EMERYVILLE, CA — Disney and Pixar’s “Elio” is about a lonely kid whose dreams of adventures in outer space come true when he’s beamed up to the “communiverse,” a sort of United Nations for aliens.
“This story is very much about connection and about loneliness and the solution for loneliness being that you have to be brave enough to make that first step and reach out to somebody else even if they don’t look like you, even if its a little bit scary, it’s just so important to make that first step,” director Domee Shi told On The Red Carpet.
Sophie Flay made the journey to Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California to see some of the amazing technology in action.
The team used virtual reality to fully immerse themselves inside the world they’re animated. When Flay asked how long they stay inside the virtual worlds they’re creating as they’re in the process, sets supervisor David Luoh responded, “Often maybe like 15, 20 minutes at a time with a group just to walk around and talk about what’s working, what’s not. We have tools in there to draw in three dimensions and just like, sketch out changes and ideas.”
She also got to check out the animators at work, using 3-D models of characters like “Glordon,” with five-thousand unique controls to make him move.
“You can see how many teeth he has. I can select each of those teeth or I can select a whole row of teeth and kind of effect them that way. I can translate this tooth right out of his head if I want,” explained animation supervisor Travis Hathaway.
You can see Flay’s tour of Pixar, along with a little voiceover session she did with the voice of Elio, Yonas Kibreab in the video player above. And you can watch our full special on “Elio,” including interviews with the stars HERE.
“Elio” is in theaters now.
