Opposites Attract In Pixar’s First Rom-Com – ‘Elemental’ Press Conference Coverage

This past week I had the pleasure of getting a behind the scenes look at the development of Disney Pixar’s latest film, Elemental. In addition to hearing from Director Peter Sohn and Producer Denise Ream, I also got to watch roughly 30 minutes of footage from the film. I can’t wait for y’all to see the amazing work that the talented people at Pixar have put into this film, but until then, let me tell you about it.

The Real Life Inspiration for Elemental

When coming up with the idea of Elemental, Director Peter Sohn looked to his parents and their journey from Korea to America. His father had open up a small store in New York and worked hard to provide for his family. Much of Sohn’s upbringing is present in this new film. Ember’s parents, Bernie and Cinder, moved to Element City, a bustling city first created by the Water elementals. Bernie opens up a small fire shop in the fire district of the city, and plans to have Ember one day take over. However, Ember has an incredibly fiery temper which causes problems for her at the store, preventing her from officially taking over the store. Her explosive temper leads to Ember meeting Wade, a sensitive and emotional Water elemental, who soon falls for Ember.

This idea of two opposites falling in love with each other is also based on Sohn’s own life. When he was younger, Sohn was told by his grandmother that he had to marry a Korean woman. Eventually, Sohn ended up marrying a White woman from California, much to his family’s disdain. But the family came around once they realized they actually had a lot in common with the in-laws. All these aspects of Sohn’s life and family come together to create this fun story that will surely hit home for many people of immigrant families.

Love Is In The Air For Water and Fire

I was really surprised at just how much of this movie plays like a typical Rom-Com. From the half hour of footage I was lucky enough to view, I quickly became hooked and desperate to see Ember and Wade work it out. The dangers of a Fire elemental trying to have a relationship with a Water elemental brings out a lot of awkward encounters and hilarious moments. I think a lot of people are going to really connect with Wade and Ember, not just in their family connections and relation to race and immigration, but through their comedic struggles to make their relationship work. I’d love to see more Rom-Coms from Pixar, and for the studio to branch out into other film genres. We got the sci-fi epic Lightyear last summer, now a Rom-Com this summer… maybe one day we could see a dramatic period piece from them. A guy can dream right?

Bringing Water and Fire to Life

I was blown away at how amazing Ember and Wade look in motion. There’s a scene in the film where Ember and Wade attend a crazy tornado basketball game. The two teams consist of Air elementals as they are flying all around the tornado arena to try and shoot the ball into the hoop. The arena is filled with all four elemental types, fire, water, earth and air. The cloud basketball players flying around look so fun, watching a group of Water elementals create a literal wave through the audience, and how Ember reacts to all of these other elementals had me shocked. This film could easily be one of Pixar’s most technologically impressive films to date.

Peter Sohn went into more detail about how the design and tech process went for designing Ember and Wade. Trying to personify elements was a difficult challenge. Having already personified clouds in his short film Partly Cloudy, Sohn said that air wasn’t nearly as difficult as figuring out how to portray fire and water. Wade is an incredibly complex character with the biggest challenge being his transparency. The animators at Pixar needed to find some middle ground for how to create Wade. You make him too transparent, then he can’t be seen in a lit environment, you don’t make him transparent enough and he starts to lose that sense of water and fluidity.

Then there’s Ember, a walking and talking visual effect. Sohn revealed that Ember went through many different iterations before they finally found a look that encompassed living fire. There were some variations of Ember that made her look too flat in their 3D environments and others that made her seem more like she was much too solid to really depict fire. The team also needed to create work arounds for whenever a light would cast a shadow onto her character. Since she herself is a light source, you couldn’t really have any shadows landing on her.

The World of Elemental

Element City is absolutely beautiful. While my focus was primarily on the impressive character designs and technology, I couldn’t take my eyes off the amazing sets and locations that Pixar has cooked up. Peter Sohn says the earliest inspiration for Element City was actually from middle school when he learned about the Periodic Table of Elements. “I never saw it as a periodic table. I always saw it as apartment buildings.” This idea that all these elements could live together on a city block was a fun idea that would later grow into Elemental. How elements on the periodic table living across the hall from each other could create some interesting chemistry was the early ground work for Element City.

“I never saw it as a periodic table. I always saw it as apartment buildings.”

The story of Element city is that it was first founded by the Water elementals, which is evident in the film by the fact that the city and it’s transportation is almost entirely water based. Next came the Earth elementals, then the Air elementals. Finally, the fire elementals made their way to the city. This timeline helps shape the narrative that the elements in Element City don’t mix and creates the divide between Ember and Wade’s families.

With water being the main element in the city, the set designers at Pixar looked to cities like Venice and Amsterdam for inspiration. The water canals and the buildings that surround them have immense detail and thought into them. Peter Sohn mentioned how most of production took place over Covid, so the teams weren’t able to travel to these cities for research. Instead, many hours were spent watching POV city tours on YouTube to get the feel and inspiration for Element City.

When Opposites React

After having seen the footage graciously sent to me by the kind people at Disney and Pixar, and having heard from Director Peter Sohn, Producer Denise Ream and many others who worked on this film, I am completely sold on Elemental. It’s fun, it’s emotional, and it’s stunning to look at. I’m still in awe of how great the character designs are, the impressive VFX work that went into every shot and character, and the incredible set design. Pixar has really knocked it out of the park with this one and I am seriously looking forward to seeing the whole film later this summer.

Elemental releases exclusively in theaters on June 16th, 2023.