Embrace the Panda: Making Turning Red (2022)
0h 48m | PG-13
A feature length documentary about the all-women team at the helm of Pixar's original feature, Turning Red. With unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to Director Domee Shi and her core leadership crew, this story shines a light on the powerful professional and personal journeys that brought this incredibly comical, utterly relatable, and deeply heartfelt story to the screen.
Director: Erica Milsom
Studio: Pixar
Genre: Documentary
Video: 720p
Cast
Domee Shi
as Self
Rona Liu
as Self
Lindsey Collins
as Self
Danielle Feinberg
as Self
Rosalie Chiang
as Self (archive footage)
Andrew Stanton
as Self (archive footage)
Reviews
A neat look behind the scenes of 'Turning Red', though not the most interesting. The actual film is very good, fwiw. It's more about the people who made the film as opposed to the film itself, which is all fine but I'm always more interested in the onscreen stuff and the cast. We get to see a bit of Rosalie Chiang and a bit of Sandra Oh, but that's basically it. Animated films in general always seem to not showcase 'actors in the booth', which is kinda annoying. Like here, it's cool to see Oh in the booth - needed more of that for the whole cast! Of course, logistically that might not have been possible - though for this documentary they do send a separate camera crew to (pleasantly, I'd like to add) film a crew member's family so... This also completely sidesteps the controversy of theatrical release vs. Disney+ release. As expected, no doubt, but it feels like a massive elephant - or, should I say, panda ... sorry - in the room throughout. In conclusion, this serves a purpose but it's not as interesting as it could've been - in my opinion, obvs. It does, at least, shed light on important real world topics to be fair.
This doesn't show too much of the actual production, and it's stronger for it. Instead, it paints a beautiful portrait of the crew that shaped TURNING RED into what it is, showing how their lives informed everything from the character modeling to the production design and lighting, very cool stuff!