Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1505509
www.postmagazine.com 21 POST JULY/AUG 2023 F ire, water, earth and air are brought to life as multifaceted characters in Elemental, Pixar's newest animated feature. Directed by Peter Sohn, the film follows Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis), a clever young fire lady who forges an unlikely friendship with Wade (voiced by Mamoudou Athie), an easy-going young water man. Set within the vibrant neighborhoods of Element City, the story explores the importance of building strong relationships between family members and across cultural divides. With a pair of main characters that are entirely driven by visual effects, every frame of the film includes a fire or water simulation — both often occurring simultaneously on-screen. Ember is fire, she is not on fire; while Wade is water, not simply a vessel filled with water. This extent of innovative effects work was unprecedented for a Pixar film, requiring the production team to dynamically re-engineer their workflow to transform the con- cept into a reality on-screen. DIRECTOR PETER SOHN & PRODUCER DENISE REAM When director Peter Sohn first began the project, he wondered if it would even be possible to trans- form elements into fully-realized characters. "Can they walk around? Can they talk? What is that even going to look like?" he recalls asking himself. Sohn initially developed and pitched the film with his own original concept art. Next, he began the process of assembling a team to bring the story to the screen. He focused on finding collaborators with an understanding of the film's overarching themes, as well as out-of-the-box thinkers who could identi- fy and solve technical problems along the way. Producer Denise Ream, who previously worked alongside Sohn on Pixar's The Good Dinosaur (2015), was eager to help him realize the concept. "I was excited because it had everything that I was yearning to do. I really wanted to take on a technical challenge," she shares. Sohn and Ream emphasized the importance of close collaboration throughout production, fostering an environment of strong communication within the team. "In the early stages, the goal was to keep every- one working together," Ream explains. "We went quite a ways before we subdivided into depart- ments. I think that really ended up helping each other see what the struggles were in their respec- tive areas of expertise." From the very beginning, Sohn made it clear that he was open to ideas from any member of the team. "It's something that I loved in my first experiences here at Pixar, and ever since then I try to stay open — like the Ratatouille idea that anyone can cook," he shares. "A good idea can come from anywhere." He maintained open lines of communication to hear anyone's insights into problems, so it was not just the heads of each department determining solutions. "We had so many people figuring out so many complicated problems," Ream adds. Sohn worked closely with each department by familiarizing himself with how they communicated. "I love learning the language first," he explains. "How they talk about making something, the technical language of it. I am not proficient in that language, but I love trying to understand it." He would also take the time to learn about the team members' favorite films, so they could relate on a more personal level. "Then a language of film starts to appear," he adds. "You can find ways to communicate through a love of different movies, and then you're starting to get to know them." Team collaboration took place virtually due to the pandemic, so Sohn and Ream were thrilled when they were able to return to the studio to watch animation dailies and see the film's charac- ters begin to take shape. "We got to be together and finish the movie," Ream recalls. "When we finally ended up seeing our first scene that was lit with some VFX, it was like nothing I had ever experienced." Personal connections were Sohn's favorite as- pect of making the film. "Babies were born during this production. We lost people during the production," he remembers. "I can't just see the shots anymore. I see the people that made them." PRODUCTION DESIGNER DON SHANK Production designer Don Shank helped the team tackle the challenge of balancing visceral realism with creative stylization. Fully-realistic physics would not have been compatible with the film's character designs. For example, Wade's trans- lucent body would refract distracting elements from his environment. "He was like a lens," Shank recalls. "There was just so much visual noise and movement that it was hard to not only make out his features, but really see him very clearly." It was important to introduce a cartoonish element to balance out the realities of physics and allow the characters to thrive on-screen. "As an artist, you're trying to find ways to in- crease contrast and you're trying to make a focal point," he continues. "But when it's just noise on noise, it's very hard to make anything out. So from a visual communication and a storytelling need, we really had to be in complete control of physics." The team studied diagrams of fire and water, and determined which scientific properties would work in the film, and which would not. This allowed them to selectively bend the laws of physics to better suit the characters. The team developed special technology to harness and control this modified approach to physics. Shank would paint solutions and ideas, and bring them to the technical team to see if they could be transformed into tools. The way the surface of water curves when it touches another material, also known as menis- cus, was crucial to the film's character physics. Techniques such as placing lights within the meniscus would add color to the outline and help a character like Wade stand out better against his background. It also helped solidify Ember's design, which constantly emitted light. "You couldn't really shape her like you would normally with a reflective object," Shank recalls. "So we had a lot of these tricks to make things look more dimensional." Shank noted that the film presented a stream of challenges from start to finish. "Luckily there was an incredible tech team," he recalls. "In due time and a lot of work, they would have these Mars landings of art achievements." In these moments, he would realize that the film would be possible to make, and that he had to trust the process. "I used to always say, 'Something will get ren- dered,'" he adds. "In time you're going to work together and get where you need to be." CHARACTER SUPERVISORS JUNYI LING & JEREMIE TALBOT Jeremie Talbot and Junyi Ling helmed the film's character supervision team, each handling different phases of the process. Concept art of the vibrant Element City.