‘Elemental’ Oscar Nominee Peter Sohn On the Visual, Personal Inspirations Used To Create This Blending of Cultures

For director Peter Sohn Pixar’s Oscar-nominated Elemental was a very personal project. As a part of an immigrant family, he channeled that experience as the major inspiration for the tale of firey Ember (Leah Lewis) who finds her place among her home culture and the city in which she lives. She also finds unexpected attraction to the polar opposite water-based Wade (Mamoudou Athie). The two elements coming together despite their inherent and physical differences provided a major source in the creative aspects of the aesthetic of the city as well as its hierarchy, resulting in the emotional and beautiful animation of the entire film.

Here, in an interview with Awards Daily, Sohn talks about these visual and emotional inspirations for the film, which received Pixar’s 17th Oscar nomination in Best Animated Feature.

Awards Daily: The combination of fire and water is a major aspect of the film in terms of the characters as well as the visuals and the theme of the romance. What was it about that concept that appealed to you?

Peter Sohn: It was two pieces really. There was a personal connection for me because when I was growing up it was culturally expected that I needed to marry a Korean, and there was the fact that I ended up marrying someone who wasn’t Korean. Because of those divisive things that happened in my family I started to try to find characters that were in these opposite worlds. Water came up from something I had read a long time ago. It was also a niche in animation that hadn’t been done before where you were making characters out of effects. Those two seeds really grew from that idea.

Awards Daily: Speaking of your own life, I read that the story is partially based on the experience of your parents moving from Korea to the Bronx. How did that influence the story and the look of the film?

Peter Sohn-it’s essentially the seed that started it all. I went to this event for Pixar in the Bronx that was appreciating people in the arts. I had invited my parents there and when I got up on stage and looked back at the audience seeing my parents there older now, it gave me some different context to them and I got very emotional and thanked them. I do not remember everything I said because I was weeping so much but I know I thanked them for all the sacrifices that they made for me and my brother to have a life here. It was this watershed moment for me that I felt so lucky that I got to do that. They have since passed away during the production, but I came back to Pixar with this anecdote and they said that’s it, that’s the film, that is what you have to do. So that triggered this bath.

Visually it is completely connected to the metaphor of several cultures living together. This idea of an elemental world was inspired by me looking at the periodic table of elements as a kid. That it looked like apartment buildings stacked on top of each other, and the humor of the line like copper lives next to mercury, but don’t trust helium because they are gassy. But it was difficult to break down all the elements in there so I just boiled it down to the classic elements. The idea of immigrants in a city married to the world of elements living on top of each other became a big motif.

Awards Daily: With the different cities, fire town has a more orange look to it and air parts have more white. In creating such a visual world was that major aspect of it?

Peter Sohn: It was so much about first generation, second generation identity issues. Do I belong in my homeland but I was born here? Using the elements and building our own idea of culture within each element helped us define the city in a way that Ember, our lead character, could understand where she belonged identity wise.

Fire town was based off of things that were impervious to fire: pots, porcelain, and brick. But then we were also trying to say that this is cultural. If you went to fire land maybe some of these elements could be brought from their culture into the city to create community. We took the same concept with water trying to figure out the hierarchy to the city about who got here first. Water was first, then earth, then understanding how water and earth came together. We started looking at deltas where rivers start pouring out into oceans and how the land looked. Then we sat the city on top of that and defined the foundation of the city. If there is water that means there are canals, so that broke up the city in different ways and helped decide where fire, earth, and air would live. It all started with that hierarchy.

Awards Daily: That brings up one of my favorite visuals, the subway. Water comes down and it looks refreshing, but then it can seem dangerous to flames and even a depressing element at one point. That one set goes through so many emotional beats. Where did that idea come from?

Peter Sohn: It was connected to the earlier question about how this city holds these elements. Water was first and fire was last. Because fire was last we wanted to showcase how fire might feel like they do not belong. It’s very analogous to what many first generations have when they come to a new land. But we wanted to marry that to visuals, where in the city this is just beautiful infrastructure, water moves everything around but it would be very difficult for fire to navigate that. That gave us a hook to balance that infrastructure.

Awards Daily: You have performed voice work in other films. Did that help you relate with your actors in making this film?

Peter Sohn: So much of it has to do with vulnerability for me. Having performed for several directors you really learn tools that are beneficial to many performers and tools that may not be. Depending on the performer you try to balance how to find a performance that feels natural and vulnerable. For me it was a lot about watching the performer and seeing if they are locked in or not, and taking breaks when needed. A lot of that tool kit came from being a voice actor.

Awards Daily: One of the big build-ups for the film is, can Ember and Wade touch and what will happen when they do? When they do we also get this interesting visual. What was behind that?

Peter Sohn: It was two-fold essentially. There is a literal combustion that happens when fire and water come together that I wanted to honor. The second thing was playing with each character’s growth throughout the film and how that might balance each other. Obviously it is a peak point for their love for each other. Having a character like Ember who is hot-tempered and these walls built up partially from growing up in a city that she is sometimes not welcomed in. We were looking to find ways in this relationship with Wade for these walls to come down. We understand if they touch they could destroy each other. But if Ember’s vulnerability and her feeling of safety with Wade could be visually shown, could that balance out Wade’s growing more of a spine? He starts so emotional but by this point he is growing in strength and could build to a ying-yang. So when they touch that chemical reaction is balanced because they are giving and taking energy from each other.

Awards Daily: A visual that intrigued but made perfect sense as well was with the earth element and using plant life as part of their features. Why was that used over say stones or other earth items?

Peter Sohn: It grew out of a rule that each element would have pieces that would fall off. If Wade’s had drips of water fall off of him onto the ground they wouldn’t arise and be alive. Same for Ember. If she touches wood and moves away the fire that remained wouldn’t be alive. So that gives us two aspects: there are elements that are alive and have a soul to it, and then there are elements like ocean water that do not have any sort of life to it. So that would be true of the earth characters as well. Earth is the soil, the energy that is holding it together, and plants that are alive are more like hair so they would be lifeless. That became our foundation of this element’s main body and things can come off from that, and that was earth’s.

Awards Daily: This is your first Oscar nomination. Congratulations! Can you tell us about that experience?

Peter Sohn: It was electrifying! I had set my alarm beforehand to wake up and watch it but I must have done one of those zombie snoozes because I didn’t wake up to an alarm but to a lot of texts! I thought of the crew immediately, just because this movie has been such a rollercoaster ride in terms of its release and its word-of-mouth build and the legs that it had. So by the time of the end of its theatrical run and ending up on streaming and how well it did there, I was so proud about how the film had connected and found an audience. So these awards nominations have become something extra that I didn’t expect because of this journey. The Academy is very prestigious and something you grow up with. So it electrified me going through every neuron of my body this idea that the film is being recognized in this way that I never thought it would when it first released.

It’s very emotional. I keep thinking about my parents and wishing that they were around to see this film that was trying to honor them connected with so many people. I just hope they are looking down and smiling.

Elemental streams exclusively on Disney+.