I had the chance to listen to Pixar Director Domee Shi's process of making her endearing short film Bao. I walked out of her talk learning:
In the first version, Bao's mom made a dumpling house, car, etc. for Bao and rage-ate everything. The scene ended up having so much shock factor that she edited the mom to only eating Bao
Also, Bao initially had a perogie girlfriend
It took 3 hours to decide where the water droplets would fall when the mom was chopping the green onions.
The first scene with the dough was the most expensive. Domee brought her mom to Pixar to show the animators how the dough looks and moves while its worked. Making food look authentic and delicious was so important.
Bao was originally an internship side project... Never discount your side project's potential!