Josh Cooley Archives - Dad of Divas

As most of you know I attended a special Disney. Pixar & Disney Junior event from September 29-October 2 in San Francisco to take part in a fun few days of exploring the movies, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur and Miles From Tomorrowland. It was an amazing few days and it is my pleasure to share some of my experiences with you!

On the first day there we spent all day meeting cast as well as the Directors of the movie Inside Out. As a HUGE fan of the movie, I was really excited to have the opportunity to talk to these wonderful people and let them tell their side of the story and share with me what the movie meant to them.

Today I am sharing with you some of my experiences interviewing Josh Cooley and Mark Nielsen of Riley’s First Date, the animated short being released with Inside Out .

As someone that loved Inside Out and who also the short film Riley’s First Date I was both excited to meet and talk with Josh Cooley and Mark Nielsen. I love getting into the minds of the animators and creatives that make such amazing content for us.

Both of these gentlemen were as humble as can be when it came to their film. I was first impressed to find out that it took only 10 months to create this short. They said that it was shorter than many of the previous shorts because they simply kept filming and working on it once the Inside Out Feature film was completed. They explained that it was easier to do this because they had talent on hand and the creative team was still assembled.

They both have daughters themselves, so they truly wanted to bring to life the family dynamic, but in specific, they wanted to be able to show the relationship between father and daughter. For both the theme of this short hit close to home. While they both said they did not know if they would be able to bond in the same way as Riley’s dad, they still hoped that they could relate to the boy in some way.

When they were first making this short they thought that it would be more from the daughters’ point of view, but they soon found that it was not this at all. Instead, it was about the parents having to let go of their daughter and let her move forward with her life. As any parent knows this is not easy, and I truly feel that they captured this well in a humorous way for the viewer.

We also talked about the Inside Out feature film too, and found that Josh Cooley himself was the voice of the clown in the feature film and another voice in the short. They explained that at times, they use “scratch voice” individuals to step in for a voice before they have talent in place and sometimes the “scratch voice” actor becomes the voice for the part in general.

Speaking of voices, one of the voices you hear in the head off the boyfriend in the short was Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers!

In talking with both Josh Cooley and Mark Nielsen we found out that the concept for Riley’s First Date really did not change from inception to completion. All that really changed were some of the things throughout that were added to make it better such as the dad playing the guitar.

It was so much fun getting to get behind the scenes of Inside Out and Riley’s First Date with Josh Cooley and Mark Nielsen and I hope you learned a ton from what I shared!

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