4. Field Trip

The original plan for Carl’s destination was a desert island, but Docter quickly realised that it might feel like a cliché.

Thanks to a little help from writer/art director Ralph Eggleston (a member of the Pixar 'Brain Trust' who worked on Monsters, Inc), Docter watched a video of the Tepui Mountain Range in Venezuela, quickly realising it would make the perfect setting.

So Docter, producer Jonas Rivera and eleven other Pixar team members set off for Venezuela.

“We hired this great British explorer/filmmaker, Adrian Warren to take us down there,” Rivera told Total Film. “We bought everything you could possibly buy for the trip. And then we get there and the porters are just wearing sandals and shorts. We looked like idiots!"

Despite the clothing issues, the team came away with plenty of sketches, paintings and, more crucially, a setting for the majority of the movie.

Now they needed the rest of the story…

Next: Heart & Soul