I received an all expense paid trip from Disney to attend the #Cars3Event. The opinions expressed here are my own and I received no monetary compensation. #PuppyDogPalsEvent #ABCTVEvent #TheToyBox #BornInChina
Disney Pixar’s Cars 3 opens everywhere today, June 16th! Take the entire family opening weekend and arrive early enough to catch Pixar’s new short film. From Pixar Animation Studios, director Dave Mullins and producer Dana Murray, Lou is about a toy stealing bully who meets his match. I had the pleasure of previewing this adorable new short at Disney Social Media Moms Conference and again at the Cars 3 press junket. I love it more and more every single time I watch it.
While at Pixar for the Cars 3 press junket, we had the opportunity to hear from Mullins and Murray. Mullins has worked on many Pixar films, including Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and Ratatouille. He worked as directing animator on Up and supervising animator on Cars 2. He also contributed his animation skills to Brave, Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur. Murray was a lighting coordinator for Cars and held a variety of department manager positions on feature films Ratatouille, Up and Brave. She served as production manager for Inside Out.
Mullins said that in 2005, he started pitching different short film ideas. Nothing really stuck until he started thinking back to his childhood and got personal. Mullins said, “When I was a kid I moved around a lot…I was always the new kid and it was tough leaving old friends behind every year and having to make all new ones. At times being the new kid made me feel invisible…So I thought about that experience and it gave me an idea for an invisible character that could hide in plain sight at a school and longed to be accepted by the other kids”. And that’s when Lou was born.
Mullins shared how Lou’s story transformed throughout the animation process. Many times, they ended up back at the drawing board that opened themselves up to new ideas. Murray stated, “By continuing to work on the story we found some humor and entertainment that was missing from the original version of the film. In the end we stayed with the original idea but we learned some things. It was a great lesson in being open to radically different ideas because at Pixar the best idea always wins”.
In chatting with the animators at Pixar, it seems that sometimes you have to take a step back in order to take a few steps forward. A fun little tidbit about Lou is that Mullins named the bully of the movie after his mom, instead of giving that credit to his childhood bully. I won’t give away any spoilers, but I will say that Lou ranks up there as one of my favorite Pixar shorts. It’s a must see and has a great message about bullying and transformation.
Watch Lou and Cars 3 in theaters today, June 16th!
Here’s a sneak peek of Lou:
Follow Cars on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Check out the trailer:
You can read more about my #Cars3Event trip here: #Cars3Event Announcement, The Toy Box TV Show, Disneynature Born in China, Disney Junior’s Puppy Dog Pals, Pixar Studios Tour, Sonoma Raceway, Pixar in a Box, The Story Behind Cars 3, Behind the Cars 3 Animation Scenes, Interview with Cars 3 Director and Producers and Cars 3 Movie Review.
