The Making of Coco
Cast
Anthony Gonzales plays Miguel Rivera, but that wasn’t always going to be the case. Coco is Pixar’s longest running film that was in the production stages. Pixar had been working on Coco since 2011 and in the beginning they brought in actors who they wanted to voice the roles. The voice actor for Miguel was chosen but he went through puberty while waiting to voice the character and so he was replaced by Anthony. However Pixar allowed the original voice actor Emilio Fuentes to voice a small line in the film.
Thanks to the actor changing we now have a singing Miguel. Originally he was only going to be play the guitar, but when they realised Anthony Gonzalez could sing, they made Miguel a singer. It was his beautiful singing voice that sealed the deal and got him the role.
Miguel’s last name is Rivera as a tribute to Jonas Rivera who worked on Pixar’s successful films Up and Inside Out.
Gael Garcia Bernal plays Héctor, in both the English and the Spanish version.
Benjamin Bratt plays Ernesto de la Cruz. This isn’t Benjamin’s first job voice acting, he has voiced Manny the camera man in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 1 and 2 and Eduardo and El Macho in Despicable 2. He also played Eric Matthews in Miss Congeniality.
Alanna Ubach plays Mamá Imelda. Alanna is best known for playing Serena in Legally Blonde, she’s won of Elle Wood’s best friends. She is actually reprising that role for Legally Blonde 3 which is coming soon.
Renee Victor plays Abuelita. Pueblito Guzmán is the woman Abuelita is based off. Pueblito was brought into the studio and asked to make different kinds of faces while photo and videos were taken. The animators examined the pictures and video in minute detail, seeing how a smile would change her face to how it could turn into a frown. It was harder to make Pueblito angry because she was having such a good time at Pixar but she managed it in the end.
Jamie Camil plays Papá and Sofia Espinosa plays Mamá
Alfonso Arau plays Papá Julio.
Herbert Siguenza plays Tio Oscar and Tio Felipe.
Gabriel Iglesias plays the clerk.
Lombardo Boyar plays Plaza Mariachi and Gustavo.
Ana Ofelia Murguia plays Mamá Coco.
Natalia Cordova-Buckley plays Frida Kahlo.
Selene Luna plays Tia Rosita.
Edward James Olmos plays Chicharrón, the old man who is forgotten by his family and takes the journey onward after death. Edward accepted the role of Chicharrón without truly knowing the story. He recorded his lines two years before the film aired and watched it just so he knew what to talk about during press release interviews and he was shocked at how beautiful and touching the film was. He became immensely proud to be part of the film
Development
Lee Unkrich was coming to the end of working on Toy Story 3 and he started thinking about what would come next. Lee was very interested in Dia de los Muertos, the festival in Mexico where relatives who had passed away, could come back to earth to see their family. The important sense of family in the film is what pushed him to make this film rather than other ideas he had.
Sound has come a long way in animation, there was a time when sound wasn’t possible and that was less than 100 years ago. Now with Coco, Pixar have taken sound to another level, what was once seen as impossible has now been accomplished by Pixar. When any character plays the guitar, the exact notes and chords that they play are the exact notes and chords that you hear in the film. It’s incredible! The animators filmed people playing guitars in real life so closely and slowed it down to study it and use it for the basis of their animation.
The film was originally going to be called “Dia de los Muertos”, obviously naming it after the Mexican holiday. All was fine until Pixar tried to trademark the phrase so they could create merchandise with the phrase on. People weren’t happy, specifically the Mexican American community. Disney and Pixar realised there mistake and changed the name of the film to “Coco”.
Research
Groups of animators and filmmakers working on Coco visited Mexico to learn as much about the place as they could. They went and studied the people, the architecture, the food, their traditions and the atmosphere. One place on their travels that really stood out to them was the Mexican City of Guanajuato which ended up being the animators main reference point when designing and building the land of the dead. They liked how the place was full of warm colours like yellow, orange and red and how the buildings were stacked up on top of one another over the hillsides.
Music
Michael Giacchino was brought back to Pixar to work on the music for the film. Michael has done the music for Up, Ratatouille, Inside Out, The Incredibles and much more so it’s clear to say he knows how to work with Pixar. However, for Coco, being that the film is set in Mexico the filmmakers wanted to make sure that they were showing off the music of Mexico so they brought in Mexican musicians Germaine Frances and Camilo Lara. Camilo was there practicially from the beginning introducing Pixar to the world of Mexican music, including Mariachi bands and Ranchera music.
The music was recorded in Mexico city with more than 50 musicians, a lot of which used native Mexican instruments.
Songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez, the married duo behind the wonders of Frozen are also behind Coco’s most favourable song “Remember Me”.
Promotion and Reception
To promote the release of “Coco”, Southwest Airlines transformed there Boeing 737-700 Airplane into an advert for Coco with the Coco title and two guitar crossing over. It is also covered with decorative yellow and red shapes.
Coco gained positive reviews worldwide, but the best reviews came from Mexico, where the film is set. Prior to Coco being released in 2017 The Avengers, which was released in 2012 held the number 1 spot for top-grossing film in Mexico, until Coco surpassed it. In Mexico Coco made over 827 million pesos, which is $43 million.
The film did so well it won two Academy Awards, one for Best Animated film and the second for Best Original song. It also won a Golden Globe for Best Animated Film.
Over in Brazil, the name of the film had to be changed due to the fact that “Coco” it could have been mistaken for the Portuguese word “Cocô” which means poop. Instead the film is titled “Viva”.
Easter Eggs
It isn’t just dead people who live in the land of the dead, it’s dead technology which is why you’ll see an old Macintosh computer and walkie talkie radios.
For the 19th film in a row, John Ratzenberger returns to voice a Pixar character, because he is Pixar’s good luck charm. In Coco the character John voices is Juan Ortodoncia, a ghost who says only one word “Gracias”.
On the front of the door to the office in The Land of the Dead it says A113, which is a reference to a room at the California Institute of the Arts where many animators have worked including Tim Burton, Pete Docter and Brad Bird.
The Pizza Planet Truck can be seen at the beginning of the film when Miguel looks out the window and the truck drives past.
Woody, Buzz and Mike Wazowski piñatas can be seen as Miguel is walking around the streets.
In the film Frida correctly identifies Dante as a Xolo dog which is very apt because Frieda was person in real life who stopped the Xolo dog from going extinct. The breed of dog was in decline due to it not being popular, but when Frieda and her husband started including the dog in the subject of their paintings it helped boost the popularity of the pup and saved the breed.
I really hope you enjoyed learning about the making of Coco, come back on Friday 2nd November for a blog where I sort Pixar characters into Hogwarts houses.
Disney Inside 
You must be logged in to post a comment.