A young boy in Mexico named Miguel has a passion for music, but it is forbidden in his family. His great great grandfather was a musician and abandoned his wife and daughter to be famous. No one knows who the grandfather was except for his daughter, Coco, who is now 100 years old. Miguel’s great great grandmother, Mama Imelda, banned all music in her family and tore her husband’s face off the family photo. Miguel’s family history has been making shoes after Imelda banned music. Miguel’s inspiration for music came from a very popular musician, Ernesto de la Cruz, who’s death was caused by a giant bell crushing him.
Imelda and Coco’s family photo is on the top of the ofrenda. On the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration, Miguel accidentally knocks down Imelda and Coco’s photo and discovers something was folded out of the photo. Coco’s father is holding the same guitar Ernesto de la Cruz had. He believes that la Cruz is his great great grandfather. Miguel’s family discovers that he has been hiding music and his grandmother, Abuelita, destroys his guitar causing Miguel to run off. Miguel wants to be in this music contest, but the problem is he doesn’t have a guitar. He decides to use la Cruz’s guitar so he takes it from his grave. But because Miguel takes something during Dia de los Muertos it turns him into a spirit.
Miguel can not be seen by the living, but he can be seen by the dead who are all skeletons. Miguel runs into family members who have been dead for a while. Tia Rosita, Papa Julio, Tia Victoria, Tio Oscar and Tio Felipe and they take him to the Land of the Dead, where Mama Imelda is having trouble crossing the bridge to the Land of the Living. The only way Miguel can return to the Land of the Living is for Imelda to give him her blessing on condition that he never plays music again. Miguel refuses to return if he is never to play music for the rest of his life. Miguel ditches his family and tries to find la Cruz because he knows he is the only one who can help him. Miguel meets a weirdo skeleton named Hector, who says he knows la Cruz. Miguel makes a deal with Hector that when he returns to the Land of the Living after getting la Cruez’s blessing he’ll put Hector’s picture up so he can cross the bridge and visit the Land of the Living.
Blaine: Lee Unkrich and his team of artists visited Mexico to do a lot of research on the Mexican culture and “Coco” became something more than what it was supposed to be the more they learned things. They took pictures and drew sketches of what they were looking at. There are a lot of different cultures and traditions in Mexico. What Lee wanted was for the audience to feel like they were in Mexico as they are watching “Coco”. Production designer Harley Jessup took photographs of everything during their visit in Mexico and when they got back to Pixar studios, the artists looked through his photographs to see what they could use for the look of the film. Some of the people in Mexico became an inspiration for the looks of some of the characters in “Coco”.
The people from Pixar spent some time with a few Mexican families in order to learn their ways of life. The Mexican people were preparing for the holiday of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and they were nice enough to invite Pixar into their home, to eat with them and be apart of their lives. The people in Mexico are big fans of the movies Pixar has made. Pixar saw a lot of pinatas of Mike Wazowski from “Monsters Inc.” and Woody and Buzz from “Toy Story”. There’s a scene where Miguel is running into town and one of the vendors that he runs by has a stand full of Mike, Woody and Buzz pinatas.
Pixar visited a family that made shoes and they went into the back to see how they made them. The owner’s kids looked like they didn’t want to do this in life. The inspiration for the Department of Family Reunions came from the Palacio de Correos, the Metropolitan Post Office in Mexico City. Alebrijes aren’t traditionally connected to the Day of the Dead, but Pixar saw several beautiful sculptures during their trip to Oaxaca. Pixar really wanted to try and find a place for the Alebrijes in “Coco”, so they thought about the Alebrijes being spirit guardians. They also visited a house in Oaxaca and the people who lived there were paying honors to the memory of the loved ones who are gone. The idea is that the dead are coming back to visit for a family reunion. Mexican people lay out things that the person loved most in life like favorite foods, favorite drinks or a sculpture that meant a lot. They put those things next to the photograph of the person who is gone. Ofrenda means offering and Day of the Dead is a celebration of the memories of the people you love. Families will go together to the grave of their loved ones and they will clean up and decorate them.
One of the challenges was to figure out what the Land of the Dead would look like. Lee Unkrich wanted there to be towers and some of the stuff they saw in Mexico became an inspiration. In Guanajuato, the houses are stepped up on the hillside and that was a huge inspiration for the towers.
Pixar had to think of how Miguel could be sent back to the Land of the Living. The blessing idea was inspired by a piece of co-director Adrian Molina’s past. When he went off to college his parents gave him their blessing. Miguel turning into a skeleton was an idea that kept coming and going because they weren’t sure if it would be too creepy. In early versions of the story Miguel was on a quest to find his place as a performer and they thought it would be a good idea if Frida acknowledges Miguel that he is a true artist. Frida Kahlo was an artists in real life. She never was a show business woman, nor a set designer or a performance artist, but she has been in the Land of the Dead for so long that she had to keep herself entertained and busy. They made her Alebrije a monkey because she loved monkeys, had them as pets and loved to paint them.
During their research in Mexico, Pixar found out about the final death and they found that very helpful as storytellers to think of there being a cost if your picture is not up on the ofrenda and if there is no one left in the Land of the Living alive to remember you. They wanted it to look peaceful, but it’s kind of scary disappearing and not existing anymore. People think that animated features don’t need cinematographers because they create the movie through computer, but a cinematographer is in charge of each shot and how it should look with the color, the lighting, it’s like doing photoshop.
I figured out that Hector was Miguel’s real great great grandfather before he said Coco’s name because at Cruz’s mansion he was telling la Cruz the only reason he wants to go to the Land of the Living is to see his daughter. That gave it away. I’ve seen enough movies like “Zootopia” and “Frozen” to know there is a twist or there is more to the mystery than you thought. But the whole time I did think that Ernesto de la Cruz was the grandfather until Hector mentioned that he wanted to see his girl. Hector starts off acting like a goof ball, but as the movie goes on you see a different side to him. He acts like an honest and caring character.
Miguel brings music back into the family. He opens Imelda’s mind. She thought she was protecting him from making the same mistake his great great grandfather made which is leaving family for fame, but then she realizes she is being selfish by making Miguel return to the Land of the Living feeling miserable for the rest of his life doing something that someone else wants him to do instead of letting him go on his own path. And after Imelda learns the truth that all Hector cared about was family and that la Cruz is to blame for taring him apart from his family apart then it makes her think. Miguel also helps Imelda remember what joy music brought to her and how close it made her and Hector.
Alanna Ubach, who does the voice of Mama Imelda, hasn’t sung much in the movies even though she has an incredible singing voice. She got to sing a little in “Sister Act 2”, but that was it. Alanna sings to her son, at clubs and did this YouTube video of her singing while she was stuck in traffic. Director Lee Unkrich saw those YouTube videos of her singing in the car and at a club and thought she was an incredible singer. Lee wanted Alanna to be in “Coco” and sing. Lee thought Alanna should sing the song “La Llorona” in the film and she was very excited to sing it because it was an iconic Mexican song and a connection to her mother.
Director Lee Unkrich felt bad having Benjamin Bratt do the voice of Ernesto de la Cruz because he ends up being the bad guy who only thinks of himself. Benjamin loved the character, but he had mixed feelings of him being the bad guy. At first la Cruz feels likable when Miguel finally meets him until it is revealed that he poisoned Hector and took all the credit for the songs he wrote. Hector songs were inspired by love, but la Cruz stole them and used them for fame. Pixar thinks of everything when it comes to movies like “Coco” and they thought of a way for la Cruz's dark secret to be revealed to all of the Land of the Dead by using a camera to show everyone a dark side of la Cruz and attempting to kill Miguel. Towards the end of the movie, la Cuz would be in his empty mansion alone wandering now that he doesn’t have any friends and now that he is exposed for stealing Hector’s songs and murdering him. But they thought that would make no sense in visiting him. So they thought about him being crushed by the bell in the Land of the Dead was a perfect way to end him.
When Miguel returns to the Land of the Living, he goes to Mama Coco and tries to get her to remember Hector. He showed her the photo he is ripped out of and shows her his guitar, but it does’t work. I kept saying "just sing the song he used to sing to her, “Remember Me”, that’ll refresh her memory”. It was intense for me and I kept asking why he doesn’t sing the song. Finally Miguel sung “Remember Me” to Coco, made her happy and made her remember Hector.
Miguel was going to be voiced by another boy, but because “Coco” was taking so long to get made he grew up and his voice got deeper so they had to find another boy to do the voice and they found Anthony Gonzalez who had an amazing singing voice.
