“If scenes from Pixar’s ‘Soul’ look and feel like a real New York City classroom—they should—a Queens music teacher helped school the filmmakers on the details,” writes Michael Elsen-Rooney in Thursday’s (12/31) New York Daily News. “Peter Archer, a band teacher for more than 30 years at Middle School 74 in Bayside, Queens, served as a consultant on the movie, which has Jamie Foxx voicing Joe Gardner, a middle-aged teacher and musician. Archer, 58, helped pinpoint everything from the aesthetic of a middle school band classroom to the emotional tug of balancing a passion for music and a love of teaching. ‘The movie starts in my classroom at school … it’s a modification, but yes, it’s my room,’ said Archer, an accomplished trumpet player and full-time teacher…. In the new film, which began streaming on Disney Plus on Christmas Day, Foxx’s character grapples with his purpose after a brush with the afterlife.… The collaboration with Archer started with a surprise phone call … in 2018…. The longtime teacher’s … life experiences dovetailed almost perfectly with Pixar’s new hero…. The final version of the film includes several clips of Gardner’s work with students in the montage of memories.”
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