- Born
- Birth namePeter Hans Docter
- Height6′ 4″ (1.93 m)
- Pete Docter is the Oscar®-winning director of "Monsters, Inc.," "Up," and "Inside Out," and Chief Creative Officer at Pixar Animation Studios. He is currently directing Pixar's feature film "Soul" with producer Dana Murray, which is set to release June 19, 2020.
Starting at Pixar in 1990 as the studio's third animator, Docter collaborated and help develop the story and characters for "Toy Story," Pixar's first full-length animated feature film, for which he also was supervising animator. He served as a storyboard artist on "A Bug's Life," and wrote initial story treatments for both "Toy Story 2" and "WALL.E." Aside from directing his three films, Docter also executive produced "Monsters University" and the Academy Award®-winning "Brave."
Docter's interest in animation began at the age of eight when he created his first flipbook. He studied character animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California, where he produced a variety of short films, one of which won a Student Academy Award®. Those films have since been shown in animation festivals worldwide and are featured on the "Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2." Upon joining Pixar, he animated and directed several commercials, and has been nominated for eight Academy Awards® including Best Animated Feature-winners "Up" and "Inside Out" and nominee "Monsters, Inc.," and Best Original Screenplay for "Up," "Inside Out" and "WALL.E." In 2007, "Up" also was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Pixar Official site
- SpouseAmanda Jean Schmidt(December 27, 1992 - present) (2 children)
- Children
- ParentsDave DocterRita Docter
- His films often feature the main character protecting a child in some way.
- He started at Pixar at the age of 21, and began work the day after his college graduation, the tenth employee the company hired, and its third animator.
- Parents are Dr. Dave and Dr. Rita Docter.
- Comes from a very musical family, plays several instruments.
- As of 2015, all three of his films have focused on the main protagonist protecting a child character in one way or another. (Sully protecting Boo in Monsters, Inc. (2001), Carl protecting Russell in Up (2009), and Joy & the other emotions working to guide Riley in Inside Out (2015).
- He's the first person in history to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for three times.
- I loved 'Dumbo.' I watched Bugs Bunny time and again. The Muppets were big, too. All of those, they have this real, not darkness but poignancy, that's what makes it stick with you.
- I like doing everything. That's why I came to Pixar, as opposed to Disney or any other studio - it's small. At the time I started, I was, like, the 10th person in the animation group, and we all had to do everything. That's the way I like it, keeping it fresh.
- I made tons of films. I did animation for my friends' films. I animated scenes just for the fun of it. Most of my stuff was bad, but I had fun, and I tried everything I knew to get better.
- It's weird - on almost every film I've worked on, the first sequence we storyboard ends up being the first sequence that goes into animation, and ends up being almost shot-for-shot the same.
- I wanted to make sure that 'Up' wasn't a 3D movie about a man who sails his house to South America. It's a movie about an old man who sails his house to South America that also happens to be in 3D. So the first thing is always the story.
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