“Julia Mazza?”
I was eating lunch in a room off of the main atrium when I heard my name called by a member of Disney’s publicity team.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever find myself eating lunch at Pixar Animation Studios.
I was (and still am) your average millennial Disney kid, whose first exposure to company’s movies was those VHS tapes in the clamshell cases. (Princess movies were my favorite.) But by the time the 2000s rolled around, Pixar had my attention.
DVD’s were the shiny new thing, and I was fascinated with the bonus features on each disc. There was one in particular that has been living rent-free in my head twenty-something years later: the “Pixar Fun Factory Tour” on the Monsters, Inc. DVD.
I have memories of sitting in the living room at home (eating Goldfish crackers, probably) watching Pete Docter and the Monsters, Inc. production team riding razor scooters through the building, singing karaoke, playing foosball, and even assembling everyone for a paper airplane contest to break up the work day. I’m sure I watched this six or seven times before declaring, I want to work here.
Ultimately, I ended up on a different path, but somehow I made it here anyway. I kept my eye out for, and didn’t find, a single person riding a Razor scooter through the Steve Jobs Building. (There was one, however, I spotted parked by the door.)
But what I did find walking through the halls of the studio (and one of the world’s best creative hubs) to speak with members of the Pixar team working on Inside Out 2 (directed by Kelsey Mann), was a full-circle moment fulfilled.
10-year-old Julia would be proud.
INSIDE OUT 2 – FOGHORN’S JOY – © 2024 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.
I sat down with Jeremy Lazare at a table just outside Cafè Luxo in the main atrium of the Steve Jobs Building. The cafeteria-style eatery is where Pixar employees assemble for lunch, when the chatter of their conversations echoes through the hall. It was past lunchtime, and the sunlit atrium was the perfect spot to chat.
Lazare, one of the animators working on Inside Out 2, worked at Blue Sky Studios and Sony Animation before joining the Pixar Animation Studios team to work on Lightyear in 2021. But before jumping into fully-animated projects, he worked in animation and visual effects on several live-action films, including two Harry Potter movies and Ella Enchanted. He was happy to explain the distinction between animated movies and animation for live-action films—the latter of which has to be meticulously rendered to work. “If you come with the same approach that you did with the live-action stuff where you’re making things that are so photorealistic, it can make your animation kind of boring.”
His job, he said, was to make the effects look like they fit in photorealistic backgrounds—and getting tiniest little details right was crucial. “When you put an animated face next to an live-action animated face,” he explained, “If there’s any tiny little thing that’s out, you usually spot it. You don’t necessarily know what it is, but you feel something’s off.”
Lazare also serves a mentor, sharing his expertise online with aspiring animators, starting with one key piece of advice. “No studio is going to be aware of or interested in the grades that you got. They’re just going to be interested in the final result of your portfolio.” he said, “The best thing to do there is take advantage of all the professional voices you have around you to boost your work to the highest level so you have a very strong portfolio.”
He adds, “It’s quite competitive out there, as an animator.”
Inside Out was released before Lazare stepped on board at Pixar, but he cited an interesting connection to the sequel. “I have two boys, and they’re teenagers. One is 12, and he plays hockey, and the other is 15, and he’s playing football,” he shares, “He’s playing varsity football, as a freshman, which is kind of parallel with Riley’s story. and him, in particular, is facing suffering a lot of anxiety from that situation.”
“It’s been interesting to work on something I worry I never escape. I come home and I’m dealing with the same story.”
Maurissa Horwitz at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)
“Hey, it’s my Muppet friend!” said Maurissa Horwirtz, the film’s lead editor as she welcomes me into her office, which is lined with Muppets merchandise and treasures from wall-to-wall. We had bonded over Muppets during a visit to her office earlier that day, and again when I expressed admiration for her Kermit the Frog phone. “I had always wanted one as a kid, and then I found one in a thrift store—it was very exciting.” she told me.
Much like Kermit in 1979’s The Muppet Movie, Horwitz, who started out in college as a chemistry major, went to Hollywood without a plan. “I kind of realized around my junior year that I thought I wanted to switch [my majors] but I had no connections to the film industry or television,” she shared, “It was a little scary, but I did it.”
“And then I got an internship out in Los Angeles. It was on the film that where I got to try the camera department and editorial department and really fell in love with editorial there. And so I thought, you know, what I wanna graduate, I’m gonna try it, I’m gonna go to LA. And I worked hard and was really fortunate that I started working and I didn’t stop.”
Inside Out 2 is Horwitz’s first film at Pixar, who also transitioned from Blue Sky Studios. But she attributes her success to her mentor, Susan Fitzer at Dreamworks Animation.
“I got very fortunate that a mentor I met when I was an intern on a live-action project, Susan Fitzer, she then brought me into live-action features and then she’s the one who brought me over to Dreamworks Animation for my first animated movie, and she’s been a mentor through my whole career,” Horwitz tells me, “And as soon as I got there and experienced animation and the collaboration involved I just really fell in love with editing process in a whole new way. And so I’ve I haven’t wanted to leave since I had since I found it.”
For Horwitz, it only made sense that she’d one day find her place in Hollywood—and then in animation. From an editing standpoint, she cited Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography as having an influence on her work, but, to no surprise, couldn’t hold back her true passion.
“The Muppet movies were a huge influence on my childhood,” she said, “Just getting to connect with these characters that aren’t real. But they felt like real characters to me—and real people to me—and I think that was what led me to animation.” She also named The Princess Bride as a movie she’s probably watched hundreds of times. “I think I’ve just always connected to movies with great characters and great stories, and I guess that’s what I love about being at Pixar is that they only tell stories that are worth telling and have great characters that you fall in love with.”
Becca McVeigh at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)
Over on the east side of the Steve Jobs Building, I met with Rebecca McVeigh, a story artist on Inside Out 2, in Pixar’s story pitch room. A former intern at Pixar, the sequel marks her first feature at the studio. “The way that they do the story process here at Pixar is pretty particular to this one place,” she told me, “A really specific process, way of talking to each other, way of collaborating, and the internship was kind of a perfect introduction to that.”
She adds, “I really learned everything that I know about storyboarding from that internship.“
She also cited the ability to collaborate on a team as one of the most valuable skills she learned during the summer she spent at Pixar. “When I did the program, I wasn’t the only story intern. There were five more of us and those were kind of my primary collaborators. That’s where I learned with training wheels on how to talk to my peers and hear their ideas and not be offended if they didn’t like mine.”
Joining Pixar again to work on Inside Out 2, McVeigh was excited to expand on the world-building we saw in the first film. “Kelsey gave us his pitch for what he was thinking for a sequel and I also read the script that he had at the time,” she shared, “And my first thought was ‘Oh this is such a worthy successor, such an interesting story to expand the world, but still true to the original.’”
For her, this means the addition of the belief system. “One of the first discussions we had about the belief system was, geographically, where is it? And how do we get people to sort of understand where it is?” she said, “When we decided it was under headquarters, that’s what changed the whole artistic vibe of that place.”
When it comes to the sequel, it’s McVeigh’s wish that audiences feel seen watching the film, and take a piece of it home with them. ”Similar to what people have said about the first Inside Out, that it kind of gives them vocabulary to talk about something that maybe would’ve been too difficult for them to speak on before.”
Animators Dovi Anderson and Evan Bonifacio discuss a shot in the animation review room at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)
My next stop was an office the west side of the Steve Jobs Building, where I met with Dovi Anderson and Evan Bonaficio, two animators working on Inside Out 2.
Just like Jeremy Lazare, Dovi Anderson came to Pixar with a background in animation and visual effects on live-action projects, including The Matrix sequels and Hellboy. “There I built a really good muscle for physicality and life-like motion, because on a lot of projects I was on there, I was working against photorealistic background and we’d have a photorealistic character, so everything had to be animated to earth-specific gravity and just right,” he said, “And when I transitioned to Pixar, I didn’t quite have my performance muscles or my characterization muscles developed, but that was my strength when I started here and I had to acquire more tools over the years here.”
One key tool that both animators stressed: asking questions. “Every animator approaches their work a little differently, every animator has different strengths. So I think one key [lesson] I learned was it’s OK to go knock on somebody’s door, and go knock on the right door for the moment that you were trying to tackle,” Anderson told me, “We have such a great culture and everyone wants to help each other succeed, there’s not a sense of competitiveness, like I’m going to get these shots and you’re not, I’m not going to show you my secrets.” These insights, along with the insights by everyone else thus far, further secured my beliefs in the safe, collaborative culture at the studio.
When news of the sequel broke at the studio, Evan Bonaficio wanted in. “When Kelsey came to the department early on with the pitch, he’s like here’s the movie we’re making, here’s where we’re going, these are the new characters! I was floored,” he said ”I have to be a part of this. And I have to even throw my hat in the ring for leadership because I’m just so excited for what this film could be.”
“The first film is more than just a film,” he added, “It’s a tool for a lot of people to talk with their kids about their emotions, and figure out what’s happening up there, and how you can have a little bit of control over it. And I think [the sequel] doubles down on that.”
Adam Habib at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)
Just a few doors away, I joined Adam Habib, the director of photography on the sequel, in a meeting room. After hearing I was from New York, he told me of his plans to visit later that week with his partner to see Enemy of the People, starring Jeremy Strong. “I was a big Succession fan,” he shared.
His trip to New York would mean some well-deserved time away from supervising the layout team working on the film—even though it’s his favorite part of the work day. “I think what’s really fun about animation is each artist takes that little part of the movie and makes it their own and comes up with new ideas,” he explained.
“I love to get surprised by the cool stuff the artists are doing,” Habib added.
During a press session earlier that day, Habib took us on a tour of the emotions’ headquarters through the lens of the camera. It’s his job to use the camera to convey emotion, from Riley’s emotions to the emotion’s emotions to the emotion of the story. To him, this means keeping in mind whose perspective he’s seeing the scene from, and getting the audience to step in their shoes. “At the end of the day it’s about a point-of-view and we see each person see something from totally different angles,” he explained.
Habib, who has worked at Pixar for 13 years, starting with Cars 3, got the opportunity to work on Inside Out in 2015—which makes the opportunity to step onto the sequel as the DP extra special. “I feel protective of this world and also excited to push it farther,” he gushed. “It was really fun to feel like on this movie we were making something that really is going to surprise audiences and take them to new and exciting worlds.”
He’s most excited for audiences to meet Anxiety for the first time. “I just like anxiety as a character like how charming she is, how much you fall in love with her,” Habib shared with me, “Anxiety gets such a bad name and society and our minds or whatever but when you see the beautiful animation, and Maya’s Hawke’s voice performance was always really cute. she has these little squeaks and things that make her come to life.”
Habib further expresses his admiration for Anxiety, including wanting to see the character in plush form, but also her quirks. “Part of what makes Anxiety as a character is the weirdness,” he explains, “So you kinda have to be OK with a little bit of wacky ideas or weird ideas. like her jumping in from like the top of frame and in the bottom of frame and then the side. Not something that we would normally do with a character, but I think just embracing that like weirdness always felt really good for her.”
Upon request, I scribbled down my favorite Italian spots in New York City to consider visiting during his trip: San Marzano for dinner, and Veneiro’s afterwards for dessert.
Jason Deamer is photographed on February 15, 2024 at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)
Back on the West Side, I met with Jason Deamer, the production designer on the sequel, to discuss his experience at Pixar spanning nearly three decades.
Deamer has worn many hats over that time, serving as a character designer, art director, and a production artist on a number of films at the studio. Inside Out 2 marks his second time stepping into the role of production designer, with the first time being on the 2016 short Piper. In discussing the short, he expressed his gratitude to his colleagues, who helped him chase the look he wanted. “What an opportunity to have a studio, to work with people who will break the rules of physics for you to achieve a look,” Deamer told me.
“At friggin’ Pixar,” he said, “they can do anything.”
Stepping onto Inside Out 2, it was Deamer’s intention from day one to chart new territory. “My favorite sequels are the ones that don’t repeat the first movie too much,” he said, adding that he was adamant about doing “banana things” this time around. “I wanted to try to make something new. Novelty is my driving force.”
By the end of our conversation, I couldn’t gauge which hat he loves wearing most at Pixar—but I have one guess. “I loved designing characters and art designing characters. It’s the thing I’ve always been the most drawn to. I did that, and I found a love for it I didn’t know was there.”
INSIDE OUT 2 – Concept Art by Rona Liu. © 2024 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.
As I returned to the Atrium a bit later, I grabbed a bowl of cereal from Pixar’s “cereal bar”—well-known by die-hard Pixar fans and much-loved by employees for a quick snack.
As I enjoyed my bowl of Lucky Charms, I stood and looked around at the people walking by. This studio was built on the creativity, passion, and dedication of so many talented individuals. I ended my day at the studio with the security that those same qualities continue to nurture it.
What a Joy it was to have been there.
Disney-Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” directed by Kelsey Mann and produced by Mark Nielsen, will be hitting theaters nationwide on June 14, 2024.
