The Making of Monsters, Inc
Cast
Sully is voiced by John Goodman. John was chosen by Pete Docter, the director, because he thought that John was the embodiment of Sulley, a warm and loveable monster.
Mike is voiced by Billy Crystal. Billy jumped at the chance to voice Mike because he had been offered the role of voicing Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story film, but foolishly turned the role down. Billy regretted this decision as soon as he saw Toy Story and from then on he knew he would accept any role Pixar was offering. Billy has gone on to say that Mike is his most favourite character he’s ever played.
When Billy was brought in to voice Mike he wanted to do a lot of improvising, put his own spin on the character but he couldn’t do that because John had already voiced his lines so they asked John back to see if they could voice their lines together and because Johns such a lovely guy he agreed. Personally, I think this should be done more because in the cases where actors have worked together, you always get more witty dialogue, like Timon and Pumbaa.
Boo is voiced by Mary Gibbs. Mary’s father worked at Pixar, he was a storyboard artist for Monsters, Inc and one day they were looking for a child who could come in and the animators could draw and have some voice work done. Marys father, Rob, suggested his 2 year old daughter Mary. She came in with pig tails and the animators drew her to get an idea of what the child could look like and sound like. In most cases the actor or actress coming in to be referenced wouldn’t be picked up but this time it stuck. Mary was very comfortable seeing as this was her dads work and work colleagues. To get the voice recordings of Mary they followed her around the sound studio and recorded just any sounds she made. To get her to chat they showed her different puppets.
Later when they were making” Inside Out” Pixar used Mary’s voice for the scenes when Riley’s really young.
Randall is voiced by Steve Buscemi.
Waternoose is voiced by James Coburn.
Celia is voiced by Jennifer Tilly.
Roz is voiced by Bob Peterson, yes the female Roz is voiced by the male Bob Peterson who is a Pixar employee.
Yeti is voiced by John Ratzenberger. John has voiced a character in every single Pixar film ever released because he is Pixar’s good luck charm. He’s voiced Hamm in the Toy Story films, Underminer in The Incredibles, John in Wall-E and so on.
Fungus, Randal’s sidekick, is voiced by Frank Oz. Frank is a very successful voice actors having voiced many favourite characters. He has voiced Yoda in the Star Wars movies, Miss Piggy from The Muppets and Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.
Needleman and Smitty, the two teenage monsters who are fan boys of Sulley are voiced by Daniel Gerson.
George Sanderson, the monster that gets shaved is voiced by Samuel Lord Black.
Film Development
Pete Docter came up with idea for the films because of the thought when you’re a child that there is a monster living in your closet. From there the idea grew into the film it is today.
When they were designing Mike and Sulley, Mike didn’t originally have arms and Sulley was shorter, had tentacles, and was more of a brown and mauve colour and his fur is long and straight. They decided very early that the tentacles weren’t a good idea because they noticed that audiences eyes were drawn to the tentacles too much and it was too distracting. It was also considered putting glasses on Sulley however Pixar artists know that audiences look at the eyes to better understand the character and if a barrier is there like glasses then audiences aren’t going to connect with him.
When it was decided that Sulley would be hairy, the team at Pixar needed to do a lot of research and try out lots of different tests to see if it was possible to make a realistic looking hairy monster. The team at Pixar made something called “The Hairball model” which is exactly what it sounds like. On computers they created a ball of hair and then they put it through different tests, like shaking it up and down. They wanted to see how the hair in the CGI programme would react. Then they made the hair wet to see how that would change the look and feel of the hair. They did this again and again using different kinds of hair, for example it might be dirty hair, long or short, made of different textures and so on. This process straightened out a lot of kinks, excuse my hairlarious pun.
Taking all the knowledge from the Hairball Model they applied their findings to creating Sulley. He went through similar tests but also more advanced tests, for example what would happen to the hair when Sulley is holding something, like Boo for example, or what would happen when he’s running or getting covered in snow. One of the tests was to create an assault course for Sulley in the computer where he comes into contact with different objects and saw how his body and his fur would react. There is a video of you tube called “Monsters, Inc. – CGI making of (2001)” and it showcases the creation of Sulley and his hair.
Creating the scene where Sulley is covered in snow was the hardest and lots of the people in special effects were pushing back saying this is impossible, however they didn’t give up and the scene is in the film exactly how they imagined it, if not better. So now if there’s ever a scene that seems impossible to do it’s referred to as “Yeti’s Cave”.
It wasn’t just Sulley that they needed to animate, it was hundreds of monsters. All of the creatures are individual and they’re made to look like they’re made out of different materials and have different textures. For example Sulley is really fluffy, Randal is scaly, Waternoose is made out of a hard bone material and they needed to translate this. A lot of background monsters were created when they used the Hair Ball simulation.
The events of 9/11 took place 60 days before the film was going to be released. Everyone at Pixar were thinking about the ones effected, of course, but they were also thinking about whether anyone would actually go and see their film, or any film in the aftermath of something like 9/11. Pixar understood the need for sensitivity and so because of 9/11 they changed one of the scenes in there film. Originally after Boo had been spotted at Harry Hausens and Mike and Sulley are on the run and Mike says “That couldn’t have gone any worse” the Sushi building behind them was going to blow up with a mushroom cloud, but they thought this might be too insensitive so instead the sushi restaurant is covered with a giant force field.
Easter Eggs
Normally with Pixar films whenever a new film is released like Monsters Inc, they will put Easter Eggs relating to their next film in the movie. The next movie after Monsters Inc is Finding Nemo. Did you spot anything fishy? Well if you look at the paintings on the wall behind the sushi cutting octopus chef you’ll see a painting of a clown fish. Coincidence? I think not.
In Boo’s room there are lots of Easter eggs. Another Finding Nemo related one is that Boo hands Sulley a Nemo cuddly toy along with a Jessie doll. There is also a Luxo ball on the floor.
When Mike and Sulley go to work they walk past a cafe called “Hidden City Cafe”. This is a reference to a real life cafe that could be found in California near Pixar’s headquarters and it was frequented several times by Pixar executives like Pete Docter. In fact Pete has said that the first idea for the name of the film was going to be “Hidden City”.
When Randall gets his comeuppance and is sent into the human world, he lands in a trailer, this is the same trailer we see in A Bugs Life. Next to this trailer is the Pizza Planet truck which has appeared in almost all of the Pixar films.
Release, Reception and Awards
One of the trailers to promote the release of this film saw Mike and Sulley playing charades. Sulley is trying to act out Harry Potter and Mike just has no idea. It’s a funny trailer.
As I’ve already mentioned, Monsters, Inc came out not long after 9/11 and although they had their fears that the timing was bad this didn’t stop people from coming to see the film and not only that but enjoying the film.
IMDB gives the film an 8.0 out of 10. What do you think of the film? Let me know in the comments bellow. Personally, this is one of my least favourite Pixar films. I just don’t like the concept or identify with monsters. However I think I’m in the minority and I’m okay with that.
The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “If I Didn’t Have You” which was written by Randy Newman, the same genius behind “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story.
The film has also won a BAFTA for Best Feature Film.
That covers everything about the Making of Monsters, Inc, come back on Monday 25th May for another blog.
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