Life, Love, and ‘Coco’: An Inside Look At Pixar’s Next Great Adventure

Ever since Toy Story hit theaters in 1995, movie-goers have known Pixar Studios for its hit animated films that tend to pull at the heartstrings a little more than most others while also incorporating some of the most groundbreaking technology in the industry. It’s given the studio a reputation for excellence, and Pixar has become the new standard in animated filmmaking.

In November, Disney and Pixar are releasing the next film in a long line of hits, and it’s sure to stand up to the rest of the studio’s breathtaking entries.

Coco, directed by Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) and Adrian Molina (Monsters University), focuses on a young Mexican boy during the Day of the Dead celebration. By trying to follow his dream, he’s led into the magical Land of the Dead where he gets the help of his relatives in order to get back to his home in the real world.

We had a chance to visit Pixar Studios earlier this month and learn a little more about Coco, what went into making this movie, and how the crew rallied around such a unique story.

What Is Coco About?

Aside from one or two trailers, you probably haven’t seen much about Coco. Unlike tentpole franchises like Cars or Toy Story, this is uncharted territory for many fans.

Not to worry though, we learned everything you’ll need to know before seeing this movie.

So, Coco is about a young boy named Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) who wants nothing more than to be a musician like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt). His family of shoemakers has a long history of hating music because of what an ancestor did to them, so his dream is strictly forbidden. However, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

During the Dia de los Muertos celebration, Miguel tries to go behind the backs of his family and channel his inner de la Cruz. Unfortunately, this backfires and sends Miguel into the Land of the Dead.

Once he’s there, Miguel meets up with all of his relatives that have already passed on, as well as a sly traveller named Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal). Miguel needs to get back to the land of the living, but thing aren’t as simple as they seem. 

Featuring an all-Latino cast, Coco centers around the celebration that is Dia de los Muertos, and just how important the ties between family can be.

The World Of Coco

Coco splits its time between the the living and the dead, which creates an entirely different kind of experience from some of the other Pixar movies you may be accustomed to.

The town where Miguel lives was modeled after real small towns in Mexico where many of the key crew members visited multiple times while working on the film. In fact, learning about the location and the history of the holiday was the first thing that Unkrich and his team did after pitching the idea almost six years ago.

“John Lassetter likes his directors to pitch three different ideas for their next project,” Unkrich told ComicBook.com in an interview. “When [Head of Story] Jason Katz and I pitched the three ideas to John, the Dia de los Muertos idea was the one he went for. We immediately got on a plane and went to Mexico and started doing research. We developed a story and spent about a year on it before we ripped it apart completely and started over again. Ultimately we found our way towards this story.”

The production team wanted the town to look as authentic as possible, but the Land of the Dead was a little more of a playground. Using an incredible amount of color and lighting, and a lot of imagination, this world was brought to life.

The photo above is a shot of what the Land of the Dead looks like in the final version of the film, but it went through many different ideas and phases before getting there. The photo you below is the piece of concept art that ultimately influenced the intricate design of this new world.

In addition to the unique setting of the film, Coco utilized many different kinds of characters. Chief among these were the use of skeletons as walking and talking beings, not just as a set of bones.

Pixar has never had to design or animate skeletons before, so this was quite the complicated process. It took years of hard work from the animation team of Daniel Arriaga (Character Art Director), Gini Santos (Supervising Animator), Byron Bashforth (Character Shading Lead), Emron Grover (Simulation Technical Director), and all of the animators that worked with them.

As you can see by the final product, as well as in the trailers, the crew certainly accomplished what they set out to do.

Biggest Challenges Bringing Coco To Life

It was no secret that this film took years of incredibly hard work, but some aspects were more challenging than others. 

The skeletons presented their own set of challenges, as did Miguel’s canine sidekick, Dante. Unlike most dogs in animated movies, Dante is hairless, providing the unique challenge of getting his skin to move in the right ways in order to seem completely real.

Directing Animator Nick Rosario told us that Dante was easily the most challenging part of bringing Coco to life

“Dante was one of the more challenging characters I’ve ever worked on,” Rosario said. “Since he doesn’t have any fur or hair, all that anatomy is showing through.”

The setting of this film was a character in and of itself, and bringing that to life was a massive challenge for the design team. Danielle Feinberg was the lighting director on the film, and her team had to come up with multiple different styles of lighting for all of the grand locales that were featured.

“From where we’re mostly candle-lit in Miguel’s hideout and in the cemetery, then we get the sunlit Mexico scenes, then getting into the Land of the Dead where it’s completely different and you’re making stuff up to make it really colorful,” Feinberg said. “So there were so many challenges on this film but it was really fun to bring it to life.”

A Lasting Impact

Unlike many animated films, Coco deals with the difficult concept of death. Dia de los Muertos is a massive part of Mexican culture, and it’s all about celebrating the life of your loved ones after they’ve passed rather than mourning the fact that their gone.

It’s a touching concept, and one that we don’t often think about here in the United States. After spending so much time with this holiday while making this movie, the idea of celebrating your loved ones really rubbed off on a lot of the crew.

Many of the people working on this project had touching stories about how their personal lives found them really leaning on the themes in this movie, and how working on it changed their outlook on the subject of losing people they love.

“Right before I started I lost my youngest brother,” story artist Dean Kelly told us. “It was devastating and immediate and permanent all at once. When I came onto this film I was at a place where I understood what this meant.”

Danielle Feinberg had a similar story to Kelly, and she said that Coco truly helped her think about loss in an entirely different way.

“My grandmother passed away during the making of the movie, and this gave me a new relationship with that than I think I would have otherwise,” Feinberg said. “I felt sad but I also felt totally okay celebrating her and thinking about the pieces of her that were in me that I felt that she had gifted me. That was a really special part of it, and giving license to celebrate those who have gone rather than let that be ruled by sadness.”

Adrian Molina said that the crew really bonded over this theme together. Using an ofrenda (the table of pictures and offerings used to celebrate your loved ones on Day of the Dead), they were all able to reflect and share stories of those that have come before.

“We started putting up an Ofrenda for the studio for people working on the movie to celebrate their loved ones,” Molina said. “It really hit home for people, the power of active remembrance.”

Finally, Lee Unkrich summed it up for us by saying that this film taught him more about what you could do right now to celebrate the legacy of your family. 

“It made me think about my own family. It raised some urgency for me to sit my parents down and tell me stories about the family members that I never knew,” Unkrich said. “I can see myself celebrating Dia de los Muertos for years to come. It’s such a beautiful holiday.”

Be sure to check out Coco when it hits theaters on November 22, 2017.