Pixar’s Elemental takes place in Element City. We went to Pixar Animation Studios to learn all about the design of this place and its residents.
Designing Element City
Element City is a place where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together. It is reminiscent of America, where families from all over the world come with hopes of a better life. When designing a place like this, it was important to take inspiration from the elements that are living there.
This isn’t exactly like Zootopia, where each group of residents has their own place to live — they do blend together. Except for the fire residents. They are forced to live outside of the city because it was not designed with them in mind. In a short train scene that we saw at Pixar Animation Studios, and that is featured in the official Elemental trailer, Ember accidentally touches the leaves of an Earth element and they go up in flames. If water falls on her, she will be extinguished, so she carries an umbrella with her.
Director Peter Sohn explains that when he was a child, he would imagine the Periodic Table of Elements as an apartment building. Each element block was a window looking into their world and how they would behave. That is where part of the inspiration for Elemental came from. Just from the stills and trailer, it is clear this is supposed to be like New York City. There are shops and businesses on the bottom floor of buildings, and homes above them.
The filmmakers had to keep how elements interact with one another in mind when developing Element City. They were also inspired by things like fireplaces and ovens for the fire homes, barometers for the water homes, fans for the air homes, and nature for the land homes. The idea is that you can look at any one building and know exactly which element lives there.
If you look at the chairs for fire elements, they are very similar to fireplace inserts. Their buildings are modeled after brick ovens and fireplaces.
For water elements, the chairs are inflatable chairs like you would see in a pool. Their homes are filled with water, in which they can disappear and travel quickly through. Remember, they ARE water.
Creating the Element “People”
Something that Director Peter Sohn wanted to drill into the heads of those working on Elemental is that Ember IS fire, she is not a human on fire. Wade IS water, he is a not something that is wet. This is extremely important when it comes to deciding the way that these characters will move and interact with one another.
Of course, some liberties had to be taken. For example, in early designs of Wade you could see the back of his eyeballs and teeth when looking at his head and it was… interesting to say the least.
One of the coolest things that we learned at Pixar Animation Studios during the Elemental press event is that in order to get ideas for the land elements, animators literally went outside, took items from nature, and put them together in a way that resembled a creature. These element “people” were born from parts of the earth — you can’t any better inspiration than that.
It was also mentioned that fire was hard to get right. Why? Because it was imperative that Ember be relatable and likable, not scary and terrifying. Fire can easily go that way, so they needed to soften her whenever they could. When she is calm or shy, she shrinks into herself and bit and her light becomes softer — like a single candle.
But when she is angry (the girl has a temper), he color changes and she gets brighter and scarier. As Ember moves her arms, her flames will go out and then reappear. She is also able to blow glass and of course, eats spicy foods.
Wade is a lot heavier than Ember in terms of his density and movement. Water is a heavier element so his features tend to reflect that. He is see-through, but not too see-through. He is very emotional and cries at the drop of a hat. Wade’s body is more fluid and wavy than Ember’s is.
Element City and its residents are visually stunning but it is so much more than that. There was a lot of inspiration that went into every last detail of Pixar’s Elemental. See it on the big screen when it hits theaters, with Pixar short Carl’s Date, on June 16th.
NEXT: Pixar’s Elemental 30 Mins of Footage Details & Reaction
About Pixar’s Elemental
Disney and Pixar’s “Elemental,” an all-new, original feature film set in Element City, where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together. The story introduces Ember, a tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman, whose friendship with a fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy named Wade challenges her beliefs about the world they live in.
Directed by Peter Sohn, produced by Denise Ream, and featuring the voices of Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie as Ember and Wade, respectively.
Elemental will be exclusively in theaters June 16th, 2023.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.