Elemental
Working on this film was such a pleasure! I had so much fun helping figure out the way this world looks and works! For this project I focused mainly on look development and lighting design. Here is Ember returning home late at night!
All images copyright Disney/Pixar
Visual development studies
These are some images from the color script of the film, establishing the tone of the narrative through light and color. From the beginning we wanted to make Elemental very colorful; The tricky thing here was to keep the strength of the saturation while balancing it out so it wouldn’t be too overwhelming. Definitely a challenging task!
These were also an opportunity to study how our characters would behave, one being a light source and the other one see-through! Luckily we were able to find way to stylize them so this was manageable.
There were many variables we had to keep track of in terms of color design philosophy: Ember’s own color which evolves with her mood, the colors attributed to each of the elemental cultures (Fire, Earth, Water and Wind), as well as the evolution of the love story between Ember and Wade among others.
Graphic shapes!
Along with color saturation, the use of very graphic light shapes is something we wanted to adopt. This broke the logic of where the light is coming from, as well as the topology of shapes, but the lighting and compositing departments found ways of making it work! These were a couple of studies I made early on pointing out the underlying graphic structure of the shots.
Building the shop lighting keys
These images and the ones below are lighting keys that were used to determine the mood of each sequence in specific shots. Here, Bernie and Cinder find a new home to move into. I kept the whole place mostly in a dark shadow and used some strategically placed dappled light to show the potential of what this place could become with some work.
Delivery
Evolution from afternoon into evening as Ember makes her deliveries. In the shop interior I had fun placing graphic shapes throughout the set in a theatrical way, thinking of how theater pieces are lit, or even films shot in a soundstage.
Fern Burned
These are actually the first keys I tackled on the project. Early in the production there was a little bit more time to do some personal experimentation! I was able to find painting techniques so our keys would have their own flavor, very different from any other film. I was happy to have learned from these, so I could go much faster down the line when we had to work fast fast! As we enter Fern’s office, it was really interesting to paint a transition from a very humid to a very dry environment after Ember’s outburst. The same atmospheric effect, but going from moist to dusty air.
Fireland flashback
We were able to go “extra-cartoony” with these flashbacks since our world was already quite stylized. I looked at old technicolor cartoons and super theatrical staging, almost like this was sort of a “school play” recreation of the Lumen’s backstory.
Air Stadium
This sequence was very deliberately color-coded in lavender/violet tones, which we assigned to the air culture in Element City. The tunnel through which Ember and Wade walk in is intentionally ochre for maximum color contrast with its purplish complementary. Since most of the sequence was featuring empty space, we didn’t have solid objects that could “catch” the graphic shapes we were projecting throughout the film. I used the spotlight beams from below to replace them, which also gave us depth cues as characters move in and out of the light.
Swept Away
This was just a bonkers comedic little sequence, so I turned the cartooniness all the way up to the top
Culvert
This is an area of the city we come back to a couple of times for very short periods of time, so we wanted it to be easily distinguishable. We used greenish-yellow practical lights which also gave the feeling of a more industrial area.
Water Dinner
This was a super fun sequence in which everything had to be blue except for Ember! We had to find very subtle combinations of blue hues to keep the shots analogous but still interesting. Ember is having a very difficult emotional moment in this sequence; I started off with a ton of moisture surrounding her, making her uncomfortable, and then slowly lessening it as they travel back to Firetown. She is feeling trapped, so once they are arrive in front of her place I composed a dark shape that makes it feel like she is in the jaws of a giant monster!
Blessing Denied
When I first pitched this sequence the director said it looked like an overly dramatic stage play… That’s exactly what we were going for! Everyone was happy.
Bubble date
I loved working on this sequence. We had a lot of shots of the set without the characters, so we were able to compose very abstract compositions as the graphic shapes are projected onto the set!
It’s Over
After a very colorful moment in which Ember and Wade dance together, they get into a fight and split apart. I tried removing color from the frame progressively. By the time they are on the train platform, most of the environment is this "electric-whitish" color, conveying a feeling of emptiness and isolation.
One Way Ticket
Here I tried to grab the feeling of very early morning, Wade was probably thinking about grabbing the first train out of town… There was always a good opportunity for comedy with his family, a very colorful cast!
Firetown Flood
Here a treated the flood as this huge green mass threatening Firetown, which has opposite reddish colors. It was great to see how dramatic things could get as the water level was rising and less light got into the Fireplace shop. Towards the end, I though it would be a good idea to use the steam of the evaporating water to blur and slowly lose the images of the characters.
Crying Game
This is the most desaturated part of the entire film. Apart from the fire characters, it almost looks black and white in the final shots! Some strategic openings in the clouds and sunlight piercing through slowly reveal Wade’s reappearance.
The Bow
This conclusion had to be full of hope and color! We also used a moving cast shadow to represent the separation between Ember and her parents as she sails off to her own adventure