Pete Docter: Pixar's Soul Man

Pete Docter: Pixar’s Soul Man

A director is an extremely pivotal job when it comes to making movies. Once they read the screenplay for the film, they have to visualize the story and share their vision with the rest of the film crew, as well as the cast. They also have to make sure the cast and crew has a clear enough understanding of that vision, guide them every step of the way as they make it, and make doubly sure that their vision comes together and looks believable on screen. They are also heavily involved with hiring: both actors to be in their movies and a crew to make it happen. In today’s blog, I’d like to tell you about someone who has been an employee at Pixar for several years. He has directed three of Pixar’s best movies, has a fourth film set to come out this December, and is the current Chief Creative Officer at Pixar, Pete Docter!

Pete Docter was born in October 9th, 1968, in Bloomington, Minnesota. His father, Dave, was a choral director at Normandale Community College and his mother was a music teacher, and ironically they both had doctorates in education so they were both known as Dr. Docter! Growing up with two sisters, young Pete Docter was shy and didn’t have many friends. He usually preferred working by himself, and taught himself how to make flip books and homemade animated shorts with his family’s movie camera. Although his sisters, Kristen and Kari, were professional string musicians,, Pete felt that animation was his true calling (though he did go on to be an exceptional double bass player).

After graduating John F. Kennedy High School, he transferred to the University of Minnesota where he studied philosophy, though created art in his spare time. He spent close to a year there before he transferred to CalArts (California Institute of the Arts), where he produced a short film called “Next Door,” which won a Student Academy Award. He graduated CalArts in 1990, and had hoped to work for the Walt Disney Company, but instead received a good offer from a relatively new company called Pixar. He was the company’s tenth employee, and his very first assignment was as a screenwriter and head animator on Toy Story (1995). The character of Buzz Lightyear is actually partially based on Pete Docter. In developing the character, he made facial gestures with a mirror he had at his desk at Pixar to create Buzz.

Docter was also an Additional Storyboard Artist on A Bug’s Life (1998) and wrote the Story for Toy Story 2 (1999). These two films led to his first directing assignment, when he was assigned to direct Monsters, Inc. (2001). The idea for the film was actually hatched over lunch among Docter, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and the late Joe Ranft while “Toy Story,” was still in production. He also co-wrote the film with five other writers, and played double bass on the film’s original score soundtrack. The film was a huge hit and received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Animated Feature Film—the first year the Best Animated Feature Film Category was awarded at the Oscars. Although “Monsters, Inc.,” lost to Dreamworks’s Shrek (2001), “Monsters, Inc.,” did win the Oscar for Best Original Song: “If I Didn’t Have You.”

After “Monsters, Inc.,” Docter wrote and directed the short film Mike’s New Car (2002) featuring the characters from the film. He also directed the English dub version of the Disney/Studio Ghibli film Howl’s Moving Castle (2005). His next writing/directing assignment at Pixar was Up (2009). In addition to writing and directing that film, Docter also provided the voices of Kevin the bird and Campmaster Strauch, as well as double bass on the film’s original soundtrack. The character of Carl Fredricksen’s wife Ellie, as a child, is both based on and voiced by Pete Docter’s real-life daughter, Elizabeth “Elie” Docter. “Up,” was a huge hit, winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar while also becoming the very first Disney/Pixar film ever to receive an Oscar Nomination for Best Motion Picture.

After “Up,” Docter served as a creative consultant for The Muppets (2011) which was his very first official assignment only for Disney. This assignment was special for him because he had grown up on “The Muppets,” as a child. It was also around this time, that he began noticing changes in his daughter Elie. Elie had grown up a very kind, tender-hearted girl who would go as far as to say “Hi, I’m Elie! What’s your name?” to a complete stranger. When Elie turned 11 years old, however, Pete explained in an interview that “Elie’s childhood joy took a vacation,” as she was developing into a teenager at the time. Ultimately, it was the basis for his third directorial project at Pixar, Inside Out (2015). When he wrote the story for this film, he combined Ellie’s development along with sad memories of his own childhood, and he provided the voice of Riley’s father, Bill’s Anger. It was his second Best Animated Feature Oscar.

Pete Docter’s next directorial film for Disney and Pixar is Soul to available to stream on Disney+ on December 25th, 2020. He co-wrote the film with Kemp Powers and Mike Jones. The film will tell the story of an African-American musician named Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) who has lost his passion for music and loses his soul as a result. His soul has to find its way back, and help Joe learn about himself along the way. Tina Fey will also be lending her voice to the film, and she contributed to the film’s script as well. In a recent interview with IGN, Docter, Powers, and producer Dana Murray, all explained the inspiring themes about the movie. Docter explained how it acknowledges “Where do we come from? Why are we here? We (at Pixar) are totally passionate people,” “We get to pour our everything into what we do and yet is that really the best use of what we have? I mean, what are we here for. It gets into some deep stuff.” Powers said that “We’re trying to tell a story where a character quite literally gets to explore that, what he was put on this Earth to do.” Murray also explained “The idea started when Pete’s son was born and seconds after he was in the world, he looked at him and he was already there, like who he was, his personality. And I think the ultimate question was like, how does that happen?”

Pete Docter is a genius when it comes to making animated movies. He has an incredibly unique understanding of human emotion and behavior. His films continue to endure today because they are about cartoon characters who look after/protect children in parental ways: Mike and Sulley protecting Boo in “Monsters, Inc.,” Carl protecting Russell in “Up,” and the five emotions (Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger) guiding Riley in “Inside Out.” His next offering looks to be another in a long line of Pete Docter successes.