Inside Out (2015)
A Pixar original story by Pete Docter & Ronnie del Carmen.
Intro song (“Bundle of Joy”). Within the mind of a young girl named Riley are the basic emotions that control her actions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. The emotions live in Headquarters. Her experiences become memories, stored as colored orbs, which are sent into long-term memory each night. The aspects of 5 of her most important memories called core memories incorporate the form of 5 floating islands called Islands of Personality which are powered by that core memory. These include Hockey Island, Goofball Island, Friendship Island, Honesty Island, and Family Island. Joy acts as the leader, and she tries to limit Sadness's influence; Joy sees purpose in Fear, Disgust, and Anger, but thinks Sadness makes everything worse.
At the age of 11, Riley moves from Minnesota to San Francisco for her father's new job. At first, she has poor experiences: the new house is cramped and old; her father hardly has any time for her due to him needing to set up his new job; a local pizza parlor only serves pizza topped with broccoli, which she dislikes; and the moving van with their belongings was misdirected to Texas and will not arrive for weeks. On the first night when Riley goes to bed (called going into REM), Joy takes Dream Duty. She doesn’t like what Dream Production (a movie studio inside Riley’s head that produces movies for Riley to dream) has Riley dreaming so she plays one of Riley’s happy memories of her ice skating with her parents (“Free Skating”).
On Riley's first day at her new school, Joy attempts to maintain Riley’s happiness however Sadness retroactively turns joyous memories sad, which causes Riley to cry in front of her class and create a sad core memory. Joy tries to dispose of it by using a vacuum tube, but accidentally knocks the other core memories loose during a struggle with Sadness, disabling the personality islands. Joy, Sadness, and the core memories are sucked out of Headquarters and into long-term memory. In both Joy and Sadness's absences, Anger, Fear, and Disgust are forced to take control of Riley and try to make happy core memories, but the results are disastrous, distancing Riley from her parents, friends, and hobbies. Without the core memories, her personality islands gradually crumble. Goofball Island is the first to fall into the Memory Dump, where things fade to non-existence as they are forgotten.
While navigating the vast long-term memory area, Joy and Sadness encounter mind workers who reveal that when Riley does not care about a memory, it fades and then the mind workers dump them into the Memory Dump. Just then, Friendship Island crumbles and is lost after Riley’s childhood Minnesota friend Megan talks about their new hockey teammate. Joy then meets Bing Bong, Riley's imaginary friend from when she was younger but who has now been forgotten, who suggests riding the train of thought back to Headquarters. After several adventures and mishaps through abstract thought and Imagination Land, the trio eventually catch the train; however, it halts when Riley falls asleep. Anger resolves to run away to Minnesota, intending to restore Riley's happiness by creating more core memories. The trio attempt to wake her up by sabotaging one of the dream productions however Bing Bong, along with the core memories, are apprehended and taken into the Subconscious, where they lock up Riley’s darkest fears such as Jangles the clown. Joy and Sadness successfully free Bing Bong and use Jangles the clown to wake up Riley, thus restarting the train of thought. However the train derails entirely with the collapse of Honesty Island (when Riley steals her mom’s credit card to pay for a bus ticket back to Minnesota). Afraid that all the core memories will become sad, Joy abandons Sadness and tries to ride a recall tube back to Headquarters. The ground below the tube collapses, breaking it and sending Joy and Bing Bong plunging into the Memory Dump.
After discovering a sad memory that turned happy when Riley's parents and friends comforted her, Joy understands Sadness's purpose of alerting others when Riley is emotionally overwhelmed and needs help. Joy and Bing Bong try to use Bing Bong's song-fueled wagon rocket to escape the Memory Dump. They fail to fully ascend, due to their combined weight, until Bing Bong jumps out at the last moment and fades away. Joy reunites with Sadness and they return to Headquarters, discovering that Anger's idea has disabled the console, putting Riley into depression as she boards a bus to Minnesota. To the surprise of the others, Joy hands control of the console to Sadness, who is able to reactivate it and prompt Riley to return to her parents. As Sadness re-installs the core memories, transforming them from happy to sad, Riley tearfully confesses to her parents that she misses her old life. Her parents comfort her and admit they also miss Minnesota. Joy and Sadness work the console together, creating a new core memory consisting of happiness and sadness; a new island forms, representing Riley's acceptance of her new life in San Francisco.
A year later, Riley, now at the age of 12, has adapted to her new home, made new friends, and returned to her old hobbies while acquiring a few new ones. Inside Headquarters, her emotions admire Riley's new personality islands (such as a Friendly Argument extension of Friendship Island, Tragic Vampire Romance Island, Fashion Island, Boy Band Island, etc.) and are given a newly expanded console with room for them all to work together (“The Joy of Credits”).
TRIVIA
Visual Style
The effects team had to figure out a way to showcase Joy’s effervescence i.e. to have particles that radiate and shoot off her skin throughout the entire film. Instead of being solid, Joy's effervescence was derived from pinwheels, Champagne, and sparklers.
Simple shapes were initially designed for them included Anger as a brick, Joy as a star, Sadness as a tear, and Fear as a nerve. Sadness's appearance was changed to that of a Debbie Downer.
Director Pete Docter was very specific about the film taking place in the mind, not the brain. The mind is metaphorical so they imagined our thought processes, memories, feelings. Despite this, the team used brain physiology as reference and were inspired by shapes—the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, cells under a microscope. In envisaging how the mind's interior could be depicted, the filmmakers concentrated on the word "electrochemical" and was considered for various options using electricity.
The mind world incorporated "soft surfaces", increased volume of "saturated colors" and "contrast light", and translucency; while the real one opposed these aspects.
Docter imagined that with emotions for characters, they could "push the level of caricature" to both design and "style of movement" to degrees. To this end, they emulated the styles of animators Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. Docter informed Krause and Navone to push the graphic caricature of each character rather than sticking to the rigid behavior of each RenderMan model. This required an artist to draw over characters in Inside Out during dailies.
Technology
Inside Out made increased use of an advanced sketching tool, which animators performed rapid sculpting on silhouettes, in altering the characters' appearances within them and evaluating a "fine-tuning" cloth stimulation. Through the simulation department, the motion of the characters' hair and their garments were added.
Music
The signature sound for a Core Memory being made is the combined sounds of a violin bow on glass and a warbling Japanese prayer bell. It is pitched directly to whatever music is playing at the time.
Deleted Scene(s)
A deleted scene showed that the original idea was to have other emotions in Riley’s mind such as Schadenfreude, Hope, Ennui, and Pride.
A 2015 Pixar short Riley’s First Date? follows Riley and her parents after the events of Inside Out when a boy shows up at their house to pick up Riley to go skating.