Posted in: Disney, Movies, Pixar | Tagged: disney, elemental, pixar

Elemental: How Star Trek Helped Inspire The Air Ball Scene

Elemental Peter Sohn explains how Star Trek: The Next Generation helped inspire one of the more difficult scenes to animate in the film.

When we attended the early press day for Elemental in March, we saw several scenes from the film. One of the scenes they showed us was the air ball scene with Wade and Ember seeking out Wade's boss, Gale, at the big sporting event of Element City. Before the scene was screened for us, the director Peter Sohn explained that the scene, in particular, was very difficult for them to animate. During the Q&A following the keynote presentation, we got to ask Sohn and producer Denise Ream what made that scene so difficult and what inspired them to come up with air ball. It turns out Sohn was drawing on a very familiar pop culture reference.

"Yeah, these things come from sitting around and drawing crazy stuff," Sohn said. "And at the beginning of it, it was like, okay, how do we build a world that can support these character's stories, and Ember has this sort of fiery personality? And we were looking for someone that could stand toe to toe with her and try to find that sort of passionate character [within]. I went to a lot of sporting games in New York and here in the Bay Area. And there are some passionate, angry sports fans that appeal to me, and this air character that is just a storm and that's triggering one side of the air stadium. The other thing was, how do we do something that you could never do in live action or like to do with humans? And so this idea of air basketball, "air ball" that we would call it started forming.

"As artists, we were all drawing, and I'm a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation fan," Sohn continued. "It's like three-dimensional chess that I was just like," Oh, what if the basketball game was like that where it was three-dimensional? And so that's how that external thing began. And then once there was this character, Lutz, who you guys saw yesterday, was this character that we could empathize with from a mile away in the stadium, that [Wade] could even feel for this character [from so far away]. And it was those set of ingredients that really formed the scene."

"All the crowd … then you have the wave in there, and you don't want that to come at the end," Ream said. "We wanted to put that in early, but we had to build all those characters; those cloud characters were hard."

When you think of which elements would be the hardest to animate, for some reason, we thought it would be fire. However, hearing that air gave the animators the most trouble is interesting. They emphasized several times during the Elemental press day that these characters are not regular Pixar characters on fire, wet, or with clouds around them. So animating them presented very different challenges from anything Pixar has done before. And having the water people do a literal wave during a sporting event? How could they NOT make that joke?

Elemental will debut at the Cannes Film Festival on May 27th and will be released in theaters on June 16th. Tickets went on sale today.

Elemental: Summary, Release Date, Cast List

Disney and Pixar's Elemental, an all-new original feature film that transports moviegoers to an extraordinary place called Element City, where a host of elements live and work. The trailer showcases each element—air, earth, water, and fire—and what sets them apart, according to Ember, a quick-witted and fiery woman who's always stayed close to home in Firetown. In Elemental, which opens in theaters on June 16th, she finally ventures out of her comfort zone to explore this spectacular world born from the imaginations of Pixar's filmmakers and specifically crafted for the big-screen experience. Element City is inspired by big cities around the globe and embraces theorized contributions from each elemental community—from giant pine-tree-like buildings and waterfall skyscrapers to a tornado-shaped arena called Cyclone Stadium.

Joining the previously announced voice cast, including Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie as Ember and Wade, respectively, are Ronnie del Carmen as Ember's soon-to-be-retired dad, Bernie; Shila Ommi as Ember's love-seeking mom, Cinder; Wendi McLendon-Covey as Wade's stormy and Air-Ball-loving boss, Gale; Catherine O'Hara as Wade's welcoming mom, Brook; Mason Wertheimer as Ember's admiring earth neighbor, Clod; and Joe Pera as an overgrown city bureaucrat, Fern. Directed by Peter Sohn, produced by Denise Ream, p.g.a., and executive produced by Pete Docter, Elemental features a screenplay by John Hoberg & Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh with story by Sohn, Hoberg & Likkel and Hsueh. The film's original score was composed and conducted by Thomas Newman.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!