James Robertson: A story about Onward
About a year ago Pixar story artist James Robertson shared a story on his Instagram, about his short time working on Onward. I find this story extremely touching: the first time I read it it hit me hard. I share it here because I think it shines some light on why Pixar films are often able to land these very heavy emotional punches. If you wonder how they manage to get the audience to cry, the answer is that the artists working on it were crying as they made it. It is that simple, and that hard.
Below is the full transcript of James Robertson's instagram story. The above image is a scan from the (great) Onward art-of book, showing his boards.
A story about Onward. Caveat; I only worked on it for a short period of time and made only microscopic contributions. But I was invited to work on some stuff in act one in 2017, August.
Backing up. When Dan pitched what would become Onward to the studio- the pitch included a heartbreaking story about Dan hearing his Fathers voice on an old cassette tape. Devastating stuff, such that I tracked him down post meeting to tell him so personally.
So I went on the movie and was gifted a great act one scene called ‘Tape Recorder’. It was clear what it was right away. It was Dan’s story. Now, Dan didn’t know this prior, but in February of that year I had a rough pneumonia- and xrays came back with nodules on both my lungs. It was terrifying, and the early estimate was it could be BAD, like BAD BAD. I made my son some recordings of myself in case things went, well... yeah. I didn’t want my son to only know me from photos. I wanted him to hear my voice. Like Dan’s story.
So, I boarded that scene. Ian is looking at photos of his Dad and tragically trying to conjure an impossible connection. Dan and Jason did a great job of creating that wonderful set up and I FELT it, immediately. That scene came from Dan’s life, and the boards, however small and unimportant, came from mine. It was an absolute honor, and a rare gift to get material that you can feel and I’m grateful I was trusted to help tell that part of the story in boards. I only worked on it briefly as I said, but plugged in deeply right away, because there was truth there. I’m very proud of my short stint. I want to state: The movie would be exactly the same had I worked on it or not- the vision was clear. I take no credit for the conceit of the scene or the juice in it. I was fortunate to be a conduit for that small part of the large story. I hope you all see it and connect the way I did.
