Elio directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi sit down with The Contending at Pixar in Emeryville, California, to reveal the film’s heightened emotional moments offered between their characters. The film introduces audiences to Elio, an isolated young boy who is mistakenly kidnapped by an alien race. They further chat about the difficult work animated the abundance of movement within their film. Plus, they tell us how much fun a stuffy alien ambassador can be.
The Contending: Ambassador Helix was one of my favorite characters. He has the great pompous ambassador personality, and I love that he always has a drink in his hand. What was the creative choice there?
Madeline Sharafian: Oh, my gosh, I’m so glad that you love him! He is my favorite Ambassador as well and he is hugely inspired by Brandon Moon, the story artist here who also voices the character. Brandon has been on Elio for a really long time, and I think the whole reason he was chosen to voice Helix was in one of his story pitches the voice that he put on for Ambassador Helix just so perfectly encapsulated that, like you said, pompous; well-meaning but not quite all there.
Domee Shi: Ditzy aristocrat.
Madeline Sharafian: At any given moment you can ask Brandon what is Helix thinking right now? And he will have this really strange, odd backstory about what is going through Helix’s head. We are so lucky we get to work with people who are so multi-talented like that. He is an incredible artist, he’s an amazing voice actor, and he has such a unique mind.
Domee Shi: I love the design of Helix as well. He has this bounciness and squishiness, but also has double pupils. So still very alien but also cute and very fancy.
The Contending: You both talked about loneliness being one of the major themes of the film, and while watching the clips, it appears that parent-child relationships also are to be a major theme. Seeing the struggles Elio has with his aunt Olga as well as different issues between Glordon and his father. What were the influences for those dynamics?
Madeline Sharafian: What I love about Olga and Elio is that by them being aunt and nephew it is a more tenuous relationship. We want to be on Ellio’s side at the beginning of the film when he wants to go to space. As the audience member you need to believe that that is the best choice for him at that time. It feels like with an aunt and a nephew there’s a chance they can have a big argument and separate and that will be it, versus a mother and a son, which you might have a harder time believing. It added more attention to the relationship, giving the audience something to root for and something that challenged both of those characters.
Domee Shi: I feel like Elio and Olga’s tension and conflict in their relationship is something that I definitely relate to, with moments with my mom as well. Growing up as a kid and feeling like your parents don’t understand you or just want to control you. It isn’t until you get a little bit older and you have a little bit more empathy and understanding of the world around you that you realize oh, they are going through their own stuff too and are just trying their best. I think that is represented in the film.
The Contending: The Communiverse was so beautiful to look at, but what was it like directing characters within this constantly moving space?
Madeline Sharafian: It’s very difficult.
Domee Shi: It’s a fun challenge.
Madeline Sharafian: There’s a lot of beautiful detail. For example, there are streams of bubble transports, these glowing blue dots in the far distance that are behind the characters, often when they are talking. If they are moving too fast it gets distracting, so we actually had to dial in, especially in more emotional scenes. We still wanted to see that beautiful stripe but had to slow it down 50%, then see that that wasn’t enough and then make it 80 percent. Stuff like that is easy to get exactly what you want on the screen.
Domee Shi: I found it to be a fun challenge to understand what the purpose of the set was at times. For example, there was this scene in a montage where Elio and Glordon are bonding and then they go to the cafeteria and are eating snacks in this very quick moment. The challenge was, how do we make this alien space still feel like a recognizable cafeteria to our human audience? So we worked with the sets team to make these buffet style tables and made certain that the food was in bowls, space bowls but still bowls. Then, working with the crowd animation team to show characters eating the food.
Madeline Sharafian: One of the characters has to eat right in front of the camera to let us know that yes, it is food.
Domee Shi: So yes, a fun challenge.
Elio opens nationwide in theaters only on June 20.
