In these two videos posted by Mr. Hollywood, John Lasseter discusses the challenges that the Pixar team faced while creating Brave as well as some of Pixar’s upcoming projects.
In the first video clip, John Lasseter discusses how the relationship that the parents (Queen Elinor and King Fergus) have between Merida and the triplets is very much from his own personal life. As John and his wife Nancy have five sons, three of whom were born back-to-back and got into trouble growing up. Where John still needed to be a disciplinarian to his sons he was laughing inside at some of their antics – perhaps similar to Harris, Hubert and Hamish.
In this second video, John discusses the challenges with the animation of Brave, for example, Merida’s wild red hair, the layers of clothing, and of course the organic elements of some of the scenes (moss, fog).
My favorite part of the entire interview is at time-mark 2:37 when John discusses some of Pixar’s upcoming projects. It was so wonderful to hear the excitement in his voice as he mentions both Pete Docter’s “Mind” project and Lee Unkrich’s “Dia de Los Muertos” project, both of which are years away from their theatrical debut – however, I’m already filled with excitement and anticipation!