- [Voiceover] Audiences are like truth detectors.
They can smell a phony sentiment a mile away.
You can place your character in the most original
exciting situations, but if the audience doesn't buy
the emotional truth of its decisions, you'll lose them.
(light playful music)
The sequence in which Carl releases an endless cloud
of balloons over his house and escapes the city
is original, colorful, exciting, and moving.
It also doesn't make any sense.
Why would someone fly away in a house?
Are there no planes to South America?
Can't he just move somewhere else?
It is a ludicrous action for a character to make,
which is why Up spends 20 minutes setting it up.
In these 20 minutes, we get a heartbreaking sequence
depicting Carl's wife, showing his deep emotional connection
to the house and his lifelong dream to go to Paradise Falls.
They also show his current lonely, dull life.
On top of these emotional issues, they also create
a problem for Carl.
Ruthless businessmen are trying to take his house away.
After he accidentally attacks one of them,
the court forces him to sell his house, to be destroyed,
and then move to a nursery home.
So if you were a lonely old man who lost his loving wife,
whom he knew since they were kids,
just before you were about to go and fulfill
your lifelong dream, while mean people are about to demolish
the house you built together and the last connection
you have to her, and you were being forced by the law
to go into a nursery home, what would you do?
Oh, and don't forget, Carl spent his life selling balloons.
All of these details not only makes strapping
a bunch of balloons to your house logical,
it actually seems like the best course of action
Carl could take based on his priorities, skills, emotions,
and current situation.
Surprising decisions can also take place at the end
of a movie, where they usually signify the change
the character went through.
Lightning McQueen spends most of Cars talking about winning
in the Piston Cup and fantasizing about
all the wonderful things that will happen when he does.
Yet, when the moment comes and the Piston Cup
is within his grasp, McQueen gives it up.
He stops an inch from the finish line
and goes back to assist the past champion
to finish the race with dignity.
He has no tangible gain from this.
It is something he is emotionally compelled to do,
and something we would have never expected him to do.
Yet we do understand why he made that decision
and are even moved by it.
Yes, McQueen starts the movie as a friendless, cocky,
self-centered brat.
However, he is forced to spend time in the small town
of Radiator Springs, where he is exposed
to a different way of living,
and even begrudgingly makes new friends.
His most meaningful interaction is with Doc Hudson,
a has-been race car, who was left out in the cold
after he had a terrible accident.
Doc teaches McQueen humility and shows him that
all of his fame and fortune may be temporary.
These lessons, along with the relationships McQueen made,
caused him to reassess his values.
When McQueen sees a legendary race car broken and shattered,
just like Doc, he can't leave him out in the cold.
Out of respect for the lessons Doc taught him,
McQueen helps King out, proving to his friends
and to himself that he is more than just a race car.
Movies, practically by definition, should be all about
interesting characters making interesting decisions.
But these decisions have to be justified emotionally
in order to be more than just a pretty set of pieces
and funny lines.
If your character's actions and decisions seems false,
they break the reality of the movie and snap the audience
out of it.
Once that happens, you can have the coolest,
most exciting thing happening on screen
and they wouldn't care.
Hi guys, thanks for watching.
On the next episode of Pixar Storytelling Rules,
we're gonna talk about casting characters.
Don't forget to subscribe and visit our website
at bloopanimation.com.
(cheerful music)