Ronnie del Carmen's Process (Transcript)
Ronnie is known for these very sincere moments. And in the podcast he explains his process for the scene he did for Coco. (I earlier posted the panels from his storyboards for this scene here) I find his explanation extra interesting because he also addresses Story Point of View, a subject I have recently been exploring on this blog. Apart from the Story Point of View he also distinguishes the lead character in the scene. So he concludes that although he wants to tell the story from Miguel's experience, the scene really is about Chicharrón, the old man whose guitar Miguel needs to borrow.
Below is a transcript from this part of the podcast, where Ronnie explains how he approached the scene from Coco. Ronnie has an almost mystical way of speaking, that makes it hard to transcribe. Although his musings make great sense while you listen to them, written out it doesn't read well. I edited this transcript quite heavily in order to keep it legible. To hear the unedited version, check out the video starting at 12min 54.
"For example, with Coco, I wasn’t part of the crew. At one point Lee approaches me and says, “Ronnie, we have a moment that is kind of a moment that you do.” And I say, “Oh, okay. I get it.” Because I’m known at Pixar as the guy who does these things. And they are usually these certain parts of the movies. It’s somewhere towards the end of the second act. Somewhere close to the lowest point. Somewhere past the midpoint. Where there are major epiphanies for the characters, that have started to point them away from their core principles for the first time. That’s where I come in. And they already have the setting, they already built the road maps going there. And they already have the moment. But they still ask me, can you do this moment for us. And I’m like, yeah, sure.
This was the moment where Chicharrón, who owns a guitar, is the target of our two protagonists. They want to borrow a guitar from him. Which is like your surface goal: go and borrow the guitar. And, [Hector is like], I’m not so sure if I’m gonna be welcome in there, but I’m going to go and work my magic on him. And then he does and when he goes inside they have little tiff with Chicharrón, who, in the rules of this world, is going to disappear for the final time. Because nobody remembers him.
So the way I tackle that moment is like, well it seems like everything is there already. Even the lines of dialogue that need to be said. But what I wanted to mine for is, where do I put this setting for the maximum impact of things, and how would I position him. What kind of old man is he? And then usually I like to deal with body poses, and then pauses, and who says what, and what are we looking at-- And then, primarily whose experience is this really?
And I wanted to focus on the boy’s experience. Because this is the boy’s movie. So everything has to happen around him. It’s his observation of the dynamics of the two characters. But who am I in this moment? Me. And in this moment, I am Chicharrón. I can relate to him. I even draw him to look like me, when I was drawing it.
And I set the lighting, I set the mood. Because it’s like I’m going to be the actor in this moment. And I don’t have to dig too deep to understand, you know: nobody thinks about you. And at some point really even if you went, nobody would even know. So the kind of feelings that you’re going through delineate, for me anyway, that it has to start like this, I have a center part that I want to get to, there are some moments of levity, there’s a song that’s going to be played . . . What do we look at when that’s happening? All of those things just based on, how I feel about this character, Chicharrón. But I also want to be able to show it through the eyes of the young boy who is watching.
And then because of those kinds of feelings and choices that I’m imagining is happening, I draw the set. I kind of make the lighting happen. And I feel like, oh yeah. Because I love doing these things. Because I’m a cinematographer, and a production designer. Right now I want to put it over here, or over there. So by the time I present it, I present a movie part that, if you haven’t thought about it, this is what I’m doing. I’m going to put this over here, I’m going to put that over there. And then I pitch it. And then they will buy it. They will say, I love it, we will change this line here, a little higher over here, a little lower over there . . . and then run with it. I pitch it one time, and then I go away."
