Footage description and new info on Pixar’s Inside Out

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Last month a synopsis for Pixar's INSIDE OUT was released, revealing a few new details on the upcoming film. Still want to know more about the new movie? You're in luck: At the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in southern France, director Peter Docter screened a couple of scenes from INSIDE OUT, and talked a little about his new film.

INSIDE OUT will follow a 12-year-old girl named Riley and the emotions inside her head as she deals with moving to a new place, however Peter Docter says, "Riley is not our main character; she is our setting.” Docter also says the film is "based on a strong emotional experience I had watching my daughter grow up. There is something that is lost when you grow up.”

Variety was at the presentation, and they were very impressed with what they saw from INSIDE OUT. They believe "the film could eventually prove to be as revolutionary as Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” which so vividly described the Italian poet’s vision of heaven and hell that it has shaped the public’s image of both ever since."

Sure enough, “Inside Out” takes place in Riley’s subconscious, where a crew of anthropomorphized emotions manage how the girl feels at any given moment from a control panel that looks something like the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise.

In the team’s research, they found many different scientific theories on how the mind works, including one from expert Robert Plutchik that defined eight primary human emotions, which Docter narrowed down to five: Fear (Bill Hader), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Joy (Amy Poehler), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Anger (Lewis Black) — “like our version of Walt Disney’s Seven Dwarfs,” he jokes.

These distinct color-coded characters help Riley to process new experiences and to make memories, which are constantly being recorded within brightly colored orbs that look something like those translucent bath-bubble balls (filed away nightly and then erased in long-term storage by “Forgetters” with a vaguely Minions-like vibe). The inventive opening scene extends from the moment of Riley’ birth and the creation of her first memory to the introduction of its five main characters, ending with an encounter between Joy and Sadness where the former can’t seem to figure out Sadness’ role in the operation. Once the clip ended, Docter explained that Riley and her parents relocate from a quiet rural home to San Francisco at a particularly impressionable age, resulting in a new-school trauma that forces Joy and Sadness out of the control panel and into the far, unfamiliar reaches of her mind.

Variety goes on to describe a second clip from INSIDE OUT involving Riley's thinking process.

While Fear, Disgust and Anger awkwardly try to keep things under control — as illustrated in a second clip set around the family dinner table which Pixar unveiled at CinemaCon in March — Joy and Sadness put aside their differences and take audiences through a tour of Riley’s thinking process. This epic road trip entails crossing such areas as Imagination Land (“a giant amusement park full of everything Riley has ever daydreamed about”), a movie studio where nightmares are made, the Train of Thought (a free-ranging locomotive that can go zooming off in any direction) and Abstract Thought — the zone Docter had the most fun translating to the screen.

I'm not the biggest fan of some of Pixar's most recent movies, but I have very high hopes for INSIDE OUT. It sounds like it'll be an incredible film with some fantastic visuals. I can't wait to check out a trailer for INSIDE OUT and get a first look at Peter Docter's interesting new movie.

INSIDE OUT will open on June 19, 2015.