All in a day's work: Top Kid Scarer James P. Sullivan (center right) -- "Sulley" to his friends -- and his Scare Assistant, Mike Wazowski (center left) show up for work at Monsters, Inc. All Monsters, Inc. images © Disney/Pixar. All rights reserved.

Monsters, Inc. from Pixar/Disney is the first feature directed by Pete Docter. To find out the story behind the production Animation World Magazine was invited to interview the director, co-director and two supervisors. After talking with the animation and technical supervisors it seemed this article would be about their amazing new technology that advances the art of animation. When a co-director was interviewed the focus shifted to how the success of a Pixar feature comes in part from having great stories and traditional cinematography and editing. How was his view going to fit in with the first two interviews? Finally, when we spoke with Pete Docter, the film's director, it became clear that the important story was how the studio shepherded him through the process of developing and directing his first animated feature. They brought together people with different talents who could work together as a team. The film was created through the sharing and cooperation (!) of all these elements, rather than by having a strong dictatorial director.

Although Docter is given credit for creating the original idea for Monsters, Inc., one of the first things he says is, "It is misleading to say the film was my idea because there are so many other people involved. It was a group effort." At first he developed ideas with story artist Jeff Pidgeon and production designer Harley Jessup. Andrew Stanton (Oscar nomination for Toy Story) wrote the first script and he became the film's executive producer. As they developed their ideas they would take them to John Lasseter (director of Toy Story, 1995; A Bugs Life, 1998; and Toy Story 2, 1999) who would advise them on how to make the script stronger. Docter explains, "John is so amazing, his input was invaluable throughout the whole process. He's already done three films and he has a great mind... he has a terrific grasp about how an audience views a film."

Monsters, Inc. director Peter Docter (l) and executive producer John Lasseter combine forces.