewed them all male and all female for a quick read, because you have to understand where we are, which is a little phony but hopefully people don't mind!"

About the general design of Riley's mind, Docter said: "Jonas [Rivera] likes to joke that it looks like an Apple store meets It's A Small World. We wanted it to reflect what I think an 11 year-old girl would be interested in without being overly cutesy about it or clichéd. We cast a wide net and this is where we ended up."

Attached Short Film
Pixar's short film Lava will be attached to Inside Out.

Additionally, it has been reported a short set in the world of Inside Out and directed by Josh Cooley will be included with the Blu-ray release of the film.

Trivia
See Inside Out Trivia.