Disney Pixar's Soul: Interview and How to Draw Joe Gardener with Story Board Artist Michael Yates

  One of the most anticipated Disney films of the year 2020 was Soul. A lot of it has to do with the characters being African American. Telling the animated story of Jazz Soul and Human Soul. Here is Michael Yates on how he did it...

As an African American female it is great to see characters that look like me. With their big noses and their big lips and their beautiful melanated skin. So, being an African American male, you put a lot of your life into Joe's life and Soul. So, how was it like to create such powerful characters and scenes based on the African American life or just yours?

Uh, yeah it was like uh, it was super great. As soon as I heard we were making the film, like I gotta get on to that one! And I remember uh, having like uh quick coffee with Pete Docter and saying like I got to work on this film. 

           Michael Yates        Pete Docter

  

And a couple of weeks later I was on it. Though it was fun it was also a really uh... a lot of pressure. You don't want to mess it up *laughs*. But I think the good thing was it wasn't just all on me. We had a culture trust of a lot of African American employees of Pixar. We would come together and meet up and talk about just different aspects of the film. Um, from character designs, like a lot of discussions about what is too far, what not far enough, are we playing it too safe, are we being specific enough? Until, a lot of that was in the beginning, and once we got further down the road it was like, "That guy reminds me of my uncle." "That guy reminds me of my, uh, brother." 

  

And so it was like a nice, uh, building of a relationship over the time. And then I remember even after one screening we were struggling with, uh, Liba- Joe's Mom and we just took that time to just talk about all of our mom's and different pieces of everyone's mom; I think you kinda of see in her character now. Which was also a really rewarding thing over all.

After our quick conversation about the making of Soul and the development of all of the characters; including Joe Gardner. Yates decided to demonstrate and walk me through how he created Joe Gardner in his Human form and After Earth form.

After his tutorial I showed Yates my drawing, and let's just say he is really nice 😂

                                             My Drawing

Welp, I tried:) Thank you for showing me how to draw this powerful character!

This is Soo good!

Thank you so much! I had a great teacher😁