Brené with Domee Shi on Creativity, Curiosity, and Turning Red

Hi, everyone. I'm Brene Brown, and this is unlocking us. Oh my god. I have the best conversation for y'all today. I'm smiling from ear to ear. I am talking with Domee Shi, who is a Chinese born Canadian animator, a storyboard artist, and a director for Pixar. I'm talking about her creativity, her work, and this film is so great. Her directorial debut on Turning Red. And if you have not ever done a deep dive into the Pixar shorts, like the short animated, you know, seven minute films, you gotta do that. You can thank me later. But she also directed Bao. And when she did that, she became the first woman to direct a short film for Pixar. Bao won an Academy Award for best animated short film and a ton of other awards too. So I am talking to Domi today about creativity, about learning, about curiosity, and about her film Turning Red so good. I'm glad y'all are here. At Criminal, we've made it a tradition every December to dedicate an episode entirely to animals who are really going for it. And Tony, what happened when you pulled over? Nothing out of the ordinary until I saw the cat on the back of the roof behind the luggage carrier. Listen to our fifth annual Animals episode on Criminal wherever you get your podcasts. Before we jump in, let me tell you a little bit about Dony. She began as a story intern at Pixar Animation Studios in June 2011 and was soon hired as a story artist on the Academy Award winning feature film Inside Out. You know, come on. Me and Inside Out. That's just enough said. Right? Since then, she has worked on the feature films The Good Dinosaur, Incredibles two, and the Academy Award winning Toy Story four. In 2015, she began pitching ideas for short films and soon was greenlit to write and direct Bao, which won the Academy Award for best animated short film. In her role as a creative VP, Domee is involved in key creative decision making at the studio and consults on films in both development and production. She most recently made her feature film directorial debut on Turning Red, which was released on Disney plus in March 2022. Domi graduated from the animation program at Sheridan College where she was fueled by her love of anime, Disney, and Asian cinema influences that can be seen in her work today. I just I'm so glad that y'all are here for this conversation. It's amazing. I mean, Domi was born in Changxing, China. She resided in Toronto, Canada for most of her life. She lives in Oakland now, and she also tells us that her love of animation is only rivaled by her love of cats. Here we go. Okay. Domee, welcome to unlocking us. Good to be here. Hi. Hi. You are just one of my newest, most favorite storytellers. Oh, thank you. That's a huge compliment …