 A new movie from Pixar, the animation titans behind Toy Story, The Incredibles and Monsters Inc, is always a big deal. Even so, Elemental is their most massive undertaking yet. The story started with a simple spark: what if fire and water fell in love? It's only later the implications sunk in. That meant one of your characters is permanently on fire while the other is transparent and wobbling around. Plus the small matter of creating an entire universe populated by abstract elements also including land and air. To bring that to life, Pixar had to essentially upgrade itself. Where Finding Nemo required 923 computer processor cores, Elemental ate up over 151,000. They built three vast rooms to house them and employed double the special effects team. No pressure then, to make it a success… 'There was a period where I was really afraid of actually getting the movie done,' admits veteran producer Denise Ream. While director Peter Sohn refused to be daunted by the scale of his own movie. 'There's no Guinness Book of World Records where we're 'that was 90,000 cores – let's top that!' You're just like, how do we finish this?' Elemental isn't just a love story but an immigrant narrative inspired in part by Peter's background and others at Pixar (Picture: Dave Hogan/Hogan Media/Shutterstock) In person today at London's Bafta HQ, Peter is still unmistakably the inspiration for Russell, the boy scout in Up (another Pixar masterpiece). Age 45, he is still boyishly round-faced with round glasses, a cap and a little tie. Where Denise looks like his kindly mum – lacy cardie, long floral skirts and a crinkly smile. The two worked together on The Good Dinosaur, which was less technically demanding. What drove them, during seven long years of production, was the urge to tell a heartfelt story. Elemental is not just a star-crossed romance){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
A new movie from Pixar, the animation titans behind Toy Story, The Incredibles and Monsters Inc, is always a big deal. Even so, Elemental is their most massive undertaking yet.
The story started with a simple spark: what if fire and water fell in love? It’s only later the implications sunk in. That meant one of your characters is permanently on fire while the other is transparent and wobbling around.
Plus the small matter of creating an entire universe populated by abstract elements also including land and air.
To bring that to life, Pixar had to essentially upgrade itself. Where Finding Nemo required 923 computer processor cores, Elemental ate up over 151,000.