NEW YORK — When the filmmakers at Pixar watched a documentary about the Venezuelan rain forest, they wondered at first if that place even really existed.

Looking for a location to develop their next animated feature, they decided to travel to that magical place.

Not only did they hone their story there, but they found another "character" — the landscape itself, much of which inspired the film's dreamlike locations.

"Up" opened last Friday (grossing nearly $70 million domestically) with Venezuela as one of its main characters, as director Pete Docter and story supervisor Ronnie del Carmen told the Associated Press in a recent interview.

What places that you visited can we see in the movie?

DOCTER: We pretty much focused our trip around the tepuis (table-top mountains) in Venezuela and Brazil ... We went in a helicopter to another tepui ... and then went to the Angel Falls. We changed it a little bit in the movie.

How did you decide to focus on that area?

DOCTER: We were looking for places to put our characters in and put them stuck together. We thought a tropical island ... (But) we saw a documentary by Adrian Warren and he came to Pixar to show us some other places ... We said, "We need to go there!" This place is unique, very specific, we really needed to experience what it's like to put it in the movie.

Seeing those landscapes, what did you think?

DEL CARMEN: That was the most magnificent trip that most of us would take in our lifetime. The only thing that I can compare it to is that moment in "Jurassic Park" that the line goes: "Welcome to the Jurassic Park." You land there in a helicopter but you couldn't put yourself in context with Roraima. You find yourself being so small in front of this magnificent mountain. It takes your breath away and you stare at it for a long time. Is a memorable moment not only to stand in front of a tepui, but a tepui you are about to climb.

How much did the location change the story?

DOCTER: We spent three days drawing, painting, taking lots of photographs. It really affected the film both on the images and the story ... Really, a lot of ideas grew out of this mysterious rock shapes that look like people. That's real and we put it in the film: that's how we introduced our character Dug.

DEL CARMEN: We had ideas of what we would be doing but not what they'd be feeling ... And also how the rocks looks like, how slippery the road is, how big things are: (the characters) can walk, but is gonna be hard. We got to know the characters more and how they would behave in this landscape. My feeling is that the location is also a character in the movie.

How do you expect the movie to affect those places in terms of tourism?

DOCTER: I think, boy! When people see this ... When we have a feature of the documentary on the DVD they will want to go. I hope everybody is respectful of the location and don't ruin them 'cause they are really beautiful places.