Disney and Pixar’s Turning Red is finally available to watch and enjoy on Disney+. That’s right. You can go away, gather your friends, some snacks, and journey back to the early 2000s with this fun, quirky, and incredibly fluffy animated film all about growing up… and red pandas. What a combination. Before you rush off though, we have something exciting to share with you.
To celebrate the immense achievement that is Turning Red, we had the chance to participate in an exciting conference with amazing creators that brought Turning Red to life.
Domee Shi (Director)
Lindsey Collins (Producer)
Julia Cho (Screenwriter)
We’ve heard this is very autobiographical for you in many ways. Tell us about that, and what it’s like to see a lot of your own story now come to life on screen.
Domee: “yeah, the inspiration behind Turning Red just came from my own life growing up in the early aughts. Chinese Canadian, dorky, sassy, nerdy girl who thought she had everything under control. She was her mom’s good little girl, and then boom, puberty hit, and I was bigger. I was hairier. Was hungry all the time. I was a hormonal mess. And I was fighting with my mom, like, every other day. And making this film was kind of my chance to go back to that time, and-with Julia-[LAUGH] back to our-that-that time for both of us, and understand and excavate what was happening back there.”
The style for Turning Red has been described as “Chunky Cute”, can you tell us more about that?
Domee: “Yeah, so that was coined by Rona Liu, our production designer. Uh, super talented, I worked with her on Bao. And, uh, and she’s also Chinese-American, as well. We just, uh, love the chunky cute aesthetic. You saw it on Bao, and we wanted to kinda show it again-or, like explore it again with this, uh, film, because it just felt like the perfect style to tell this story about this girl, uh, and-and really show the world through her eyes, right? Like-like, how does she see the world? How does she see people? And, uh, just really making the world feel like it was designed by a 13-year-old girl. So that’s kind of how we-we coined that chunky cute style.”
How did you guys look to highlight the beauty of Toronto and Canada in general when you were approaching the making of this?
Domee: “Oh. Well, we couldn’t go on a trip. I wish we did go on a trip… But it was mostly through, like, my-my memories of-of going back to-of growing up in-in Toronto, uh, and-and the teams just doing a lot of research on the-on the setting, on the neighborhoods. We talked to a lot of cultural consultants. Some of which are from Toronto, uh, Toronto Chinatown. Uh, and just trying to get as much, like, detail in there as possible.”
Lindsey: “Yeah, Canadian pride is real, man. I’m like, “Wow,” like, who knew that it was gonna, like, inspire such this like. I mean, we have a ton of, uh, Canadians who work at Pixar, and obviously, who are on the crew.”
Domee: “Yeah, it definitely became sort of a love letter to Toronto, too. I think it just felt like we just embraced the city. And it was in every decision about presenting the characters and the family. Like, just making that-their world as vivid as we could.”
we have to talk about 4*Town. Billie and Finneas, and all these amazing musicians involved, too. Tell us how that came to be.
Lindsey: “4*town as an idea, or as kind of, like, a joke sort of was in even before the first draft of the script, it was a way that, um, I think there was a very early fake scene basically, between-that was written between Ming and-and Mei, um, that just kind of helped illustrate what their dynamic was and part of that was this joke of like-and Ming basically saying, like, “And I don’t understand your obsession with this boy band 4*Town. And if they’re called 4*Town, why are there five of them?” And it always made us laugh. It was, like, this little kind of joke in there. And so that started off as this kind of-just one way to kind of color Mei’s character.
Lindsey: “But I would say by the second or third draft of the script, we kinda came to this moment of like, what are the stakes of this film? What feels right? And certainly, all of us remembering our 13-year-old selves, going to a concert was life or death. Like, your first concert felt like the most important thing in the world. And so, all the sudden, it started to feel like this really great way to-to kind of ground this kind of fantastical movie in a very kind of real world 13-year-old stake. So, we got to create our own boy band.”
Lindsey: “across the-across the team of like, “Oh, my gosh, yes, an animated Pixar boy band. Yes, please.” So, um, at that point, we were like, all right, “What-who’s gonna write the music? And-and who do we approach?” And I have, uh, three teens at home, and they’re listening to music constantly. Billie and Finneas’s music was being played all the time in my house. They were clearly people who were speaking to this generation, and in a way that they felt like songs-those songs that they were writing were written for them. And I think that’s the thing that we all remember feeling. So, we went down and pitched it to them kind of in person. And, um, and, yeah, before the meeting ended, they were like, “We’re in.” Um, so it was huge. It was like a gift, really.”
So, Tell us about your relationships and what was important to show.
Julia: “You know, well, I mean, I think that for my own mom, that overprotectiveness or mama bear quality was definitely there. But I actually also felt like what made Ming more real to us was that we were also, like, two of us are moms. And so, then I think there’s a sense that we identify with Ming, you know. Like, I was raised by a Ming, but then I feel like… I think just the realness of that. I mean, certainly to us, she didn’t seem like a villain. She seemed like somebody we could relate to.”
Ashley Saunders from With Ashley & Co asked: You’ve previously talked about how you wanted to incorporate anime into Turning Red because of your love for it. What was your reaction seeing the final cut of the film with all those amazing anime style moments?
Domee: Ah, so amazing. Uh, and I love those moments, like, all of those anime moments we were able to put in. I’m so proud of this movie and the way-especially the way that it looks, and how the crew all were so excited and so on board with trying this East-meets-West anime-Pixar hybrid kinda style to tell this story.”
Domee: “everyone was so eager to jump in and-and learn about, like, anime. It was really, uh, like not everybody on the crew, like, knew what the Sailor Moon eyes were, or like, why she was leaking sweat when she was trying to hide her sketchbook from her mom.”
Lindsey: The snot bubble. [LAUGH]
Domee: “Yeah, like snot coming out of her nose. But, uh, but it was fun to, you know, be able to teach the crew and give them like a crash course on all of this, uh, stuff that I grew up loving, and was so inspired by, and-and influenced by.”
Lindsey: “And they really ran with it. I mean, there was- I think by the end, like, they were going like, “Okay, we think there’s maybe an opportunity here in this shot to really push it, and we tried a couple things. What do you think?” the best thing you can do is invigorate them with a really, um, kind of a vision and a style that is different, and pushed a little bit.”
What was it like being a female creator on this project?
Domee: “I mean, for me, it was like being able to find, like, a support system and a community at Pixar. Uh, that was so valuable for me, and really built my confidence and-and my voice as a-as, like, a filmmaker and-and a-and a storyteller. Um, when I first started at Pixar, there were only, like, four or five women in the story department, uh, out of, like, a department of, like, 30 or 40. But we started having lunches together, uh, and kinda sharing stories.”
Domee: “And like, we even did this o-I remember this one meeting, this one lunchtime, where we all, like, went around and said aloud our goals. And that was the first time that I actually said aloud, like, “I want to direct” And then I was, like, very embarrassed. And then like, “Oh, no, like, why did I say that?” But everyone was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” And I think, like, just saying it, and putting it out there, and like, being with people that, uh, support and-and validate you, a-and that can like make you not feel so alone. ‘Cause it can feel so lonely being, like, a woman, being a person of color in this industry, that I think it’s so important to find those colleagues, those allies to kinda, like, to just help you not feel alone as you struggle and work your way through this industry. So that was huge for me.”
We hope you liked this very brief but insanely fun discussion with the brilliant creators and writers of Disney and Pixar’s newest hit. If you missed it, don’t forget to check out our review for Turning Red right here.
Pixar Animation Studios’ 25th feature film introduces Mei Lee (voice of Rosalie Chiang), a confident, dorky 13-year-old torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. And if that wasn’t enough… Whenever she gets too excited, she “poofs” into a giant Red Panda- Surely it can’t be that bad, right?
Turning Red is available on Disney+ now! Will you be watching Mei Lee’s transformative adventure? Let us know in the comments, and if you’ve already watched it we’d love to know your thoughts.
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