KATY PERRY: Hi, guys. It's Katy Perry.
I'm shooting American Idol at the Disney Aulani Resort.
You're gonna love it.
Stargirl is about a different girl coming into an environment
where everyone needs to conform. I relate to that.
I'm Kori Rae, the producer of Onward, and welcome to Pixar.
This is the real behind-the-scenes.
Like, we say, "Cut," and now we're gonna go eat some food.
Hi guys. It's Katy Perry here.
And you are getting the exclusive behind the scenes
for the American Idol show.
I am so excited that you're joining me
because look at how beautiful it already is.
It's in Hawaii. I mean, I think you're gonna love it.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
It's not a bad time, is it?
I was thinking about that.
Looking at the hard work we have to do through the year.
-Yeah. -This is great.
-Sleeves are rolled up. -This is American Idol.
BOTH: This is great.
It's so beautiful.
I got up early this morning to see the sun come up,
feel the humid air and it changed my disposition.
Did you get in the water?
-Well, I got in up to here. -Right.
-I'm afraid of rocks. -Are you?
-Rocks, they're scary. -Those rocks can jump out at you.
PERRY: Hi, honey!
So this is my co-star, Luke Bryan. Super successful...
-Ah! -...country artist.
I went to "super successful."
LIONEL RICHIE: Darling!
Other amazing co-star Lionel Richie.
Yes, the Lionel Richie. There's only one Lionel Richie.
Yes, but I'm now just a co-star because the star is right here next to me.
I love this woman, see. You make me feel special.
Well, you are special. You're Lionel fricking Richie.
(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY AND LAUGHS)
This episode is an incredible challenge. It's a massive challenge.
I oversee the ENG field team.
Anything that's filmed off stage is my responsibility.
Okay, camera speeds. We're ready, Norm. Quiet on set, please!
Ready? And action.
Don't forget to watch American Idol. February 16th.
Nothing like being subterranean.
Katy's the most down-to-earth, fun, easy person to work with.
This is the dream.
Go back.
And cut!
This is going straight on Instagram.
PERRY: I think people can tell that I love this job.
I really love connecting with people.
I really love empowering people.
-Thank you so very much. -PERRY: Thank you.
Helping them see outside themselves.
No matter if you go far in this competition, you are worth it.
Three looks, one day, no big deal.
Give the people what they want.
Now it's time to give the final look.
We're gonna get ready to go and enjoy the show
and see if the real talent comes out on American Idol.
We did it. We made it. We're here.
As you can tell, I'm in my polka dot robe
which is for my KatyCats, which is the name of my fans.
They know this robe because I've had it pretty much my whole career.
So anyways, my showrunner right here is breathing down my neck.
-Hi, everyone. This is Trish. -(LAUGHS) Hello.
This is the woman that runs the whole show
and has run all of American Idol for as long as it's been on ABC,
which is the most important part.
Um, but for a very long time, and she knows everything.
-She's a Scorpio just like me. -I am.
We read each other's minds a little bit.
-How are you? -Great, thank you.
KINANE: It's amazing working with Katy.
Exactly what you see on screen is how she is off screen.
She's passionate, she really cares about these contestants,
and also, she's a real lot of fun.
-Now it's all fine. -Couple of curveballs.
-Yeah. -We like to roll with them.
ANNOUNCER: We have an incredible band.
Give it up for our incredible band back here.
-(INAUDIBLE) -These amazing performers.
(CROWD CHEERING)
All right, now make some noise for American Idol judges Luke Bryan,
Katy Perry, and Lionel Richie.
(CROWD CHEERING)
PERRY: It's so amazing to be able to plant the seed of confidence
in some of these kids' lives and mentor them through that.
My whole life changed because someone believed in me.
It was one or two people going, "I'm gonna be your cheerleader."
It was ultimately up to me.
But you gotta have those cheerleaders to keep you going through the game.
(CROWD CHEERING)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(MUSIC STOPS)
PERRY: I see a lot of myself in these contestants.
With where they came from, I was never given a silver spoon.
I was signed and dropped three times, had two cars repossessed,
I was couch surfing and living off of chicken nuggets.
They say that, literally at the end, it feels like a blink.
And 12 years has already felt like a blink.
-What's your name? -Morris.
-Morris? -Yeah.
-Oh, my gosh. I'm Katy. Nice to meet you. -(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
-Are you having a great time here? -Yeah!
PERRY: Now knowing that all the money in the world,
all the clothes in the world,
all of the all in the world that is outside me, will not make me happy.
Love you all...
And how I can help translate that message to other people
to find their true happiness inside,
that motivates me.
You know, I'm only 35, I've rung that popstar bell.
Like, what else can I do?
What else can I do? Why do I have to be one thing?
I don't think women are one thing. And I know I'm not.
So, start discovering new dreams.
(SINGING) Won't you let me walk you home from school?
Won't you let me meet you at the pool?
Stargirl is a movie that was, uh, a movie adaptation of the book Stargirl.
(SINGING) Maybe Friday I can
VANDERWAAL: Stargirl is about a homeschooled girl.
Classic story, I think, of a different girl coming into an environment
where everyone needs to conform,
and the story just follows her along her journey.
(EXHALES SHARPLY)
-This is the one. -Okay.
-You ready? -Yeah, I had a couple bites of a bagel.
Let me see your teeth.
VANDERWAAL: "Thirteen" is the main song of Stargirl.
The lyrics are very innocent and cute and sweet
which, I think, matches the theme of Stargirl.
JULIA HART: I first heard "Thirteen" when I was either in high school
or early on in college.
It's the most romantic love song ever.
It's just so simple and beautiful
and it just felt like Alex Chilton almost could've written it for Stargirl and Leo.
(BOTH SINGING) Rock and roll is here to stay
Come inside where it's okay
(BOTH SINGING) And I'll shake you
HART: Grace is so talented in many different ways,
but she really does have an actual gift as an actor.
It was a really fun experience getting to make a proper musical.
And when you have someone like Grace as your lead,
you can really go for it because she can sing, dance, play ukulele.
She does everything.
LEO: I don't know how to make plans with you.
You wanna make plans with me? (CHUCKLES)
VANDERWAAL: Stargirl's very human and she still has insecurities.
And feeling like you stand out too much, of course I faced that growing up.
I wasn't very popular in middle schools
where I faced probably the most pressure to conform.
Everything else since then has just been growing
and every day has been different, and every day has been better.
HART: I think that young people are just a lot more complex
and engaged and ready than we often give them credit for.
We made a movie for young people
and I hope that they feel loved and respected when they watch it.
(MUSIC STOPS)
-That was a good time. -Good one.
-That was a good one. -(ALL APPLAUDING)
KORI RAE: Starting is the hardest part.
For an original film, you start with nothing.
You come up with ideas,
and then we talk about different ways that kernel of an idea could go.
All of those conversations happen over the course of years.
It's time-consuming and a lot of fun.
And terrifying. (CHUCKLES)
RAE: So here's a little bit of code.
You'll see people drawing, doing art,
you'll see animators animating at their desks,
but this is also how we make computer animated films.
By writing a lot of code.
Today I'm gonna show you around Pixar
and, uh, introduce you to folks who helped me make the movie
and just tell you about how we did it.
Making a movie for five or six years,
it's really hard to keep it a secret and keep it to yourself.
And, uh, I'm just so excited to share it with the world, finally.
Onward is the story of two elf brothers
and their father passed away when they were both young.
Using magic, Ian and Barley Lightfoot
try to spend one more day with the father that they lost.
BARLEY: This spell brings him back.
-RAE: Hey, Dan. How are you? -Hey. Good.
Good. Wanna come and chat a bit?
-Sure. -Cool.
When we started work on this project about six years ago,
we have a film under our belts
and so we were able to start with a real understanding of one another.
I think that Kori and I were both excited
about doing something that we felt was honest,
and therefore, uh, coming from a personal place.
Right.
We hit on the idea of my relationship with my brother,
and our questions about our father that passed away
when we were both very young.
As soon as Dan started talking about that aspect of his life and his history,
um, it reminded me of my sister and the role she played in my life.
If it was a topic that interested us that much
and something that we, um, got excited about and there was emotion behind it,
we figured audiences would respond to it, too.
SCANLON: Just Kori and I are not enough to really figure out the story.
So a big part of what Kori was doing behind the scenes
was getting people in the room who could help us.
So this is a story room. It's not very exciting. (LAUGHS)
SCANLON: No. And as you can tell, it's very empty.
You literally come into a room like this with nothing
and try to come up with ideas.
So, as you can tell, it's a lot of Kori and I talking
and throwing out ideas and getting up and writing on the board.
-You know. -RAE: (LAUGHING) Yes.
BOTH: Idea.
-RAE: Right. -Uh-huh?
RAE: The energy that actually happens in this room
once we get a few more people in here,
when we have the story artists in here, and the writer, and everyone is firing.
To me, that's my favorite time on the movie.
I miss being in this room.
-Yeah... -(LAUGHING)
...to come into this windowless nightmare with nothing
-and come out with something is magic. -Yeah, it is.
(ALL LAUGH)
RAE: When I see the team really, really working well together,
you see how much they're thriving and pushing themselves in that moment
to excel and do something maybe they haven't done before.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
RAE: I think that's our director, Dan. MICHAEL STOCKER: I think so, yes.
(RAE LAUGHING)
-I think that... -(BOTH LAUGHING)
-The pants. The dad pants. -The pants, yeah.
STOCKER: Animating just pants was interesting.
We'd never done anything like that before.
The dad, this character, we only get his pants.
You can't see, so what would that be like if you couldn't see anything.
You didn't have your arms or hands and you had to use your legs to move.
So, we took the animation team to a studio with a green screen
and put on these suits and we all acted with just our legs
and we were trying to do things and say hello
-and experiment with what that felt like. -Exactly.
STOCKER: So that we could then perform that.
-This is actually me. -(RAE LAUGHING)
I'm trying to be mad.
-And then I stomp off. -RAE: Yes.
STOCKER: I've had enough of this.
-That's it. Storm off. -(BOTH LAUGH)
-You pants. -(BOTH LAUGH)
APPLE: This is the first project I've worked on with Kori.
And this is why I came up to Pixar. To work on this movie.
Your job as the editor is to keep the pacing from the cut storyboards,
kind of through all the various types of shots that get delivered to you.
APPLE: The hardest part is swapping over from storyboards to layout.
-Now we have this great camera. -(RAE LAUGHS)
We have the models and they're moving and stuff.
And they're doing so many wonderful things,
so it's hard not to open up the movie and make it long.
Remember we had trouble with that?
It was like, "What do we really need and how do we tell the story?"
And then we even added people noticing it.
My favorite scene might be the ending.
And it was like we threw everything in it.
It was like the end of our journey, too.
It was like the struggle of the movie, the struggle of the animation.
I mean, that last scene with the dragon was really fun.
I love that it's not just one thing.
That it's kind of the dance between action and emotion.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
RAE: The film has a couple of themes,
but the main one is really about sacrifice.
Thinking about those people in your life who went the extra mile,
who, kind of, went above and beyond, on your behalf.
What did they have to give up?
It is a sacrifice and we see that with Ian and Barley in the film.
I definitely had that person in my life.
It was, um, my sister.
My family was going through a really difficult time
and she had moved out of the house.
She lived about an hour away
and she would come over every single weekend, pick me up,
drive me back to her house and have me spend the weekend with her.
I would sit in my house and wait on Saturday morning
and kind of wait by the window, uh, for her to drive up.
Um, because I knew that I was gonna have a better weekend than the previous week.
She didn't have to do that.
She didn't have to spend her entire weekend
with her little sister tagging along.
Uh, but she did.
And she did that for me and it completely changed my life.
Come, dear brother. Our destiny awaits.