All you need to know about Pixar is explained in the bonus features for “Toy Story 3.”
Yes, you get the usual array of behind-the-scenes goodies in the Blu-ray release, out Nov. 2. The extras also include a screenwriter primer. You likely won’t find that watching “The Expendables” at home.
It’s all about storytelling at Pixar, something “Toy Story 3″ screenwriter Michael Arndt (“Little Miss Sunshine”) learned during his first gig with the animation company.
Arndt recently chatted with journalists, including WWTW, as part of a virtual junket to support the film’s home video release. What follows is a “best of” Q&A compilation.
Question: Did you run any of the script by any younger person before writing the final version?
Michael Arndt: We did do a test screening of the film when it was mostly complete — about 9 months before it was released — in front of a recruited audience of young children. I was afraid the film might be a little too dark for a family audience, but all the kids who saw it seemed to really like it, so we didn’t make any changes based on that screening. But it’s always smart to try to see the film through the eyes of people of all ages, just to make sure you’re not missing something.
Q: You’ve said in earlier interviews that even comedies should be about something, or have values and take a stand. What do you view as the values or position that you were taking when writing “Toy Story 3″?
MA: One of the biggest challenges of “Toy Story 3″ was figuring how the hero — Woody — would change over the course of the story. In the first “Toy Story,” Woody had to learn to share the spotlight with Buzz. In “Toy Story 2,” Woody faced and came to terms with his own mortality. For “Toy Story 3,” what we finally figured out was that Woody begins the story thinking that love means always being there for Andy. He’s similar to Lotso, in that he equates physical presence with the genuine expression of love, which is why he is so adamant in insisting that the Toys should “always be there” for Andy. It’s only at the very end, when he witnesses Andy and his Mom saying goodbye that Woody realizes you can love someone and still let them go, and that sometimes letting someone go can be the most loving thing a person can do. This is a universal experience — we all go through our lives getting to know people (childhood friends; high school sweethearts; college professors; work colleagues) that we can feel intensely connected to for part of our lives, but whom we have to let go of as we move through life. Recognizing this, and learning to accept it, is a fairly mature sentiment for Woody, and one that (to me, at least) nicely completes the arc of his character across all three movies.
Q: Some animated films often use pop culture references for quick laughs … Pixar seems to eschew that approach. Can you discuss other ways films like Toy Story 3 strive for a timeless appeal?
MA: One of the things I really like about Pixar’s films — and which sets them apart from some other animated movies — is that Pixar has actors speaking (for the most part) in their own voices. No one’s putting on a “funny voice” just because the character is animated. Tom Hanks, for example, voices Woody in his own natural Tom- Hanks voice. We try to make the stories and the characters feel as real as possible, and having the actors use their own voices is very much part of that. That helps (we hope) to give the movies a timeless appeal.
Q: How much of your personal experience do you draw upon when writing a script?
MA: You have to draw on everything you have as a person. That’s less about specific moments and experiences, and more about remembering specific feelings — especially those feelings that can seem private and particular. But my experience is that the more you can be truthful about those memories or feelings, the more other people will respond to them. The best writing really does come from the deepest, most private part of you.
Q: Was it very different writing “Toy Story 3″ compared to writing live action films?
MA: In terms of writing characters or stories, at least initially, there’s no difference between live-action and animation. A good story is a good story, whatever the medium. It never occurred to me to “write down” for the animated characters — to me, Buzz Lightyear is just as real as Olive Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine. The big difference is in the re-writing process. In live-action, writing, production, and editing happen in discrete stages. In animation, they overlap — happening simultaneously. This allows a real dialogue to occur between the writer, the director, the actors, and the editor, and it makes the writing process a lot more collaborative and a lot less lonely.
Q: Which of the voice talents for “Toy Story 3″ did you have the most fun writing lines for?
MA: I loved writing Ken for Michael Keaton. Firstly, because he was a completely new character, so I could do whatever I wanted with him. Secondly, because Keaton brought so much to the role in our recording sessions — I could go back and rewrite the character to match his delivery. And, lastly, just because I love Ken so much as a character — writing the romance between he and Barbie was by far the most fun part of writing the screenplay.
Q: What was the biggest story challenge in the writing of “Toy Story 3?”
MA: It may seem strange, but the hardest part of the script was actually the beginning — when you meet the Toys again after ten years have passed. We had to figure out what they’ve been doing for the last ten years, what their expectations for the future are, how they still feel about Andy… It took a long, long time and a lot of conversations to figure it all out. In fact, the scene where Woody calls his staff meeting — we called the sequence GROWN UP – was the one I re-wrote the most: I did 60 different versions of that scene before we settled on the final one.
Q: Did the fans’ appreciation of the previous films puts a lot of pressure on you?
MA: Yes. Writing “Toy Story 3″ was a three year ordeal of anxiety and barely- suppressed panic. And the only person more desperate and panic-stricken than me was Lee Unkrich, the director. We really didn’t want to let anyone down, and it’s a huge relief to be told by fans that we didn’t completely blow it.
Q: Can you talk about Lotso, one of the most important characters of this film?
MA: I liked the idea of Lotso from the very beginning — he was a toy gone bad; who no longer believed in the love between a child and a toy. Like all good villains, his rather curdled view of the world makes sense in light of his experience. In a nutshell, Lotso got replaced by Daisy, and the lesson he drew was that everyone and everything is replaceable. When Ken stands up to Lotso at the end of the story, Lotso yells that there’s a hundred million Barbies just like the one he’s fallen for. Ken affirms that he loves Barbie — that she’s special and unique to him; that she’s not replaceable to him. To be pretentious for a second, that’s a gesture Shakespeare uses a lot — putting wisdom in the mouth of a fool.
Q: If there are comprehensible rules for scriptwriting, and quite many good writers around – why is a good script still one of the most sought after things in filmmaking?
MA: Writing a great script — not just a good one, but a great one — is almost an impossible task. Good writing is deceptive in that it hides its own artifice — it makes it seem easy. I honestly don’t think I could have written “Toy Story 3″ without the full support of the Pixar studios, including Lee Unkrich (who worked in the story trenches with me every single day for three years) and the guidance of John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and the rest of the Pixar Brain Trust. In addition, there was a crew of ten to twelve story artists who worked for three years solid adding jokes and ideas to the film. In the end, Pixar scripts — like the films themselves — are like cathedrals: they are the expression of an entire community; not just a single individual. I feel very, very, very lucky to have been a part of that community on “Toy Story 3.”
Q: Do you have any advice for writers just starting out, getting their feet wet?
MA: Just be patient. It took me ten years of writing before I finally sold my first script. I know that Malcolm Gladwell’s rule of 10,000 hours of practice is kind of a cliché at this point. But for me, that cliché is 100% true. It basically took me 10,000 hours of writing before.
Related posts:
on 
on 
