Maryam and Nivaal interview director and writer, Erica Milsom.

What has the experience of working at Pixar been like for you, and how would you describe your journey with the company?

I’ve been at Pixar for about fifteen years. I started on Finding Nemo, on a documentary called Making Nemo. It was very funny going from this very small studio where there were two of us who were full-time employees, to a studio full of people who were collaborating together, and giving each other notes, and making things better. Before that, I had always been in small places and risen to the top kind of fast, and that was not going to happen at Pixar. There’s a lot of top to get through! And I actually grew to really appreciate that. The hierarchy of experience and insight, and how you could come in and learn your slice of the pie, and be appreciated for it. You also got to sit next to someone who was doing either the thing above you or two things above you, and watch them, and they would critique you and give you feedback. 

Being a documentary filmmaker at a studio means that any question you have at any point over your entire existence there, you can ask anybody. People are really warm, and they’re inviting, and I think everyone in the studio is passionate about the work and curious. And they’re always trying to improve. And each new film is its own new problem, so they’re trying to address those problems, and grow and transform. 

I’ve had this lucky role, where I just spin around and ask everybody about every stage of it. So like, how does the rendering equation work? I kind of know that now, which is a very weird thing to know! But it’s also, how does writing for Toy Story work? What is a challenge that a new director might face when they’re working on a franchise film that has all these rules and all this underpinning, but you have to open up the next story? What is the importance of specularity on a skin? What is the difference between transforming our human representation from the old days when it was mostly white characters, to now trying to transform just even the skin tone of our characters, and let’s make sure that that feels right and honest. I feel really grateful for that studio, because I’ve gotten to listen to so many brilliant people talk about the thing that they love. 

I’ve taken one filmmaking class in my life really, and then, I’ve been at Pixar for 15 years, taking this never-ending, beautiful class with the people there. So I love this studio, I think it’s an amazing place and it feels like a campus to me. It feels like a place where everyone is learning constantly, and in the best way, we’re making something together all the time, and then evaluating that and thinking, “Okay what can we take from that to the next thing?” 

That’s so amazing, and that brings us to our questions about your film Loop! It was so awesome to see and we loved watching it. Would you be able to tell us, what was the process of creating the film like, and what inspired you to create the film?

It was definitely inspired by the time I had spent when I was taking this year of part-time work (I’d just been working really hard for a while and I thought, I’m going to try and get my head back together). I immediately found out that working part-time made me miss my friends at work. So I needed to make some new friends, and I went and did this volunteer gig over at a centre for artists with disabilities called NIAD near me. And that year I did this thing on acting for the screen, and eventually taught a class on performance. But in the beginning, I was just volunteering and there were a lot of people in that studio who didn’t communicate through speaking. And I didn’t know what to do, so I would just fill up the empty space with Erica chatter and that didn’t get me closer to them. It took a while to kind of figure out how to connect with those folks. And it was really important to me. They were cool artists. They were really interesting people. I wanted to connect. And a lot of it turned out to be just hanging out and waiting, and opening up the space, and listening with that part of me that’s not listening for language. Like watching body movements, and watching the way that they responded, the small moves that they made, that kind of stuff.

So that was formulating in my head, and that experience made me think about this idea of a character like me, who is very chatty and didn’t know what to do, and a character who didn’t speak. And then as I came back to Pixar with that idea. I also wanted to put it on a canoe, because I really wanted it to be a happy story, and weirdly, canoeing makes me happier than almost anything in the world. And it’s a good trap for two characters, to make a small, fast movie. 

The SparkShorts are made in six months, and for Pixar time, that’s lightning fast. From the moment you write it, you feel like you’re just on this, “Go! Go! Go!” I just wanted it to be two characters and have them trapped, kind of like that buddy movie thing with these two people in opposition and how they find their way to a connection. So that was the inspiration. 

I hope that having more women in film means that we’re all looking a little deeper into our experiences and saying, “Oh! I’m going to look at another side of what I’ve always done and see what I haven’t said there or what I haven’t tried there.”

That’s awesome! What is the main message that you would like viewers to take away from the film, and why do you think it’s important for films to feature characters with diverse backgrounds and abilities?

That’s a great question! Well, the main message is just that you might not quite understand how to connect with someone, you might be afraid and judge someone because they feel different than you, and some element of their behaviour frightens you because it’s different. But if you relax, and let yourself be unguarded, you will find connection. 

Every human being has something that connects them to another human being. I just believe that if we spend enough time together, we’ll find a way to see value in each other’s experience. Because we’re story-driven people. We’re curious. At our core, we humans are curious and interested in the story of life. And the different stories of life are powerful. They’re ways we connect, and ways that we’re different. 

For me, the message was that there is a way to connect even if you think there’s not. You just have to look for it. You just have to let yourself find it.

And I’m unbelievably excited about more voices coming to the screen, about more authentic representations of people’s identity, of their experience, of their point of view. It’s fun storytelling. We’re not going to listen where there will be some elements of the same story over and over again, because there are some elements of life that are pretty profound, and themes that are resonant across any identity, but the nuance and the power of our difference, and the excitement of that, to me is just really rich and I’m super stoked to see that on-screen. 

Definitely. What are the ways in which women filmmakers can contribute to the film industry, and how can companies create spaces to celebrate their voices and their work?

It’s not like we speak a different language as women, but we have maybe a different way of expressing ourselves, and maybe have different aesthetics and style that we want to bring to the screen. Things that have been important to us in our childhood or our lives. If we’re portraying kids, it’s like, “I remember this girl being my very best friend.” For Pixar, it excites people to have that new, powerful, excited voice. . 

I hope that having more women in film means that we’re all looking a little deeper into our experiences and saying, “Oh! I’m going to look at another side of what I’ve always done and see what I haven’t said there or what I haven’t tried there.” And I hope that women, who are all walking into this role feel that sort of confidence. I think it’s hard to feel confident in a new place. A lot of times you come in with a sense of uncertainty and worry. You want to do a great job, and I think it’s good to have that drive in any career. But you should have confidence that what you have has value, and it’s going to be exciting for the people around you, and that relationship of finding something new together is going to push everyone forward. You should know that in yourself when you walk into that role, and feel like you’re here to give something new to our community. I feel like that is something that I’m going to always take with me.