What Is It That Makes You...YOU?
“Soul” introduces Joe Gardner (voice of Jamie Foxx) – a middle-school band teacher who has a passion for jazz. “Joe wants more than anything to become a professional jazz pianist,” says director Pete Docter. “So when he’s offered a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play with one of the greats, Joe feels he’s reached the top of the ultimate mountain.”
But one small misstep takes him from the streets of New York City to The Great Before – a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks and interests before they go to Earth. According to Docter, the idea for this unique world was 23 years in the making. “It started with my son—he’s 23 now—but the instant he was born, he already had a personality,” says Docter. “Where did that come from? I thought your personality developed through your interaction with the world. And yet, it was pretty clear that we’re all born with a very unique, specific sense of who we are.
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T H E C H A R A C T E R S
Joe Gardner
A middle-school band teacher, Joe Gardner’s life hasn’t quite gone the way he’s expected. While teaching is a noble profession, his true passion is playing jazz, and he’s good. Joe believes he was born to play professionally, and though he’s 46 years old, he feels his opportunity to land a high-profile gig could come any day. Joe has an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz history, and even if his passion for music may have hampered his social life over the years, it hasn’t hampered his confidence. He lives alone, immersing himself in what he loves best: music. That is, until a single unexpected step sends him to the cosmic realms where he finds the “You Seminar” and is forced to think again about what his life is all about.
22
22 is a precocious soul who has spent hundreds of years at The You Seminar, where new souls must meet several requirements before going to Earth. Like every soul before her, 22 has been through the Personality Pavilions, which explains her endearing sarcasm, quick wit and occasional moodiness. She’s met every requirement to go to Earth—except one. But no matter how many visits she makes to the Hall of Everything, no matter how many esteemed luminaries have mentored her, she can’t find the spark she needs to fulfill her requirements and make her way to Earth. That’s fine with 22; the truth is—she’s not interested in life on Earth at all. Can Joe convince her otherwise?
Building The Performances
Jazz is such an important aspect of “Soul” that filmmakers wanted to ensure that all of the performances are authentic. The effort involved several departments and hundreds of hours of work to pull it off in a way that would win the approval of jazz musicians.
Extensive reference footage was taken, using multiple camera angles, including close-ups of the musician’s hands playing piano keys and the saxophone, as well as the bass and drums. “For each of those shots—several were thousands of frames long—we delivered a lot of coverage to editorial,” says director of photography Matt Aspbury.
Adds producer Dana Murray, “The authenticity we were able to achieve with Joe on piano and Dorothea on saxophone was one of the highlights of the whole show. You get lost in the performances, lost in the music—which, in many ways, is the whole point.”
Dez
Dez is Joe’s longtime barber and professional listener. Friendly with a warm smile and sense of humor, Dez has known Joe for years. He gladly lets his client talk about anything he wants—which for Joe, of course, is jazz.
Dorothea Williams
Dorothea Williams is a world-renowned jazz legend who’s earned her place among the greats. Confident, strong and poised, she is also truly talented when it comes to her saxophone playing. Dorothea exudes pure confidence on stage and suffers no fools when it comes to jazz or life. Her band is her family, and joining that family is an honor she’s willing to extend to very few. It’s not easy to impress Dorothea, but it’s worth trying.
Libba Gardner
Libba Gardner is Joe’s mother, his biggest fan, and his kind-hearted truth-teller. She is a proud businesswoman who’s owned a successful tailor shop in Queens for decades. Her late husband, Joe’s father, was a struggling musician, so Libba was the primary breadwinner for the family. She knows that life as a musician can be brutal, so she encourages Joe to have a backup plan, which he interprets as a lack of support. But no matter how pragmatic Libba can be, above all, she loves Joe and wants him to be happy.
Moonwind
Moonwind is the product of a midlife awakening, which led his former self to change his name and his day job to seek a happier life. Moonwind is now a devoted sign twirler on a Manhattan street corner—an activity that brings him joy, putting him into the zone, which allows him to mentally and spiritually journey to a mystical place called The Astral Plane (near The Great Before), where he rescues lost souls from their uninspiring, stressful lives.
The Counselors
The Counselors at The Great Before—there are a number of them—are all known as Jerry. Cheery, optimistic and (mostly) all-knowing, the ubiquitous Counselors run The You Seminar very much like camp counselors, wrangling dozens of new human souls, awarding them unique personalities and helping them find their spark and graduate to Earth. Each Jerry is a unique expression of the universe itself—employing patience, good cheer and passive-aggressive tendencies in different measures. But all maintain boundless enthusiasm for their metaphysical charges.
Terry
Terry is a peculiar extension of the team of The Great Before, charged with the singular duty of keeping track of the entrants to The Great Beyond. Each Jerry does their best to tolerate Terry, whose obsession with The Count can be burdensome—especially when it’s off. So, when Joe Gardner takes a detour to The Great Before, Terry is determined to make things right.
Curley
Curley is one of Joe Gardner’s former students who nurtured his own passion for music into adulthood, landing a coveted spot in Dorothea Williams’ jazz quartet. The accomplished drummer never forgot his favorite teacher-slash-jazz pianist, so when an opportunity for a piano player arises, Curley gets Joe the audition of a lifetime.
Miho
Miho is the stand-up bass player rounding out the Dorothea Williams Quartet. Cool and reserved, she exudes casual confidence both on and off-stage.
New Souls
New Souls are fresh-faced, violet-eyed and curious—they’re blank slates on a mission to discover their identity. From the Personality Pavilions to the Hall of Everything, new souls take on the traits they will exude on Earth. Finding their spark is the final step for all new souls before earning their Earth Pass and beginning life as a human. For some new souls, however, finding that spark is easier said than done.
Mr. Mittens
Mr Mittens is a therapy cat spends who spends his days purring, cuddling and comforting patients in their hospital rooms. The cozy cat is enlisted to assist Joe Gardner when he’s hospitalized after an unfortunate fall. Despite a job well done, Mr. Mittens ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, embarking on an unexpected adventure.
Lost Souls
Lost Souls wander in The Astral Plane while their Earthly selves struggle to break free of obsession. “Some people get caught up in something that isn’t necessarily bad—cooking, video games, art,” says director Pete Docter. “But if you do it to the exclusion of everything else in life, you might become a lost soul.”
T H E W O R L D
Barbershop
“There’s no more culturally authentic place in the Black community than the barbershop,” says co-director Kemp Powers. “In many ways, it’s the town center—particularly for Black men. “It’s a place where these men—from all walks of life—come together.”
Filmmakers visited several barbershops to capture the look and feel of this symbolic locale, taking away several observations. “Barbershops tend to be very narrow since space in New York is at a premium,” says sets art director Paul Abadilla. “We also observed one thing that distinguishes barbers from hair stylists: when they work, their clients face away from the mirror—toward the waiting customers, which encourages conversation and heightens that sense of community.”
The Half Note
Research is an important part of Pixar’s films, taking filmmakers to places ranging from landfills to Scotland. “Soul” called for some of their best research to date. “We visited a number of jazz clubs,” says production designer Steve Pilcher. The Half Note is pretty true to scale of the typical size of a jazz club. We didn’t want to break the tradition and history and the richness of the clubs. The atmosphere is authentic, but contemporary. It was a pleasure and honor to create portraits of Jazz Greats to place on the walls of the club.”
New York City
Filmmakers sought to set “Soul” in a recognizable city to ground that part of the film. “As soon as we landed on jazz, we started to explore New York City,” says Docter. “Though jazz didn’t originate there, New York is the jazz capital of America. It is a center of culture, full of immigrants and influences from around the world. It’s a rich and vibrant place to feature a film.”
According to co-director Kemp Powers, the Big Apple’s connection to jazz was powerful. “Jazz is a uniquely American art form, and New York City has one of the strongest histories of jazz—some of the most famous musicians are known for their performances in New York City.
“But it’s not just about the music,” continues Powers, who grew up in the city. “It’s about the dynamism of that world. ‘Soul’ is a story about the meaning of life and the connections we make with each other. In New York, people are literally bumping up against one another. Diversity is visually evident on every single street. There’s really no place quite like it.”
The Great Before
While filmmakers were able to tap into the real-life big city when it came to the New York City scenes in “Soul,” The Great Before had to be created from scratch. “Worlds like this are super fun to put together, but super challenging, too, because they could be anything,” says director Pete Docter. “It was very important that it was a reflection of the main character and the story we were telling about him. Joe believes he was born to be a musician, so this world was designed to amplify his belief system: souls are given personalities and interests.”
The Astral Plane
Adjacent to The You Seminar, the Astral Plane is where Mystics Without Borders actively try to save lost souls. “The terrain is inspired by kinetic sand,” says Abadilla. “Everything in the soul universe is made up of this sparkly particulate material. While The You Seminar is more mathematically constructed, the Astral Plane is more organic.”
The astral sand needed to move in a specific way, particularly as Moonwind’s ship sailed through it. Enter effects supervisor Bill Watral and his team. “The idea behind the whole place is that it’s a mental construct of what you think it is when you’re there—it can be anything,” says Watral. “As the boat pushes the sand, it moves in a physical way that’s not based in reality and freezes, taking on the shapes of the surrounding environment. We also authored a sparkle pass for everything. We carefully control where those sparkles are around the world.”
Personality Pavilions
Personality Pavilions are individual buildings where new souls go to get their personalities. According to sets art director Paul Abadilla, each pavilion is an abstract representation of the personality trait. “We leave some of them up to interpretation, because there are so many possibilities,” says Abadilla. “But our hero pavilions use iconic shapes—the Aloof Pavilion, for example, looks like a nose pointed up in the air. It’s a quick read that’s supported by the characters’ performances.”
The Hall of Everything
The Hall of Everything is a collection of everything on Earth that inspires new souls in search of their spark. Says Pilcher, “We bleached the color in the Hall of Everything—where souls go to interact with possible interests. Everything there is recognizable, but there’s no color in it unless you interact with it.”
