Dec 11, 2024

The upheaval, chaos, and creative and radical production of Pixar's new series “Dream Productions”

“Dream Productions,” Pixar Animation Studios' newest television series derived from the popular “Inside Out” film series, opens today on Disney+. Billed as an “Interquel,” a spin-off that sits between the 2015 and 2024 films, “Dream Productions” follows Paula Persimmon (Paula Pell), Riley's “dream director” and daydream specialist at Riley's dream production studio. She teams up with Zeni (Richard Ayoade), a daydream specialist, to create Riley's next big tween dream.

In late October, Cartoon Brew participated in a panel discussion at the Fredrikstad Animation Fesitval. The show was the last project Wise worked on at Pixar, where his 30-year career with the company came to an end last July. At Fredrikstad he spoke candidly to the audience about his experience with the series.

“The production of Dream Productions is mostly about process and people. Pixar has had its own pipeline for a long time, which has some advantages, but we had to adapt to the mission that was set before us, which was to make a 140-minute, seven-episode series in feature quality for a fraction of the price.”

Although he did not give detailed statistics, Wise spoke about the number of work weeks. For the past ten years, the budget for a Pixar film has typically been between 18,500 and 22,500 work weeks. For Dream Productions, the original budget was 10,000 weeks. This was a grand experiment for Pixar, putting multiple directors to work along with lead screenwriter Mike Jones (showrunner). From the beginning, we knew that the film would be produced simultaneously with the greenlit “Inside Out 2. And so our journey began.”

Early on, the team focused on compressing the workload in each department. Our writing schedule was pretty aggressive,” Wise explains. 'We had nine weeks in the writers' room and four months of script development. And we were going to lock in seven scripts, which is not standard at Pixar, to solidify the ending. Our production schedule was very similar to that of a feature film, but we knew we would be working on several episodes at the same time. Especially since we had to produce 1.5 times as much footage on half the budget of a feature film.”

To achieve this goal, the Dream Productions team worked with Pixar's feature pipeline, which reused assets from the first “Inside Out” film and shared new assets that the production staff was creating for “Inside Out 2.” Said Pixar's director, David Bowman, “In the old days, each film brought something completely different from the next, because we were revamping a large part of the pipeline. We didn't want that kind of instability, so we didn't have the budget to develop new technology for our shows, so we created boundaries around our version of the toolset. And we removed the boundaries within the team”

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To streamline the work, Wise and his team integrated departments such as art and assets, encouraged flexibility between departments, had all technical departments and filming work in one room, and used daily viewing sessions as a venue for director reviews. This happens on feature films, but it tends to happen later in the process.” We didn't have the luxury of a feature film budget.”

When Dream Productions began in August 2021, planning and preparation allowed for efficient and flexible ways to cut costs. By October of that year, however, the production faced its first curve. “I must emphasize that it was clear from the very beginning that we were a lower priority than a feature film. [It] applied to almost everything, but especially staff resources. Since production had just begun, we were told that due to staffing problems at Elemental and Lightyear, we would not be able to secure a director for assets and animation. As a result, the asset start was delayed by eight months.”

Despite these setbacks, production proceeded. Under the guidance of art director Bart Berry, the art department created the world of Dream Productions and the headquarters studio in Riley's mind, while others dug through the Pixar backlot to resurrect the characters, backgrounds, and props from the first “Inside Out.” Says Wise, “All of this couldn't just be reused as is.” At the same time, we benefited from the complete reworking for “Inside Out 2. One of the biggest innovations in this production was the sharing of Perforce servers.”

At Pixar, each production usually has its own Perforce server, running like a walled garden. However, to cut costs, Dream Productions was moved entirely to Inside Out 2.'s servers, creating a shared area to maintain each production's independence. Says Wise: “It helped us because we were able to exchange a lot of assets and focus our few resources on creating assets that only Dream needed. As for the quality of the assets, difficulties arose. What we created for both projects had to be of “Inside Out 2” quality. In any case, that's what we were going for, but we were trying to do it differently, with fewer iterations. The Inside Out 2. team was working with a feature film in mind, so they expected to be able to do three to six iterations. We had a ratio of one to two iterations, and we liked that. As a matter of fact, we got the better part. We were able to reuse very complex characters, including human characters and “core emotions”. But in the end, it also caused a lot of grief and drew us into an ongoing debate about how to adjust this or that. And the schedule was already behind schedule.

With tight deadlines in mind, the Dream Team kept the departments close and working together. The nice thing about having everyone in the same room,” says Wise, ”was that everyone knew what each sequence was going to be. Departments such as editing, layout, and animation do things territorially. Here, with the help of the producer and director, we were able to create a new workflow where all the production pods were constantly seeing and discussing things.

The new workflow allowed for greater individual autonomy and creativity, allowing complex shots to be created relatively quickly and with fewer iterations.

Things were going in the right direction for Dream Productions, despite the delays and a budget that was $10 million larger than the original. However, in early 2023, news broke that Disney was laying off 7,000 employees and that Pixar would be axed from streaming. As you can imagine,” Wise recalls. Dream Productions had not yet been announced, and we didn't know if it would be canceled. On top of that, our first three 'locked' scripts received significant attention from the execs.”

For Wise, the uproar seemed to invalidate the creative process that had made Dream Productions possible. He said, “The initial creative plan was not one that Pixar could stomach. It was too radical a change for the way Pixar was accustomed to working, and eventually we had to adapt to it,” Wise said. Meanwhile, “Elio” and “Inside Out 2” suffered serious story problems, forcing the entire staff to suspend operations. As a result, Dream Productions had to incur more studio costs than originally anticipated, and its budget exceeded its original budget by $17 million. “

The recession has cut Dream's production budget by 20% and reduced the number of episodes from seven to four. How did we get through these months? Wise recalls. All I can say is that it was a daily, weekly battle waged by a courageous group of producers, associate producers, directors, and team managers. The budget was still fluctuating, though, as “Inside Out 2” finally kicked off production and we wanted everyone in the studio on board.

Dream Productions was able to significantly increase production and meet the March 2024 deadline. According to Wise, the production's animation average increased by 200%, effects by 300%, and lighting by 321%. Despite these accomplishments, Pixar layoffs hit the Dream Team hard as the studio refocused its priorities on feature films.

“It was another blow to our team,” Wise sadly concluded. 'A team that has put a lot of energy into doing the best they can with the cards they've been dealt. As far as I can tell, Pixar has learned little from our experimentation. The success of “Inside Out 2” will only reinforce the sense that the old ways still work and that siloed departments work better. I think Dream's core idea of getting everyone in the same room, seeing shots together, and making (creative) calls together was actually a good way to go. I don't mean solve everything, I mean talk it out. And ultimately, it encouraged our creativity.”

In addition to Dream Productions, “Win or Lose” (an eight-episode show billed as Pixar's first “original feature-length animated series”) is scheduled for February 19, 2025. Other than these projects, no Pixar series have been announced, and the studio is currently focusing once again on feature film production.