No one ever tells a story to help you figure out where to go when a door closes on you.

There are certainly moments in the story room where you watch the movie die on the table. You put A next to B, and suddenly none of it lines up anymore. We feel that all the time. It's a terrible feeling.

I actually worked for a small company in Ohio that sort of farmed out work from Disney and Dreamworks, so I really only ever worked in two studios.

The idea of us telling a story where a character doesn't get everything he wants at the end is one of the relatable things - dealing with failures and missteps in life - and it's something that's so rarely dealt with in movies, especially kids' movies.

There's some real dark days where you just feel like the story is falling apart in every one. Just keep moving forward, even when you are bluffing, even when you don't quite know what is going to happen next.

I worked in the story department for years on 'Cars' and 'Toy Story 3.'