It is common in the industry to make video tapes of the recording sessions so animators can study how voice actors move when they say their lines. Animators didn't use as much of this type of reference material on Monsters, Inc. as the film's characters are so unusual. The one person they did watch a lot was Marry Gibbs, the girl who did the voice of Boo, the little girl who enters the world of the monsters. She is the only human in the film. Boo was the character they were most concerned with at the beginning of the project as her success on the screen depended on how well they captured the movements of a real three-year old child.

Mary Gibbs lends her voice to the abstracted human character Boo.

Boo is not a photo-realistic child. She is an abstracted human like Al in Toy Story 2 or Geri in Geri's Game (an Oscar winning short produced by Pixar and directed by Jan Pinkava, 1998). She was designed to fit into the world created for this film. Docter didn't want her to stand out from the other characters.

Docter is a fan of the strong modern looking 2D animation of the 1950s. He is glad that the title sequence is a nod to that look. It was designed by Geefwee Boedoe and definitely recalls the work of Saul Bass.

Work at Pixar often began about 8 in the morning for Docter and he usually went home around 8 or 9 at night. At home he would spend time with his kids, eat, and then spend about 1 or 2 hours answering his e-mail. He usually had his weekends free as the producers at Pixar "are getting better and better about that so people don't kill themselves." He is looking forward to a vacation before going back to begin development of his ideas for future features.

As he looks back over his 5 years of work on the film he says, "I wouldn't say this film went very smoothly, but in the end I'm very pleased with what we have."

Team Monsters, Inc. (l-r): Billy Crystal, executive producer John Lasseter, composer Randy Newman, director Peter Docter, John Goodman and producer Darla K. Anderson.

Pixar's Use Of Co-Directors
Since live-action features normally have one director, people are surprised that Pixar had three on Monsters, Inc. Lee Unkrich explains that the company adopted that system after John Lasseter directed the first Toy Story. He says Lasseter found out the hard way that a computer generated feature requires too much work for one person. At Pixar they choose co-directors who can bring different strengths to each film.

Lee Unkrich came to Pixar with a background in live-action editing and cinematography. He oversaw the editing, staging and cinematography of the new film, the same role he had on Toy Story 2 (1999). He says, "In designing the cinematography of this film, I held true to the philosophy that I've used on all of the other Pixar films. Even though we are doing animation I only do things with the camera that you can do in a live-action film. Although we have the liberty to do anything we want with our camera, it is better to keep everything more restrained. People are comfortable seeing a world that they are used to seeing when they go out to see a movie." He avoids tricky shots, rapid fire editing and other things that might be appropriate to rock videos.