Study Buddy (Challenger): How Disney and Pixar’s team went through fire and water to animate Elemental, film about tolerance
- Coming film is directed by Peter Sohn, who says the story’s message is inspired by his parents’ experiences with xenophobia after moving from Korea to the US
- This page is for students who want to take their reading comprehension to the next level with difficult vocabulary and questions to test their inference skills
In Elemental, Ember, a fire element, learns to be friends with Wade, who is a water element. Photo: Disney/PixarContent provided by British Council
Read the following text, and answer questions 1-9 below:
[1] Elemental director Peter Sohn said his parents ignited the spark for the coming Disney and Pixar animated film. Sohn invited his parents – who had emigrated from Korea to the United States – to an event. Seeing them from the stage filled him with a deep appreciation for all they had done for their family. “I saw them, and I was very emotional thanking them for all the sacrifices,” Sohn said.
[2] Elemental is a film about a family of fire elements who migrate to Element City, a place where there are also inhabitants of water, air and earth. The themes of family and tolerance run throughout the film that debuts this summer.
[3] The film centres on Ember, a fire element who loves working at her father’s store but has trouble controlling her explosive temper, especially around uncomfortable customers. Ember’s life in Firetown, a suburb with many inhabitants of fire, is turned upside down when, because of a plumbing accident, she meets Wade, a water element and inspector who lives in Element City. Ember and Wade get to know each other, and she enjoys being outside Firetown. They realise their differences are not an impediment to friendship.
[4] It was not easy for the production team to bring the characters to life. “We have been doing all sorts of different characters, from toys to cars ... And that was another challenge,” Spanish animator Jordi Onate said. “We had to break all the rules that we knew from body mechanics. We did a lot of research on how the water behaves and how the fire behaves in certain situations and, on top of that, trying to make them talk.”
[5] The animators also wanted to give the characters powers. For example, Ember can use fire to weld metal and remake broken glass. “This is one of the most complex projects I think we’ve worked on at Pixar ... we are used to animating humans or animals, and you have references for that. But in this case, we were trying to figure out how a character made of fire or water would move,” Colombian animator Luis Uribe Córdoba said.
[6] Development of the project began seven years ago. Mexican artist Paula Assadourian was one of the first to help Sohn find the essence of the characters and story. Assadourian, who began working on the film in 2019, was in charge of making the storyboard before production.
[7] “Elemental is ... about Ember coming to face who she is and what she wants to do: if she wants to pursue her path or if she wants to kind of stay close to her roots and her family and what people expect her to be,” Assadourian said. “Wade changes Ember, or he kind of awakens her to say, ‘There’s so much more you can do with your life.’”
[8] “The idea of xenophobia was always in the story from the beginning [even before the pandemic],” Sohn said. “Because my father and mother experienced the same xenophobia, it wasn’t a new thing. [But] the idea of Asian hate that started happening in such boldface manners was really terrifying.”
[9] Producer Denise Ream collaborated with Sohn from the beginning of the project. “I just connected to it, with the idea of thanking your parents,” she said. “I really was excited about the visual and technical challenges; that really got me fired up. I knew [it] would be hard – it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be – but I like everything about it.”
Source: Associated Press, April 17
Questions
1. Sohn felt ________ his parents at the Elemental event mentioned in paragraph 1.
A. grateful to
B. indebted to
C. appreciative of
D. all of the above
2. Find a word in paragraph 2 that means “the willingness to allow other people to do, say or believe what they want even if you disagree”.
3. What issue does Ember have according to paragraph 3?
4. In paragraph 4, why were Onate’s previous experiences in animation not particularly helpful in making Elemental?
5. Based on your understanding of paragraph 5, what two things can Ember do that Wade cannot? (2 marks)
6. What does the “that” in paragraph 5 refer to?
7. Paragraph 7 summarises ...
A. the hurdles Ember has to overcome.
B. the choices Ember has to make.
C. the different people Ember meets on her journey.
D. the sacrifices Ember makes to find success.
8. Decide if the following statements are True, False or Not Given in the text. Fill in ONE circle only for each statement. (4 marks)
(i) Elemental is based on Sohn’s experience growing up in the United States.
(ii) The animation team had to spend extra time and effort looking into how the different elements would move.
(iii) Denise Ream regrets taking part in the film because it turned out to be a lot more challenging than she had anticipated.
(iv) Ember and her family had to move to Element City because they were ostracised by Firetown’s residents.
9. Which section of a newspaper is this story most likely to appear in?
A. entertainment
B. people and culture
C. technology
D. family and relationships
Answers
1. D
2. tolerance
3. She has trouble controlling her explosive temper, especially around uncomfortable customers.
4. It was because Onate’s previous works were with characters that adhered to certain principals of body mechanics which were not applicable to the characters in Elemental. (accept other similar answers)
5. remake broken glass and weld metal
6. animating humans and animals
7. B
8. (i) F; (ii) T; (iii) F; (iv) NG
9. A