Benny and Josh Safdie’s Uncut Gems is the cinematic equivalent of a heart attack. Adam Sandler’s Howard Ratner is an unrepentant gambling addict who constantly makes wild decisions and longshot bets, and the movie brings you into his world so vividly that it inspires palpitations. It’s a film perfectly built to raise the anxiety levels of anyone who watches it – and as weird as it may sound, that’s a quality that made it perfect material to study behind the scenes in the development of the upcoming film Inside Out 2.
Last month, I joined a collection of journalists on a trip to Pixar headquarters for an early look at the animation studio’s latest movie, and one of the main things discussed by the various filmmakers was the sequel’s introduction of new emotions. Riley (Kensington Tallman), the young girl character from the first Inside Out, is turning 13 and going through puberty, and that means that Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and Fear (Tony Hale) are being joined in Riley’s mind by newcomers like Anxiety (Maya Hawke). Speaking about the newcomer to Riley’s brain during a presentation about camerawork and staging, director of photography Adam Habib explained the special influence of the hyper, orange emotion:
We have this really fun new element with the character of Anxiety, and when Anxiety is driving, as you know when you feel it, the world feels really different. So we try to represent that visually. And so we do things like we use handheld in the movie when Anxiety is driving.
It’s a clever use of the aesthetic: with handheld cinematography, there is a noticeable shakiness that reads like first person perspective. It brings the audience deeper into the movie because you feel like you are standing right beside the characters in moments of tension.
I asked Habib if there were any specific movies or filmmakers that were seen as inspiration for the work, and he provided some neat behind-the-scenes trivia about the making of Uncut Gems:
We were thinking about movies that show anxiety really well, and one of them for me from the last few years was Uncut Gems. I don’t know if you know this about Uncut Gems, but they made a rule for themselves that when he's in the front of the showroom and he's kind of presenting and he's in his showman role, they use Steadicam. But when they go to the back of the office and these guys are trying to get money out of him and stuff, they use handheld. So that's where the inspiration for, ‘OK, when anxiety is driving, maybe we're using handheld specifically for those moments.
So how was this practically accomplished in the making of Inside Out 2? Adam Habib provided an example. In the movie, Riley is attending a hockey camp where she hopes to impress the captain of the high school team, Valentina 'Val' Ortiz (Lilimar). For the scene where they meet, animators designed a 360 degree space and the cinematographers were able to move through it with a virtual camera. Giving us a demonstration of said camera, Habib told us,
When Riley meets Valentina, we actually operate a virtual camera like this after the shot has been animated to capture that feeling of like ‘Everything is a little bit unsteady or like not quite as smooth as it was before.’ And we try to get the weight and physics of a real camera. So those are kinds of things that are important to us to ground the audience.
Audiences will be getting their opportunity to understand the intensity of Anxiety soon, as Inside Out 2 is now less than two months away from arriving in theaters. Also starring Ayo Edebiri as Envy, Adèle Exarchopoulos as Ennui, and Paul Walter Hauser as Embarrassment, the new Pixar movie is set for release on June 14. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more cool behind-the-scenes stories from the trip to the animation studio, and learn about all of the exciting films set for release this summer via our 2024 Movie Release Calendar.
