Up where he belongs

The star of Up is a grouchy old man. Photo / Supplied

When the directors of Up, the latest animated feature from Pixar came up with Carl, they had to put a voice to the face.

"We had this sculpture of the character and we lived with it for quite some time," explains co-director Pete Docter about their unlikely hero, a 78-year-old curmudgeonly widower who gets it into his square head to take off into the wild blue yonder.

Pixar films had made use of many an acting and comedy veteran - one of the late Paul Newman's last credits was for Cars, while John Ratzenberger (Cliff from Cheers) has had a speaking part in every feature the studio has released.

The voice of Carl Fredricksen went to another sitcom veteran - the now 79-year-old Ed Asner, best remembered as the boss in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its subsequent spin-off, Lou Grant.

Once they had Asner's rumbling voice in mind, Docter and co-director/writer Bob Peterson knew they had their Carl.

"We listened to snippets of dialogue from lots of films, but Ed was always at the top of the list. He's got this great, acerbic kind of grouchiness, yet you know deep down he has a heart. Ed also has great comic timing. Basically he has everything we needed for the movie."

An old-fashioned yarn and widely considered one of their funniest films yet, Up tells the story of Carl who, following the death of his wife, is determined to stay in the house they had made their home. When the dastardly developers come and look set to force him out, he hoists his house up with helium-filled balloons so it flies through the air.

Up is Pixar's 10th feature and the first to be released in both 2D and 3D formats.

Since its initial release in May, the film has already grossed nearly US$400 million ($584 million) making it Pixar's eighth most successful movie.

All 10 of the company's features have grossed at least three or four times their budgets at the box office, and that's not counting their healthy DVD sales.

Before it went on to become one of the US summer's biggest blockbusters, Up, with no talking fish (Finding Nemo) or cute robots (Wall-E), just a grumpy old man with a house and balloons, seemed like a hard-sell.

But its classicism and its grown-up story became its selling point.

"We definitely wanted a classical style on this film because it seemed like the story asked for that, as Carl had grown up in 30s and 40s," Docter explains.

"The film's orchestral soundtrack and gentle pace make us feel we are back in a more innocent time. To me, the fun of animation is when the cameras sort of lock off and you can let the characters behave.

"You watch the movements, the gestures and try to read their thoughts."

There's no doubting that Pixar's ability with facial expressions, even Carl's stubble, and all that troublesome hair and fur (a nightmare for animators) is exceptional.

The opening sequence, which encapsulates Carl's life with his late wife Ellie, is heartbreaking.

He'd promised her they'd travel to South America, but they never did. Carl thinks he was a failure as a husband.

The early scene displays a sort of emotional depth and poignancy you don't usually see in cartoons.

"Initially we had scenes that would take 20 minutes and we somehow had to encapsulate their life in just over four minutes," says Docter. "I grew up with my parents making a lot of Super-8 films and watching those. There's no sound, you just see the images through the projector and there's something more emotional about that. We kept stripping away dialogue and, eventually, sound effects, so we were just left with pictures and music."

Carl's adventure, which has echoes of Raiders of the Lost Ark is a rollicking ride. It begins when the house takes off with Russell, an annoyingly persistent 8-year-old boy scout who stows away on the flying house.

Er, a flying house ... ?

Originally the story was more bizarre, notes Docter. "It was about a floating city and this Muppet-looking guy who wasn't really human. It was very surreal and had no emotional connection. So once Bob and I started to make it more connected to reality, the idea of a floating house became more about escape, about getting away from everything."

The 3D had to blend in easily as well. When Pixar boss John Lasseter decided to initiate their first 3D venture, he set up a research group to see what worked.

"We try to treat the screen as a window you look into, as opposed to having things come out at you," Docter explains, "and along the way we found a way to use it artistically and to further the emotion.

Just like the lighting and the cinematography, we found ways to use it."

What: Up, the 10th feature by Pixar animation, featuring the voice of Ed Asner as Carl, who takes off on the trip of a lifetime.
When and where: Opens at cinemas September 3