Film kept to ‘Story is King’ philosophy
Pixar’s unique approach to script-writing sees the story evolve over entire movie-making process
‘What is your purpose in life?’ That weighty theme is at the heart of the Cars 3, and serves as testimony to the skilled story-telling ability of Pixar Studio’s creative teams. After all, this is a cartoon, right? Well, yes and no. True, it is an animated film, but as Pixar movies of the past have demonstrated, that medium doesn’t exclude exploring life’s big questions through characters based on toys, robots and fantastical floating houses. And, of course, cars.
After spending a few hours with the director, writers and animators of Cars 3, I came away with new appreciation of just how, and why, Pixar is able to make us laugh, cry and reflect on our own lives while watching a cartoon (and apologies to the all as they will take exception to me characterizing their epics as ‘cartoons.’)
It all comes down to John Lasseter’s mantra, one that all 260 people involved in the five-year process of making Cars 3 are guided by: ‘Story is King.’
Unlike a traditional movie, where the script is completed, given to the actors to learn, then shooting commences with no changes to the story, or if there are only a word here or a line there, in a Pixar movie, the story is written and rewritten almost up until the time that the final cut is completed.
“The luxury we have is its continual work-shopping as we go,” explained writer Bob Peterson, a Pixar veteran with hall-of-fame credentials, including Toy Story 2, Up and Finding Nemo.
Added story supervisor Scott Morse: “What that let’s you do is experience it along the way, make corrections, experience it, make corrections. A lot of stuff gets thrown out and that’s a good thing as you’re ferreting out.”
That certainly was the case with the Cars 3 script, as the original story concept was a simple tale of an aging athlete dealing with the twilight of their career. Both Rich and Petersen are huge L.A. Lakers’ fans, and as Kobe Bryant was going through just that in the early stages of the writing, they both took inspiration from how the star shooting guard handled the situation.
The creative team also consulted NASCAR veterans, including fourtime champion Jeff Gordon, himself recently retired from the sport.
“They start at such an early age and their lives are centered around driving,” said director Brian Fee of racers. “They can’t imagine doing anything else.”
According to co-producer Andrea Warren, Gordon proved to be a key resource.
“He talked a lot about how young racers are full of energy. They like to go fast and hard, while a more experienced driver knows he doesn’t have to do that. They get to know the game well enough that they can play it in a different way.”
In one of the most jarring scenes in the new movie — for that matter, in any Pixar movie — Lightning McQueen gets into a huge crash while racing newcomer Jackson Storm.
“But Lightning doesn’t want to go out that way,” noted producer Kevin Reher. “He sets out to make a comeback, but he’s competing against newer, faster cars who are high-tech versions of who he was ten years ago.”
This is where that comeback story took on a new direction, specifically with the introduction of new ‘car-acter’ Cruz Ramirez, a tech-savvy racing coach charged with helping McQueen get up to speed, so to speak. Her tools include racing simulators and other high-tech gizmos that fly in the face of the gut instincts that have guided McQueen’s championship-winning career.
“She’s definitely crafted in a way that helps McQueen be able to re-analyze his own life, and kind of look at his problems through a new set of eyes,” said Morse of Cruz. “She looks at his problems in a very different way than he does.”
The story then added another rich dimension with the addition of more new characters, dubbed the Legends, which brought McQueen in touch with the older generation’s perspective to round out Cruz’s youthful perspective.
“They show Lightning that racing can be a lifetime thing,” said Rich. “It might change over time, but you adapt and learn to race differently. The love of racing has never left these legends.”
If you haven’t figured it out by now, what this movie is really about is what we all go through in life: starting out as brash youngsters, humbled in our middle age and eventually wise sages in our older years.
Supervising animator Bobby Podesta summed up the ‘Story is King’ aspect best, noting that all departments at Pixar work towards the same goal of making movies with lots of depth and emotional resonance.
“As filmmakers, we strive to tell these stories that are rooted in something that is very emotional. Something specific to our own life experiences.
“For Cars 3 we tried to do that same thing. We want to put forth a story and characters that you, sitting in the audience, whether you’re a car person or not, will got ‘that’s me, I know what’s going on here.’
“When we can do that, they kind of cease becoming cars.”