Behind the Scenes {& Around the Campfire} with Director Peter Sohn & The Good Dinosaur Crew

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to preview the brand new Disney/Pixar movie that’s coming out on Thanksgiving- The Good Dinosaur. In just the 30 or so minutes of the film that I saw, I laughed hysterically and sobbed so hard I couldn’t see for a minute. It took me on an emotional roller coaster- and I haven’t even seen the whole film.

While I was in San Francisco at Pixar Headquarters {read more about Pixar HQ here}, I had the amazing opportunity to meet some of the talent behind the next big movie. In fact, one night we sat around the fireplace {the one with a hidden room behind it} eating s’mores with the Director Peter Sohn, Producer Denise Ream, Director of Photography– Lighting, Sharon Calahan and Supervising Technical Director Sanjay Bakshi. They told us all about the research trips they’d gone on to Wyoming to learn about the setting where The Good Dinosaur takes place.

While it could have been very intimidating listening to such talented artists talk about their experience making a Pixar film, it was instead like watching a group of best friends talk about their time at summer camp. They had gone on several research trips and came back with the stories to prove it, like the one where they dropped a GoPro camera in the river- and actually got it back!

The whole crew was so fun to listen to and so very down-to-earth, despite their amazing careers. Director Peter Sohn kept us laughing as we hung on every word! As someone who moved from a big city to a valley surrounded by mountains, I loved hearing New York raised Peter talk about his first impressions of the scenery:

Going out there, coming from New York I had never been to a place like this. The land masses were so graphic- these photos cannot capture it because everything was horizon to horizon.  It was so soul-enriching but at the same time I think the effect of that is because everything is so large it makes you feel tiny and so you start to have a weird kind of feeling of growth somehow where you get very inward. Wherever we would go, Sharon would have these little things that she would say like, ‘If you don’t like the weather wait ten minutes,’ and boy, that was true! That would really become something infected in me in terms of trying to make nature a character in our film.

On one of their trips, the crew was escorted by two cowgirls, Melissa and Ramsey {Ramsey happens to also be the name of one of the T-Rexes, and the character was very much inspired by the real-life Ramsey!}. Ramsey would go on trips for months with just her, her dog, and her horse, and she’d live on her own in Colorado for months on end. She was the perfect person to introduce the crew to the area, as she knew it’s ins and outs. Her and her dog fascinated the crew:

Everywhere we would go she would look to her horse’s ears and her dog. Like I grew up with a dog- but inside an apartment. I guess my dog is really not a dog. What I have is a piece of furniture ‘cause what she had was a real dog as wild and free as could be. We would be gone for hours walking along. That dog would zip right to her, make a little eye contact and zip off somewhere and we wouldn’t see the dog until 15 minutes later and then all this is like quiet, non-dialogue communication that she had with the animals around her.

At one point in their travels, life almost imitated art. A horse rolled onto one of the travelers, and almost broke her leg. When they realized that, they asked what they would have done. They were in an area with no cell reception, so they would have had a five hour hike with a broken leg to get to a car! In the movie, a large rock lands on Arlo’s leg, and after their experience with an almost-broken leg, they realized that in nature, something that small could kill you.

One thing was very clear after listening to the crew talk about their experience: a lot of work goes into every last detail of a Pixar movie. To us as viewers, the way that the grass moves in the wind or the way that a mountain slopes may seem like minor details- likely ones that we wouldn’t even notice. But that’s only because the crew did their job right- if they didn’t, the movie wouldn’t look right and it would be distracting.

The way that The Good Dinosaur is made, the scenery becomes not only a perfect setting for the story, but also a sort of character within it. From the raging, scary river to the rough terrain of the mountains, the setting definitely contributes to the emotion of the movie. As Producer Denise Ream said, the location of the mountains was so vast and spacious, even a dinosaur would feel tiny out there! Being able to experience that feeling for themselves is what really made the world of The Good Dinosaur so breathtaking.

The Good Dinosaur comes out on Thanksgiving Day, November 25th!