Episode 153 Dolby Creator Talks

Why Disney and Pixar’s Elemental is their "Most Ambitious" Movie to Date

June 20, 2023

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Director and Co-Writer Peter Sohn and Director of Photography Jean-Claude Kalache join us this week to tell us about the making of Elemental, Pixar Animation Studios’ most ambitious movie to date.

We discuss Pixar’s famously demanding story development process and why this film took years just to get to an outline, how this film deals with some much more grown-up themes than the typical Pixar fare, and the unique challenges of animating two lead characters made up entirely of either a glowing, iridescent flame (Ember) or a blob of translucent liquid (Wade).

We had done some [early] experiments with Ember [and] when we turned her fire on for the first time, she looked like a Balrog from Lord of the Rings! She looked terrifying. She was this very realistic demonic fire… And when [Wade] is in the basement, he has a different look. His whole body turns a different color. And then when he is outside in the sunlight, his whole body turned into something else. He was awful! He was so hard. <laughs>

Peter Sohn, Director and Co-Writer, “Elemental”

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