There is hope for us all: the makers of the superb Disney-Pixar adventure Inside Out have told TEN that they "failed multiple times" in bringing the Oscar-tipped film to the big screen.
The visually stunning and profoundly moving story takes us into the mind of 11-year-old Riley, where emotions Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger and Fear are at the controls as the youngster tries to deal with a family move from Minnesota to San Francisco.
Critics have said that Inside Out could become the first animated film in Academy Awards history to win the Best Picture Oscar next February.
TEN's Harry Guerin met writer-director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera in Dublin this week, where they told him that while they didn't see the film's concept as the biggest gamble of their careers, there were many pitfalls along the way.
"What you're seeing on screen is actually not the first try at this," said Docter, "it's, like, Take 157."
"There are nine or 10 bad versions of the movie that we would never show anybody," said Rivera.
He continued: "We knew it was challenging, and it was certainly a movie we had to wrestle with. But we were just so excited about the idea of going somewhere we've never been before, and our crew was very 'lit up' by that."
Docter, who won the Best Animated Film Oscar for his work with Rivera on 2009's Up, added: "It was fun because it's [the mind] a place that everybody on one level is familiar with – these are concepts we've thought about like, 'Why is that song stuck in my head?' – and we get to explain stuff like that in a way that nobody's seen before, which is where you want to be, I think."
"If it's too weird and foreign people don't have anything to relate to. On the other hand, if it's too familiar, you feel like, 'Ah, I've seen that before'. So this is kind of that sweet spot," he added.
Inside Out opens on Friday July 24. Watch out for an interview with Amy Poehler, who voices Joy, on RTÉ TEN next week.
You can watch our interview with Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera by clicking the link.
