I guess what I was going for...
One of the psychologists
we talked to, Dacher Keltner,
he pointed out the vagus nerve,
which is in your chest.
And it's that warm, rich feeling
when you really love someone
or something good happens,
you have this blooming feeling
from your chest.
And I think that's what
I was going for with that tone.
That when Sadness,
even though it's counterintuitive
'cause Sadness
doesn't really usually feel like that.
Finally, after all this time
of holding her back
we're finally gonna allow her forward.
And then that's the last sound
that we hear before it all drops out,
and we just have the silence of Riley
talking to her parents,
and admitting finally that she's sad.
Which is something Joy would
never wanna do, prior to this journey.
And it's ultimately
what brings them together.
DEL CARMEN:
There's a lot of orchestration
about memories
that we had been trying to find
ways to loop back in.
DOCTER: Mmm-hmm.
DEL CARMEN: This blue memory,
I remember, from the very beginning
the story guys were like, "Well,
it went to the dump, you recover it.
- "Shouldn't you bring it back?"
- DOCTER: Mmm-hmm.
DEL CARMEN: I was like, "Yeah."
We have so many memories to track.
Where is... What? Where...
But it now becomes
emotionally satisfying
that that was where
all of these problems began for Joy.
Now she's willing
to give it back to Sadness.
DOCTER: Yeah, I also felt like
the Core Memories were for Riley,
this one was for Sadness.
DEL CARMEN: For Sadness.
DOCTER: It's like a little offering for her.
I love that this whole ending reverses
the sort of usual loud action thing
that usually,
traditionally happens in movies.
You build, build, build to this big climax,
and here we've pulled back,
and it's just the quietness
and the sadness of Riley
that's able to complete the whole thing.
DEL CARMEN: And also,
if you notice, this is a bookend,
wherein we began the movie with Joy,
and then Sadness comes in,
the fly in the ointment, as Pete had said.
And then here, at the resolve,
we have Joy and Sadness,
but they are actually
embracing each other.
DOCTER: (CHUCKLES) Yeah.
We had a lot of different ideas for
different islands that could be out there.
Somehow it seemed funnier
to just hear their names
than to go for close-ups or anything.
The new console
was meant to symbolize
the complexity of adult emotions.
I don't think this is really true
but our experience of it
is that children have very pure,
simple emotions.
Probably very loud ones too.
And as adults they become
much more complex and nuanced.
So the console
was symbolizing all of that.
DEL CARMEN: Yes, and confusing.
- Look at those buttons.
- DOCTER: Yeah.
Of course, after the dinner scene played
so well in some of our early screenings,
here at work there was a desire
for callbacks from Mom and Dad.
So we have the face painting.
We can sense that things
are gonna work out all right.
Mom's not gonna go off with
the Brazilian helicopter pilot after all.
And then I don't remember
who came up with the boy thing.
Was it Josh, was it you?
DEL CARMEN: Oh, probably was Josh.
- I don't remember.
- DOCTER: Anyway, that...
After this sort of melancholy, sweet,
wonderful, sad moment,
this is a way to kind of bring
some energy back in
and leave on an uptick.
DEL CARMEN: (LAUGHS)
And great acting on Riley.
DOCTER: Yeah.
DEL CARMEN: I love it.
DOCTER: And then
we also really wanted to show,
even though the primary relationship in
the film was between Joy and Sadness,
we wanted to demonstrate
to the audience
that all of the emotions are now
involved in a very sort of team-like way.
So from one to the other,
we switch off back and forth
in this one shot here,
watching Riley play hockey.
And then this last shot, we go
from a very close-up here on Riley
all the way to a wide shot.
(CHUCKLES) And I love that
even after this whole journey,
Joy, after everything she learned,
she ends the film
with essentially the same thing
she said at the beginning.
Which, "What could happen?"
She's an eternally optimistic character.
Kind of clueless, but that's the way...
DEL CARMEN: That's
the way we all are.
DOCTER: That's the way Joy is.
DEL CARMEN: We move forward
hoping for the best.
(DOCTER CHUCKLES)
DOCTER: The credits here, we added
to address a concern
that a lot of folks had,
that the movie was too sad.
(CHUCKLES)
Which not everybody agreed with,
but I can't disagree that this whole
ending really brings a lot of humor
and people love it.
So it was a fun chance to play
with one of these great ideas
that the film offered up.
Which is, "What's going on
inside people's heads?"
So this is our chance
to have some fun with that.
- And meet random people.
- DEL CARMEN: Yes, exactly.
And actually, very early in the process
we had experimented
going inside a baby's head.
DOCTER: Yes.
DEL CARMEN: Inside a dog's head.
- And a goldfish's head.
- DOCTER: Goldfish's, yeah.
DEL CARMEN: And we can't fit it in!
We didn't know...
It was so funny.
How about a credit sequence?
It's like, "Oh, I don't know. Wait...
- "We can use it there."
- DOCTER: Yeah.
In the end, I'm proud of this movie
and the statement that it makes.
That in a world where
we try to generally avoid sadness,
we see sadness as a bad thing,
we even medicate it,
people will take drugs
to avoid feeling sad,
this movie asserts
the necessity of sadness
and the importance
that it plays in our lives,
and the richness that it brings.
And I think as an adult, especially,
you tend to experience
all these different emotions
that you initially tried to avoid.
Because they add a richness to your life
and a real warmth
and complexity to things.
DEL CARMEN: Ah! I'm so happy
to have been on this movie.
Because I learned so much
about emotions.
But not only that...
This is one of the most complex
and most difficult movies
I have ever worked on.
DOCTER: Yeah, me too.
I don't think, Ronnie, I don't think we
would have been able to do this movie
even like five years prior.
DEL CARMEN: Oh, goodness me, no.
DOCTER: It just took every ounce
of our training and...
DEL CARMEN: Experience.
DOCTER: (LAUGHS) Yeah.
DEL CARMEN: Patience.
DOCTER: Yes.
DEL CARMEN:
Climbing tepuis is much easier.
- (CHUCKLES)
- DOCTER: (LAUGHS) That's true.
That's true, yeah. We got to explore
the world out there on Up,
and then we went inside on this one
and it was quite a journey.
DEL CARMEN: It was, yes.
But I'm so happy and so grateful
to be part of it.
DOCTER: Me too.
I think working with everybody,
I mean, it's been a fantastic journey.
And everyone on the film, from the story
crew, all the way down to rendering,
was wonderful.
I think the film fundamentally
changed me in a lot of ways.
The experience of the film itself
is of course really...
It always ends up
having an effect on you.
But just doing the research
and thinking day after day
about our emotions
and what's driving us,
and what's going on under the hood,
I think it really
made me think more deeply
about the way I interact with people
and what's going on in their heads.
And, like, a lot of times you think,
"Man, this guy's such a jerk."
Or so mean or whatever.
And likely he's not.
They're not trying to do that.
It's their emotions
and this whole other system
that is unconsciously,
below their even conscious control,
it's kind of driving them through life.
And they're just doing the best they can
based on what they have.
And in the long run,
I think the thing that really
affected me was this idea
that emotions
are the key to relationships.
That those things
that we sometimes try to avoid,
anger, fear, disgust, whatever,
are ultimately the very thing
that make for the deepest relationships
in our lives.
And I feel like that's the basic thesis
of the film and the statement of the film.
And it's pretty powerful.
DEL CARMEN:
I'm so glad you thought of it.
DOCTER: (LAUGHS) Well. It wasn't me.
It was a big crew, so it was...
Anyway, we're sort of rambling here,
so I think we're probably done.