Behind the Scenes of Pixar's Brave - 1 Though its production was formally announced in 2008, work on Pixar's forthcoming movie Brave began years earlier. Pictured here are director Mark Andrews, writer Brenda Chapman and artist and story developer Steve Purcell relaxing on a grassy hill during the company's research trip to Scotland in 2006. Brave animators (from second left to right) Ken Kim, Daniel Campbell, Terry Song and Carlo Vogele wear kilts as part of a weekly Friday staff routine. Director Mark Andrews, center, guides staff members in swordfighting techniques outside Pixar's Emeryville, California offices. Andrews served as an unofficial consultant for Chapman, who wrote the story and pitched the original idea to Pixar, on most of the action-oriented details of the movie. Brave Production Designer Steve Pilcher and director Mark Andrews during a Master Lighting review. For this movie, Pixar has rewritten its animation system technology, which improves the motion of difficult-to-animate shapes - like the detailed red hair of the film's protagonist. John Lasseter, the studio's chief creative officer, talks with Brave Producer Katherine Sarafian and Director Mark Andrews in the Pixar atrium. Producer Katherine Sarafian participates in an archery class in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Calif in November 2006. Pixar's production cycles are longer than that of live-action films (about four years on average) and release dates are often pushed back in the name of attention to detail. Not all scenes get the storyboard treatment, but this one, called "The Prize," closely matches the scene as it appears in the completed film. Merida, the film's protagonist and Pixar's first female lead, fires an arrow and astonishes onlookers in a still from the final scene in Brave.