Interview with Peter Sohn

My first question -and you've talked about this before- is about how you got the idea to do a short based on the classic 'babies come from storks' fable or whatever. Give readers a brief history.

Okay. The idea started a long time ago. The actual spark of it started when I was a kid in New York. My mom took me to go see Dumbo, and I remember there's an opening to that film where the storks deliver all the babies. And as a kid I really was wondering where did they get all the babies from. And I had this idea that because they were birds they flew to the clouds in the sky, that's where all the babies came from.And later, I mean, like a year and a half ago was when I really started fleshing that idea out, when I was pitching it to John Lasseter. He really liked the idea, and then I started really fleshing out the characters and the actual story of what happens. But it was something that was just a seed for a long time until I got to plant it here at Pixar a couple of years ago.

Were you told the story as a kid? Did you believe it? (laughing)

It wasn't about believing, it's just all I really, kind of, knew as a kid. Like, I remember, that's where -like if we wanted a pet that's where the pet would come from, you know what I mean? [But] then it was really fast after learning where babies [actually] come from.It was such a innocent thing watching Dumbo. And there have been several other stories of stork delivery mistakes but I didn't really want to go there I wanted to explore the other end of it, and try to find something new about the story.

As director, how excited would you be to get an Oscar nomination for Partly Cloudy, which seems likely?

[surprised] Ohh! Yeah, absolutely, it would be very exciting. I'm just living off the high of -I had just shown it to a crowd in Austin, Texas maybe a couple of weeks ago and just having people seeing it- cause I've shown it here to some story guys and we just had it premiere and it had a great response- but having [regular] people watch it, it's like no other feeling you'll ever have.Just hearing an audience really connect to it and laugh at something, you know, really, really enjoying something that took a while, that a whole crew put their heart into, is the most satisfying thing. I mean, have you made any films? Do you know what I'm talking about?

Do you see yourself ever helming a feature for Pixar? Is it a dream for you?

Um, yeah. Yeah, sure. Right now, it's just, I have my ideas that I'm still kind of putting into pots, growing the seeds. When they're ready to really grow, I'll show somebody.