The Making of Up
Directed by: Pete Docter, who has also worked on “Inside Out”, “Monsters Inc”, “Soul” and more, and Bob Peterson, who has worked on many different Pixar films.
Cast
Carl Fredricksen is voiced by Edward Asner, who is probably best known for playing Santa in the film “Elf”.
Russell is voiced by Jordan Nagai. Jordan was picked because Pete and Bob felt that he didn’t give a forced, over the top performance, he was very relaxed and embodied Russell perfectly.
Russell was originally going to be called Lewis but Disney had recently released “Meet the Robinsons” which has a main character called Lewis, so Pixar changed their characters name to Russell. Peter Sohn did the scratch voice work but Jordan gave the character more flair and substance and style.
The filmmakers were struggling to write the script when Russell is first inside the flying house because they didn’t know how a child would react so they did several takes with Jordan, some where he would cry, other times Russell would tantrum but Jordan made it more truthful of a scene when he was just curious about how everything would work.
Dug and Alpha are both voiced by Bob Peterson, the co-director of the film.
When creating Dug the dog, Bob was inspired by his own dog a lot and the line “I have just met you and I love you” was inspired by a real life event for Bob many years ago when he was a camp counsellor and a little boy came up to him and said “You’re my councillor, I love you.”
Charles Muntz is voiced by Christopher Plummer, who is possibly best known for roles in “The Sound of Music” and “Knives Out”.
Young Ellie is voiced by Elie Docter, Pete Docter’s daughter.
Young Carl is voiced by Jeremy Leary.
Construction Foreman Tom is voiced by John Ratzenberger, who has voiced a character in most Pixar films.
Construction Worker Steve is voiced by Danny Mann.
Nurse George is voiced by Donald Fullilove, whoose best known for playing Goldie Wilson in “Back to the Future”.
Nurse AJ is voiced by Jess Harnell.
Omega is voiced by Josh Cooley who has worked at Pixar for many years as a director, story board artist and writer.
Beta is voiced by Delroy Lindo.
Gamma is voiced by the Pixar employee Jerome Ranft and is the younger brother of the late Joe Ranft who also worked at Pixar.
Kevin was inspired by cranes that Pete saw at the zoo. He found them intriguing characters because when you look into their eyes you can never really tell what they’re thinking.
The Initial Idea
There was a drawing that Pete Docter did of an old man holding a bunch of balloons. He looked like an interesting character, the Pixar employees were reminded of how much they cared about their grandparents and felt they each had great stories to tell. Pixar also felt that elderly characters are never really explored. It was very important for Pixar to be original. They didn’t like similarities between Pixar’s “A Bugs Life” and DreamWorks “Antz” and then Pixar’s “Ratatouille” and DreamWorks “Flushed Away”. You don’t want to go and see a film with the same characters again and again with a predictable story line.
So the film started with Carl, but he needed something to do and that was when Pete Docter was reminded by the feeling of wanting to escape and that was when he came up with the idea of the house floating away with the balloons and everything grew from there.
Originally Carl and the bird were the first duo in the film, even before Russell was created, however Russell as a reason to bring Carl and the bird together. Without Russell the film wouldn’t have worked.
The film was ended up being titled “Up” because it was intriguing, it was the direction that Carl needed to go and because it also gives a sense of hope.
Film Research
Paradise Falls was originally going to be a tropical island but the team at Pixar felt that tropical islands had been done a bit too much so they were on the hunt for somewhere else. One of the members of the team working on the film watched a documentary by Adrian Warren, about this place in South America which was filled with table top mountains called Tepui, which are found coming out of rainforests. Back in 2009 over half of them had never been explored, so they were the perfect remote place to use as Carl’s getaway location. They contacted Adrian who made the documentary and with a group of Pixar employees they journeyed to these table top mountains and explored them and the surrounding environment. They saw so many different shaped rocks on top of the table top mountains, one that looked like a turtle (which they put in the film), one that looked like a person wearing a sombrero, one of a gorilla eating an ice cream and so many more. They found that because the mountains were so tall they had their own weather systems at the top so they found that they could be under a rain storm in seconds and then less than five minutes later be in beautiful sunshine and then be covered in cloud.
They did many drawings, paintings and sketches. They also took pictures and video of everything so when they got back they created animated forms of the different plants, rocks, moss, grass, trees etc and put them into the computer so they could have a giant catalogue, so that they build a world exactly from what they’d seen
Pixar did a lot of research into balloons. They got a helium machine and blew up lots of balloons and attached them to string and then took them outside into the wind and filmed them with cameras to see how they would move, how their colours would change in different lights, how much you can see through them, how they change over time and more.
Film Development
The beginning of the film opens to a documentary style film all about Charles Muntz which is in black and white, the filmmakers were heavily inspired by news reel footage from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s.
The opening was in black and white because they wanted the moment when Carl and Ellie meet to be the introduction of colour into Carl’s life. Then when you enter into the Married Life montage, this is the most colourful part of the film because it is showing the love between Carl and Ellie. However once she’s gone, the colour completely drains from the film. It’s very obvious, but also subtle. Bright and beautiful colours are only introduced back into the film when Carl decides to fulfil his promise to Ellie by taking her to Paradise Falls using the bright and beautiful balloons. Ellie is represented in bright colours and especially magenta. A magenta coloured beam of light is seen on Ellie’s side of the bed in the first scene from present day when Carl is just waking up in bed alone.
At one point Carl and Ellie’s house was going to be in the middle of a mall and he would be positioned next to a bowling alley which would have a giant glitter ball bowling pin that was full of helium outside the front of it and that would be the thing to transport his house to Paradise Falls but the filmmakers didn’t love that idea so it was changed to what we see in the film. The other reason why they changed it to having the construction site around him rather than the mall is because the construction zone shows how the world is moving on without Carl and how there’s no place for him and so he needs to go to Paradise Falls as that’s where he truly belongs. Also the idea of a big corporation coming in and destroying originality and vulnerable peoples homes is so unanimously disliked it was the obvious choice.
In the scene when Carl hits the construction worker over the head the test audiences always found it funny until the blood was seen, so although Pixar didn’t want to show blood in the film, they knew it was crucial. What’s also interesting about the scene is the moment that Carl injures the man, the sunlight gets brighter, much more intense, like there is a beam of light specifically on Carl so everyone knows that it was him, Carl, that did the wrong thing. Then the inside of his house is so dark because he knows he’s lost, this house is no longer his and Ellie’s which is symbolised when the boss man in glasses puts his hand on the fence.
The filmmakers calculated that you would need roughly 26.5 million balloons to levitate the house, however this doesn’t take into account the weight of the balloons or the string needed. However Pixar knew that they couldn’t possibly animate over 26 million balloons or even fit on the screen 26 million balloons, so instead they animated 10297 balloons, however there is sometimes less. The balloons are also humungous, they’re not the size of real balloons in terms of their proportions because otherwise there would be miniscule and there would be so many little tiny dots and it wouldn’t look as aesthetic. However it’s impossible to tell because when an object that would represent scale is on screen, like a human, or a plant they would be made smaller.
For the scene where the house goes through the storm and everything inside was sliding around, they were inspired by Laurel and Hardy films, where the characters are on ships and everything is sliding around. They found that it made the scene more light hearted and less intense which is important as this is a Pixar film after all.
Muntz’s lair was really hard to create. He was going to be in a dirigible hangar with just this living room set when you’d see a 30 year old looking Charles Muntz appear, as in this version of the film it would transpire that if you ate the birds egg then it would keep you young, but they realised that wasn’t the message that they wanted to present. It’s not the case that Carl wants to be young again, he just wants to finish what he started.
When Charles and Carl sit down for dinner the silverware, the place settings, and food, which is seared scallop, is taken from Ratatouille.
When Carl and Russell run away from Charles they run to the side which signifies that they’re getting further from Carl’s goal, but it’s the journey Carl needs to go on to show him what’s important.
One of the challenges for the film was animating the group of dogs. The animators built a handful of dogs and then just varied the colour and proportions to make it look like there was lots of variety. It was a time saving method that’s been used before. Pixar also used a new animation software called Massive to have lots of dogs moving in sync and climbing over one another without them morphing into one another.
Pete and Bob, the directors, knew they needed Muntz to die at the ending of the film, but they struggled with the right way to kill off the villain, so they went through different options. For example they considered but having Muntz chase after Kevin into this maze which he can never escape from. However they didn’t like that ending because it detracted from Carl.
Then they considered killing him by having Charles and his dogs, weighing down the house and causing them to plummet to earth. However Pixar didn’t like that idea because Ellie is represented in the house and it felt wrong that Muntz would take away the house.
Then they considered having Muntz’s foot getting tangled in the strings and him floating off into the air, but that felt ambiguous, so they finally decided on the ending that you see in the film, where he plummets to his death, attached to a few balloons.
Easter Eggs
No people were animated in the auditorium when you’re looking at Charles Muntz on stage, it is just a sea of hats, Pixar knew there was no point in animating something the audience would never see.
There is a poem on the wall behind Carl’s head when he’s sat down and eating breakfast at the beginning of the film. The poem is “The clock of life” and it’s there because the same poem is on display in Bob Peterson’s grandparents house, and they lived at number 18 which is the same at Carl and Ellie’s house.
The Vicar who marries Carl and Ellie is the same man who tells them they can’t have children and judge who orders Carl to go to Shady Oaks Retirement home.
The Pizza Planet Truck can be seen when Carl first flies over the roads of his old home town.
There is a Lotso bear and a Luxo ball inside the little girls bedroom.
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