We wanted to drive Turning Red viewership on Disney+ by creating an engaging video that could bring a little part of Mei’s world directly into our fan’s kitchens! This instructional cooking video is already a popular format on the Pixar social accounts, so we set out to create an episode of Cooking With Pixar that would engage our fansand showcase Mei’s Chinese culture in an authentic and accessible way.
Our social media and content team partnered closely with our animation producer to align on the vision. The team wrote a script that captured the essence of the film’s humor and worked closely with both Turning Red director Domee Shi and a DE&I producer to source an authentic recipe to showcase. Although Mei’s family speaks a regional dialect called Taishanese, we wanted to lean into the idea that Turning Red is a story that resonates with a large swath of the Asian community. With the filmmakers’ blessing and insight from our DE&I partners, we worked bits of Mandarin into the script as a way of connecting with a wider range of Chinese/North American fans on social media that make up the Pixar audience. We made sure to hire a VO artist who was a fluent Mandarin speaker and brought the spirit of the film to life in her narration. The animation itself was done in partnership with Flux Animation, who also decorated the set and made sure to blend elements of Chinese culture with Mei’s teenage aesthetic. We’re very proud of the finished video, which not only reflects the heart and character of Turning Red, but also as an informative and unique way to teach our audience how to make a delicious rice congee.
This video has received 2.1M views on YouTube alone and over 262K combined video views across other social platforms. The video was incredibly well-received as another episode of the successful Cooking with Pixar series. Many commenters remarked that they were excited to try the recipe, as well as express their love for Turning Red.
