Original Title丨'Soul' Features Pixar's First Black Lead Character. Here's How It Happened
Author: Charles Solomon
*This article is abridged*
This is the first black protagonist from Pixar Studios.
While there is no shortage of black stars in American animation who play supporting roles (Samuel L. Jackson in The Incredibles) or voice animal characters (Voices Chris Rock and Jada Pinkett Smith in the Madagascar series), in general, the U.S. Black stories and black talent are still underrepresented in the animation industry. Joe, the protagonist of " Into the Mind ", is the fourth film after "Bebe's Kids" (1992), " The Princess and the Frog " (2009) and " Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse " (2018). An American cartoon featuring a black character.
"To me, Joe represents a lot of people who are not seen," said Jamie Foxx, who voices Joe. "Joe is more or less in us, no matter what the color of our skin."
Inside Mind's white director Pete Docter, co-writer Mike Jones and producer Dana Murray have worked hard to create a believable black character from the start of the film's conception and have worked hard to avoid the film Stereotypes of black characters in .
The story of Psychic began four years ago, when director Pete Docter felt a little overwhelmed after winning his second Oscar for Inside Out. Producer Murray recalled that on the one hand, Pitt was happy for his two awards, but on the other hand, he couldn't help but doubt his career as an animation director, and he didn't know what would happen next - a bit of a "midlife crisis".
So director Docter began to think about the origins of character and whether people are inherently destined to do certain things. Co-writer Jones added: "When we first met, the director told me that he had a rudimentary idea: a place beyond space and time, where souls have different personalities."
It took Docter and Jones about two years to develop the canon and story of Psycho's main character, Joe: He's a black high school music teacher and musician from Queens, New York -- but something's missing . "We want more people to come in and talk about the role and bring a little bit of depth to our role."
Soon after, Kemp-Bowles joined the film's start-up team. Bowers, who has a background in live-action and news reporting, felt comfortable trying out a new career at Pixar. "Animation is a highly collaborative and repetitive form, and I think it's actually very similar to live-action film and television dramas," he said. When Powers first joined "Spiritual Journey," he signed a 12-week screenwriting contract. During the collaboration, as discussions deepened, director Docter promoted him as co-director and extended his contract.
Although Powers is black, he is still cautious about his role on the OWN team: "There are people who might like to represent black people, represent black people in America because they are black -- I'm not that kind of person. I'm black, yes, but I only know my own personal history, and I can't represent all black people in New York, nor can I represent our generation of black people." Bowers said that the production team of "Oddly Mind" has a deep understanding of American animation. The history of racist imagery has done enough homework. Director Docter once wrote an article on the history of animation. He admitted: American animation has a long and painful history, and cartoonized racist settings are used to mock Black Americans. They didn't want to create the Joe image one way as a painted black, suitable for white character image. They decided to give Joe a unique look.
Bowers said they were both aware of the particularity that Joe's role required. “It would be a lot easier to write a story if the experience of a black character was treated as the experience of a black person as a whole—just apply those “very black” representations—it’s a “lazy” creation good excuse. "
Britta Wilson, Pixar’s vice president of inclusion strategy, built an internal “Cultural Trust” team of black employees within the company. At the same time, these black employees vary in gender, job and age. In addition, Pixar communicated with consultants outside the company and worked with black organizations to ensure the authenticity of the story of "Osama."
Members of Pixar's Cultural Trust brought a variety of perspectives. "We will ask everyone a question, and there are more than 20 of them, and they will give us more than 20 answers." The members' discussions are sometimes very intense, and they are very inspirational for the creation of the story of "Spiritual Journey". "So many different points of view make our work difficult to a certain extent, but listening to everyone's ideas is a very important thing in itself."
To create the image of Joe, Pixar artists and technicians worked together to study the texture of black hair, as well as the changes in color and texture of black skin under various lighting conditions. In addition, Pixar has brought in cinematographer Bradford Young, whose credits include "Solo: A Star Wars Story," as a consultant.
Finding the right voice actor for an animated character can be as challenging as casting a live-action film. Jones explained, "You have a voice in your head that you can use to find a voice actor - our Joe is a man with dreams, he wants to be a good jazz pianist, but at the same time, he is teaching When it comes to music, it’s always passionate—those qualities that Joe’s voice actor, Jamie Foxx, gives us.”
Although Jamie Foxx has previously voiced the animated character, he still needed some acting tweaks for the character of Joe. "Every time I'm dubbing in the studio, I use various facial expressions and gestures to support the lines," he said. Tina Fey, who voices 22, has done other voice jobs before, "even if Comedians, we're also always trying to be the best we can be, focusing on how we dress, how we look. When I'm doing 22, I can completely ignore my appearance -- it's so liberating.
Reflecting on the creation of The Mind, Powers said, "When someone told me I was the first black director at Pixar, I thought no, how could that be? (It was)." Pitt said , he hopes this is the beginning of change." He also noted that there are more people of color and female animators in the U.S. animation industry than it was 15 or 20 years ago, "it's a shame this change has taken so long. It took time, but I'm happy - the change has finally happened."
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