Researching “Up” takes Pixar filmmakers on wild adventures
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Researchers “Up” for Pixar movie
A harrowing trip to South America, a visit from an ostrich and an intimidating amount of math were involved in researching Pixar Animation Studios’ latest adventure.
“Doing research is one of the best parts of working on these films,” said co-director and writer Pete Docter (pictured left) in an online chat with entertainment journalists. “One day we brought in an ostrich. It was cool to see an ostrich running around on the front lawn here. And of course the film was a great excuse to bring in our dogs.
“We also went to a few retirement homes. We formed a band and played Tin Pan Alley-type tunes and went in to play for them. As we played, we were secretly taking mental notes and doing sketches behind our ukuleles. It was great — we got good research, and they said we were the best act to play there in months!”
The film, new on DVD, centers on grieving widower Carl Frederickson (voice of Ed Asner) who fulfills the promise of a South American adventure made to his lost wife by attaching thousands of his balloons to his house and flying to legendary Paradise Falls. While in flight, he realizes he has a stowaway in eager Wilderness Explorer Russell (newcomer Jordan Nagai).
Their trip to South America becomes a true adventure, as they encounter a talking dog named Dug (co-director and writer Bob Peterson), a colorful ostrich-like bird that Russell dubs Kevin and a sinister mystery man with a connection to Carl’s past.
The writers were initially inspired by a drawing of an old man holding balloons.
“As we developed the story of this guy floating away in his house, and we asked ourselves, ‘Why is he doing that?’ We figured there was some sort of loss or unfulfilled dream that he was trying to make right, and so we came up with the back-story of Carl and his wife,” Docter said.
When Pixar’s technical team started working on the balloons, they put pencil to paper to figure out how many helium-filled spheres would be needed to lift a real-life house. Based on the square footage and estimated weight of Carl’s fictional home, they calculated they would need 153,053 balloons that were 5 ½-feet in diameter to make the house fly.
The filmmakers also needed to give the film’s hero someplace to go, and they chose the exotic South American table top mountains.
“We wanted our locale to reflect and resonate with Carl’s emotional state in the film. The tepuis, or table top mountains, of South America 
are old, isolated, rugged, and dangerous but with a soulful beauty — a pretty good description of Carl,” Peterson (pictured right) said.
Several animators and writers on the film took a sometimes harrowing trip to Venezuela, where they scaled the steep, mud- and rock-covered sides of a table top mountain. They marveled at the sheer height, unique plant life and fast-changing weather. A few were even briefly stranded atop the mountain when a storm blew in, grounding their helicopter until conditions improved.
“Going there gave us a good sense of what it would be like for Carl and his friends to be up there. In the film, we used a great many plants and rock shapes that we saw from the tepui,” Peterson said.
They also spent time scrutinizing their own dogs so that they could provide dialogue for the movie’s animated canines. In “Up,” high-tech collars allow a pack of pooches to vocalize their thoughts, including their obsessions with squirrels and treats.
“We wanted to give Carl a new family after his wife passes on. We essentially gave him a family dog, a grandson … and a 13-foot flightless bird. You know, a family!” Peterson said. “Originally Dug and Kevin were with Carl alone (before Russell was created). Carl had no one to talk with so we invented the talking dog collars!”
He knew the film had moved beyond the concept of an old man clutching balloons when the pitch made Pixar creative chief John Lasseter cry, even without visuals.
“He (Carl) had lived an amazing relationship with his wife that ended in something not quite completed. It’s a good feeling when you find that nugget of truth in your story. Humor and characters will come in and out of a story, but that nugget will remain,” Peterson said.
-BAM
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