DIABLO MAGAZINE -- Rivera, who was born in Castro Valley and went to San Francisco State University, joined four years after Pete Docter as the company’s first production intern. The two crossed paths on “Toy Story” and bonded over their love of old animated films and passion for the future of the medium.
“We knew animation was capable of so much more than just musicals,” Docter says.
As Docter moved on to directing and producing, Rivera worked his way through the art department to marketing, management and finally, production. The friends first partnered as a director-producer duo on the Academy Award-winning “Up.”
Though many of Pixar’s past films have been set in ambiguous locations, the creative team wanted to focus on a specific city for “Inside Out.”
“San Francisco is this city under wires, with tracks in the street and fog that rolls in, almost like the fog of the mind,” Rivera says.
Photo by Deborah Coleman/Pixar