Pixar’s Elemental is now in theaters. Audiences are transported to Elemental City, where elements Water, Fire, Earth, and Air co-exist, but don’t quite mix. Directed by Peter Sohn, and inspired by his personal story, Elemental introduces Ember Lumen and her Fire family, how they came to be in Elemental City
This also marks Pixar’s first Rom-Com film, when Wade Ripple – a go-with-the-flow guy meets the fiery Ember under an unlikely circumstance.
In a recent press conference moderated by Lisa Cabello, voice talents Leah Lewis (Ember Lumen), Mamoudou Athie (Wade Ripple) joins director Peter Sohn, producer Denise Ream, and singer/songwriter LAUV talks about working on the movie.
How Did They Find The Right Voices For Ember And Wade?
Casting the right voice talents for the leading characters is one of the most important things in any animated film. The voices bring these characters to life and connect them to the audience. Director Peter Sohn sought out empathy in the voices.
Peter Sohn: I always look for empathy and appeal just in the voice and in how I can connect to it. But then of course you’re just looking for what you need or you’re hoping that the character needs. And then also another electric X-factor layer, knowing that, oh, they’ll be able to take this character further than we ever could imagine. And for Ember, I had serendipitously discovered Leah in a movie called The Half of It. And in watching it, I wasn’t watching it to find Ember.
I was just, you know, really curious about the movie. And she sort of exploded on the screen with this
sort of fierceness in her sort of, you know, understanding her identity and her relationships in the way that this was written. But then there was also a tenderness in her performance when it came to her father that really then started linking me into Ember.
Lewis’ smoky voice reminded Sohn of the fire element. Mamoudou was discovered in a similar way, in the film Uncorked.
Peter Sohn: I saw Mamoudou play with this character, he’s this wine salesman and he went from selling wine to this young customer, but then flirting and then moving back and forth effortlessly through this. And that just brought me to that fluid sort of go-with-the-flow guy.
Sohn also touched on how Athie had different ways of crying – required in many scenes in Elemental that piqued his interest.
Peter Sohn: We had listened to a lot of crying and most of the time it’s one note and it’s really ear piercing and you’re kind of like done after like the first four seconds of it. But for some reason, Mamoudou had a way of inviting you with each different version of crying that he was doing that the scene required.
Finding The Dynamic of Ember and Wade
Leah Lewis talks about voicing her character, working with Mamoudou Athie, and Peter Sohn.
Leah Lewis: So the behind-the-scenes work, Mamoudou and I actually never even worked together. So I feel like it was Peter kind of doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work with us [laugh] separately. I mean, to get into the world of Ember, Peter was just so generous in the way that he was like, “Just be you, but do that like times 10 and we’ll figure out like what parts of your voice we can use” and that are brand new that he hadn’t even really thought of.
Mamoudou mentions a Clown Class helped him in voicing the character.
Mamoudou Athie: I had a wonderful class in school that really changed my life called, called Clown
Class. Not like a Barnum and Bailey Clown, but more of like the French kind of style.
And it just really helped me access parts of myself that I felt ashamed of or was just embarrassed by or like, oh, you know, you’ll put yourself in a bad position. And it really helped me just become a less self-conscious actor. And so it kind of just made those sessions like a form of like very fun, but serious play. And so just kind of just the investigative nature of it. Just like, okay, hold on. Wait. Hold on. I just realized something here and getting to do that back and forth with Pete and Denise and them allowing the space. It was a really great conversation in terms of creating the character and who he was. So that was really it.
Ember And Wade Required About 10,000 Controls, Double The Average Pixar Characters
Peter Sohn and producer Denise Ream recount the challenges they faced when creating the elemental characters.
Denise Ream: It was creating the two characters from nothing. I mean, to create emotive characters that you need to connect to out of simulations is something that was pretty daunting. We were excited at the challenge, but it was a daunting prospect. So we started with Ember, and we worked on her for a long time, and the world sort of was built around her. But we shortly discovered that water was more
difficult.
Sohn speaks up on the difference between creating Ember and Wade and how different it was from the typical Pixar character
Peter Sohn: The average Pixar character has about 4,000 controls, which sounds like a lot, right?
But both Ember and Wade were close to double that to 10,000. Meaning you needed this control to try to get them to move like the element while there was an effect going ontop of it. And there’s so many layers of effects going on with these characters that they kept multiplying the challenges in every direction that we would go. You know, for example, fire, you can’t shadow fire. And so already, there would be issues per scene, per shot where you were just trying to make sure that the eye was going in the right direction. How busy is the fire? Can we read her face, the landscape of those emotions?
As for Wade, they had other challenges.
Peter Sohn: Water requires these ingredients to feel like water. If you slowed down
the bubbles, all of a sudden, water would look like jello. If you remove the highlights, water would look like a ghost. And then, so in every sequence, in every shot, and if, you know, if water was in the basement, there would be no light and you couldn’t see the character.
The Cast Touches On The Personal Story That Inspired Elemental
The story of Elemental is inspired by Peter Sohn’s own experience, who is a son of Korean immigrants. His parents opened a bodega-style story in the Bronx, similar to the Lumen family in the film. The cast reflects on how Sohn’s personal story resonated with them.
Mamoudou Athie: That’s one of the huge things that I connected with Pete about. Like my family, you know, we came here when I was a baby. I was five months old. My dad was a diplomat and you know, he had two master’s degrees that he couldn’t take with him and had to completely start afresh.
And as an adult, I understood that was a sacrifice when I was a kid. But as an adult, I have a fuller understanding of what it is to build a life for yourself. But I cannot imagine having to, you know, start all over for the sake of your family. But they did it and they did it without question. They did it for us. And I
think Pete and I shared like that sense of gratitude, that feeling of a debt that, you know? But also like, you know, in the making of this film and just talking about it and talking with my parents about it, it’s not so much like a debt anymore. It feels more of like a, you know, how do you say it? Like a gift, you know?
The musical Influences For LAVU’s Song “Steal The Show”
Singer/songwriter Lauv worked on an original song called “Steal The Show” for the film. He worked with the film’s composer Thomas Newman in creating the sound.
LAUV: It was really starting with, I think it was two loops from Thomas Newman that were based on some of the sounds he’s using throughout the film. And really from there it was just me kind of
writing a chord progression and melodies and having just seen [a version?] of the scene and it was really just like, kind of in the moment. So yeah, it was kind of those two loops and just
kind of free styling from there, which was really, really
cool. Yeah, it’s a really cool process.
Any Easter Eggs In Elemental?
Denise Ream: I do love we have a little bit of an Easter egg for the following movie that comes after us called, Elio. And we worked really hard to put one of the characters in that movie. And so that’s a really fun little detail that every time I see it, I smile.
Pixar’s Elemental is now in theaters and available in Dolby Cinea, Reald 3D, and 4DX formats.
