Jul 7, 2023

Creator of "Win or Lose" (video interview) on making Pixar's first long form series.

Win or Lose is Pixar Animation Studios' first long-form original series and will be released on Disney+ later this year.

The series is directed by 2 first・time directors Carrie Hobson and Michael Yates, who together co・create and executive produce the show. The series follows an intertwined story of eight different characters as they each prepare for their big championship softball game. The show, according to the studio's official synopsis, "reveals what it actually feels like to be in the shoes of each character - anxious children, their helicopter parents, and even the referee who falls in love - with an incredibly funny, highly emotional, and unique animated perspective."

Cartoon Brew spoke with Yates and Hobson and their producer David Larry at Annecy on May 6, and the trio snuck into an episode of the nearly・finished series. Watch the interview below:

Yates and Hobson were both working on studio functions, and while they worked together on one of the company's films, the foundation for victory or defeat was laid.1

Yates said, "Me and Carrie are Toy Story 4's office mates and often have different impressions about how that meeting took place. It's interesting that you can be in the same room and experience something completely different."

Hobson said, "[we] wanted to explore the idea that everyone has a different perspective in life, so what would happen if you could walk in someone else's shoes-"

about the challenges of making Pixar's first series, Larry told us, " From a production perspective, with a huge size of 148 minutes longer than a feature film, it has a lot of animation to create. And in the show, we have these 8 different protagonists. Instead of putting everything behind 1 main character, it suddenly became 8.

These challenges Hobson said were part of the fun of the production. According to her, they were also needed because "if you're going to do a series, you have to do things that functions can't do." Yates and Hobson say they especially enjoyed working with artists from all different departments.

"We love working with animators," Hobson said. We wanted to make sure we had characters that were expressive and animators could enjoy, but that felt like the honesty of caricatures. So, it's not just cartoons. It's a cartoon with intent.

Yates explained how important it is to have artists do their work as well. "You're not just making things different, you're making them better.”