WWTW interview: Directors Bob Peterson and Pete Docter (‘Up’)

Squint hard and you might see the frazzled heroes of the “Peanuts” gang in the latest Pixar animated feature, “Up.”

So says “Up” co-director Bob Peterson, who found inspiration from Charles Schulz’s comic creations as a young illustrator.

“My cartoon strips in college strived to have the Schulzian mix of surrealism and Charlie Brown angst. A bit of that combo shows up in ‘Up,’” says Peterson during a virtual junket last week to promote the DVD/Blu-ray release of the latest Pixar smash.

“Up” charts the remarkable journey of a retired balloon salesman named Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) who flies up, up and away when he attaches a flotilla of balloons to his home.

The film’s core inspiration came from a drawing of a grumpy old man clutching a bunch of balloons in his hand. But the creative team behind “Up” needed much more than that.

Eventually, they fell upon Carl’s need to flee his reality.

“Story wise we had finally cracked Carl’s motivation for escaping life – that he had lived an amazing relationship with his wife that ended in something not quite completed,” Peterson says.

The team chose South America as the destination Carl longed to visit, a place Peterson says would “reflect and resonate with Carl’s emotional state in the film.”

Co-director Pete Docter says the creative process behind the screenplay for “Up” mirrors what a live-action production might entail.

“The focus is on character and keeping the audience engaged,” Docter says. “We have cinematographers, lighters, costume designers, etc. We use different tools to get there, but the creative process is the same.”

The decision to cast Asner as Carl came easily, but those kinds of choices are what makes a Pixar movie work.

“Good casting at Pixar is an exercise of balance,” Peterson says. Woody from the “Toy Story” features “could have been perceived as unappealing when he was jealous of Buzz if we had the wrong voice for him, but Tom Hanks brings such a natural appeal that he balanced any of Woody’s negatives.”

The same proved true for Carl, since Asner‘s “soulfulness” helped balance some of his more unpleasant tantrums.

Tomorrow: Peterson and Docter share some of the inspiration behind their animated work and offer tips for fledgling film students on how to crack a career in animation.