In Elemental, fire, water, earth, and air folk reside semi-harmoniously in the magnificent metropolis of Element City. It’s against this dazzling backdrop that sparks fly between hotheaded young woman Ember (Leah Lewis) and go-with-the-flow guy Wade (Mamoudou Athie). Directed by Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur, and the voice of Sox in Lightyear), it’s Pixar’s first original film to hit cinemas since the pandemic.
"We knew it was going to be hard. We didn’t know it was going to be as hard as it was," producer Denise Ream tells Total Film magazine in the latest issue, which features Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on the cover, of a project that tested the limits of Pixar’s technical teams.
The key challenge was the fact that Ember isn’t on fire, she is fire, and the same goes for all the elements, requiring unprecedented collaboration between the animation and effects departments. "We had character-based effects in every single shot. It required a different pipeline," Ream notes.
The numbers speak for themselves: whereas Finding Nemo utilized 923 computer cores to render its state-of-the-art visuals, and Toy Story a mere 294, Elemental had over 151,000.
Check out our exclusive image from the new movie above too, featuring Ember and Wade.
Elemental arrives in the US on June 16 and hits UK cinemas on July 7. This is just a snippet of our interview with the team behind the movie in the new issue of Total Film magazine when it hits shelves (and digital newsstands) this Thursday, April 27. Check out the covers below:
If you’re a fan of Total Film, why not subscribe so that you never miss an issue? You’ll get the magazine before it’s in shops, with exclusive subscriber-only covers (like the one pictured below). And with our latest offer you can get a free STM ChargeTree worth £69.99. Head to MagazinesDirect to find out more (Ts and Cs apply).
The Inside Out 2 panic attack scene is one of the best depictions of anxiety ever – and something Pixar director Kelsey Mann is incredibly proud of: "I couldn't be happier"
Feathers McGraw's return 30 years after The Wrong Trousers wasn't the original plan for Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl but Aardman needed "something more villainous"
