In Disney/Pixar's 2003 animated feature, the popular Finding Nemo, a forgetful blue tang fish named Dory helped reunite the clownfish Marlin with his son Nemo. Now, upbeat, perky Dory has her own movie titled Finding Dory.
But wait. Dory has no short-term memory. How would anyone know if she were lost, not the least Dory herself? If she were lost, how could she find her way back? And, would she want to?
Dory was not wired up to be a main character, says Finding Dory director and writer Andrew Stanton. Self-reflection is the reason you can follow why a character grows. But, we gave her short-term memory loss. She has emotional memory, but she can't track progress. So, how do you give her the opportunity of self-reflection when she can't do it herself? I would never recommend this to a writer.
Stanton, however, had an advantage over other writers who might try. He wrote and directed Finding Nemo, receiving an Oscar nomination for writing and a Best Animated Feature Oscar for directing the film. In addition, he has received an Oscar for directing Wall-E, and Oscar nominations for writing Toy Story, Wall-E and Toy Story 3. Thus, he knew the characters in Finding Nemo better than anyone else, and he knows how to move characters from one film into another. But, why did he choose such an unlikely main character?
I saw Dory as a tragic character, Stanton says. I knew her backstory. She used optimism, charm and selflessness to make sure people wouldn't ditch her. It was her protection. This story is about Dory finding herself - in every way. I felt she deserved to like who she is.
Ellen DeGeneres was Stanton's choice to voice Dory in Finding Nemo, and she returned for this film.
Ellen is the only person I ever wrote for specifically, Stanton says. Thank goodness she said, yes.'
Also returning is Albert Brooks as Nemo's father, Marlin. Stepping in to fill Nemo's fin in Finding Dory is 12-year-old actor Hayden Rolence.
A crew that topped 400 in all, but averaged 280 on a day-to-day basis, worked on the film. Of those, nearly 100 in the art, story and editorial departments spent more than two years creating the story, designing the world, and developing the new characters. Storyboarding alone extended over two and a half years, resulting in 103,639 storyboards. Helping Stanton, who is also a vice president at Pixar, was co-director Angus MacLane.
The first sequences moved into production approximately a year before the June 17, 2016, release date. Many of the technical challenges for the production crew centered on an octopus's special needs, on compositing water simulations and on new tools for working with Pixar RenderMan RIS.
A LITTLE HELP FROM HER FRIENDS
The story begins in the colorful, cozy coral reef where Dory, Marlin and Nemo have made a home. It's a happy family time until a massive stingray migration swims through the neighborhood and triggers deep memories in Dory of a family she thinks she might have left behind.
While Dory forgets details in her day-to-day life, her emotional memory is fine, says producer Lindsay Collins.
Determined to uncover her past, Dory talks Marlin and Nemo into helping her find her long-lost family. The search sends the three fish back across the ocean to a Marine Life Institute (MLI), a rescue rehabilitation center and aquarium loosely based on California's Monterey Bay Aquarium, and into a kelp forest nearby.
At MLI, Dory meets the other three stars of this film: a beluga whale with faulty sonar skills named Bailey, a clumsy nearsighted whale shark named Destiny and a seven-legged octopus named Hank.
I saw a beluga whale in Vancouver and couldn't keep my eyes off it, Stanton says. The animator in me wanted to see what kind of character that species would be.
Character designer Jason Deamer created the caricatured whale.
He's like a giant pork bun, Deamer says. I looked at pork buns for reference, for the texture of his skin. It's soft, with ripples.
For Destiny, Deamer picked an even more unusual reference.
She was weirdly difficult to design, he says. I pitched the idea of thinking of her as an oven mitt with big mouth shapes. But we painted her like the real thing.
Bailey is gray. Destiny has evenly spaced dots on her tail, a more chaotic pattern on her middle section, with increasingly dense dots moving forward to her head.
As for Hank, he was the most challenging of the three new characters for Deamer, the technical directors, and the animators. But, arguably, the most helpful to Dory.
We had to move Dory across the Marine Life Institute, Stanton says. So one reason we thought of Hank was because he's so ambulatory, and octopuses are known for being good escape artists. In one scene, for example, Hank grabs a ride on a visitor's back, camouflaged as a backpack.
HANK
Hank is my favorite character in the movie, and he was one of the hardest things we've done on a character level, Deamer says. We wanted him to be a lovable, grumpy, old octopus. But what makes an octopus look old? We struggled so hard to make him appealing. These things are slimy and gross. They're super intelligent, but that sideways eye thing doesn't make you think of motherly love. And where do we put his mouth? We ended up tucking it under his tentacles.
For Hank's color, red was the obvious choice.
Hank is red because we thought if an animal could change color, he'd choose orangey red, Deamer says. And, it contrasts with Dory's blue.
But Hank also changes color. And patterns. And shape. He's a cat on a wall poster, a camouflage backpack, even a potted plant. To create those textures and colors, the team wanted to mimic how these changes happen in the real world.
We wanted it to look natural and not like a cross-fade, sa
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
Latino Film Institute Fellows Screen Their Short Films at the Egyptian Theatre
The Inclusion Fellowship and Spark Animation Grant uplifts 15 ...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
In Disney/Pixar's 2003 animated feature, the popular Finding Nemo, a forgetful blue tang fish named Dory helped reunite the clownfish Marlin with his son Nemo. Now, upbeat, perky Dory has her own movie titled Finding Dory. 
