Two Brothers Have Been Working On Recreating Toy Story For Over Eight Years And The Results Are Amazing

These siblings were working without any expensive equipment and software to recreate their favorite movie

Damjan

• Published in Disney
• February 2, 2020

Love for the animated movies is universal; you would need to make an effort to find a person who doesn’t like them. Disney and Pixar animated movies certainly take the top places if we look at the fan numbers. Some people are more than just fans, though. 

Two brothers, Morgan and Mason McGrew, 23 and 20, have been working for over eight years on recreating their favorite movie, “Toy Story 3”.

“Inspired by the incredible artists at Disney and Pixar, my brother and I wanted to create a tribute to our favorite film franchise while also practicing our media creation skills,” – Morgan told the reporters.

And the recreations are simply amazing. The level of detail is impressive, and it shows the true love these two brothers have for this movie.

When asked about their inspiration for remaking “Toy Story 3”, they said: “Toy Story 3 has always been our favorite film. When my brother and I were in high school, we decided to practice our filmmaking skills while paying tribute to our favorite film.” They said that self-discipline is the key. “We had to strictly hold ourselves accountable for the work in order to ensure the project would get completed.”

They have been posting their progress on their YouTube channel, and it was an instant success. Their trailers amassed 2,5 million views, while the complete remake at this time has about 500k views, and the number keeps rising. The brothers achieved this without any funds. Shortly after they published the video, it was copy strike claimed because of Disney’s copy strike laws. Luckily, the brothers immediately submitted a statement trough YouTube, and Disney lifted the claim shortly after.

The brothers revealed that the trickiest part was obtaining a shooting place for the “dump” scene. They attempted to get a real dump for hours but couldn’t. And they had to build a dumpster from scratch. When they were asked a question if they are pleased with their work, they stated, “We are absolutely proud and satisfied with our work. I don’t think we would have done anything differently. I think everything worked out the way it was meant to.”

Morgan and Mason began this project after watching “Toy Story 3” in the movie theater. They started off by gathering every single toy from the cartoons. One would say they were a little bit obsessed. Their intent was to thank the authors of their favorite cartoon in some way, so the live-action plan was launched.

Morgan and Mason are not planning on recreating other movies, they say they need to get back to their other creative projects. They are grateful, though, that doing this project enabled them to experience childhood once again “We don’t play with toys anymore, but this project gave us one last opportunity to “play” with our favorite characters—just like Andy does at the end of ‘Toy Story 3.'”

Toy Story 3” was released in 2010, and it remains one of the most popular Pixar movies, with box office gross coming to 1 billion dollars. This part of the franchise deals with growing up. The toys’ owner leaves for college, and the toys are now left all alone and not needed anymore.

The remaking of this movie was not simple. There was a lot of planning and work involved. The brothers used stop motion and several other methods while reconstructing the film. They analyzed the movie scene-by-scene so that they wouldn’t miss anything. Because they didn’t have modern and expensive editing software, they used their phones and other simple gear to do this. Then they synchronized what they filmed with the original movie soundtrack.

“Many stop motion shots in the film would take over 5 hours straight to complete. The longest was 8 hours, I believe. We would always listen to our other favorite films or TV shows such as Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mad Men, and The Office to keep us sane. Haha” – brothers shared an anecdote from filming.

The brothers didn’t need to hire actors; all of the roles were played by their friends and family members. The dedication they all showed through those eight years is impressive. Hopefully, it will be an inspiration for others to pursue their dreams and never give up, no matter how hard it is.

Share your thoughts about this recreation in the comments section.

Damjan