Understanding Disneys Elemental Soundtrack and Score – Thomas Newman

The Elemental soundtrack and score is an intricate and imperative storytelling component that is reponsible for accenting  the gestures of love that director Peter Sohn was so eager to portray in this movie. Elemental is not just a love story between a boy and girl, it comments on familial love, specifically between a parent and child. 

As composer Thomas Newman was preparing to take on this challenge for Disney and Pixar’s newest animation film Elemental, he was keen to find a connecting thread between the imaginary and human world. Newman is no stranger to the magical world of Pixar and so creating musical landscapes for eclectic environments (WALL-E, Finding Nemo) is his forte. In Elemental city where characters belong to one of four elements (water, air, earth and fire), Newman “looked for similar issues of otherness and how that could be relfected in music, and how we could identify with that through our human ear”.  

Newman’s Approach

Newman’s random and improvisational approach with session players involved responding instinctively to the moving image and trying out ideas. Newman would then put these ideas in many places in the movie to see what works. Rather than creating a bespoke theme for each element, Newman and his musicians played with with different timbres, plucked certain instruments and sampled different vocal and drum phrases. It was a process carried out “not with a lot of intellectual pretext” says Newman. Essentially a highly intuitive scoring skill was required for this movie, one which suited Newman’s natural way of working very well.

Daughter to immigrant parents, protagonist Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis) is a kind, fiery and hardworking character who is very much aware of the sacrifices made for her. As a result, she works tirelessly at family-run business Fireplace, to repay and respect her families sacrifices and unconditional love. Being raised knowing that she will one day takeover the Fireplace, Ember develops this intuitive sense of duty and responsibilty which she innately demonstrates through efficiently serving customers, cleaning up aisles and mending broken bowls. To reflect Embers acts of service, there is motif played by an octave mandolin that serves this opening scene beautifully. The strings proceed to play upward slurs to reflect Embers change of mood and increase of temper when dealing with a difficult customer which foreshadows her stressful search for identity and purpose that we see later on in the movie. Ember’s musical theme is heavily emotive and needed to relay a sense of obligation to family. Newman says there was a “certain resignation in what she had to be” eliciting a kind of sadness that Ember expresses later on to Wade, “ever since I was a kid, I would pray to the blue flame that I would be good enough to fill my father’s shoes someday because this place is his dream. But I never once asked what I wanted to do”. 

As Ember is concerned with how she honors her family and culture, the cultural timbres reflect this whilst paying homage to director Peter Sohns’ Korean heritage. Throughout the movie, Sohn was eager to display all kinds of gestures of love as a main theme, and goes onto explain how taking care of one another is a great sign of respect and love. Directing the movie as his own parents passed away Sohn explains, “it became a way for me to honor them – it was the best way I could say I love you”. 

Colouring the score

Part of Newman’s approach involved applying musical colours to match the animated vibrancy on screen. To reflect Ember’s fiery temper a lot more pluck was used as well as a zizzi-style of bowing. Whereas water element Wade (Mamoudou Athie), was depicted through cooler sounds such as vibraphones and struck metals. Newman was inspired by the different colours and shades of Wade within different scenes and used a practical approach of composing short sections of music and then asking himself “do my ears buy what my eyes are seeing?”. Animation has a tendancy to change a lot more from scene to scene and subsequently moods shift quicker. Newman found that this was the case in Elemental and was equally responsible for a large amount of the storytelling, “music is doing a lot in an animated movie, it’s being asked a lot” says Newman. As a result, Newman used a blend of the sitar, octave mandolin, piano, and brass instruments to colour the score. More prominently, the electronic wind instrument (EWI) can be heard throughout the movie accompanying expressive vocalisations, for example, during the “Firetown Flood” sequence. By combining the two “it gave a sense of colour and spirit” says Newman. 

Bubble Date

Elemental centres around a beautiful yet seemingly impossible love story for opposing elements Wade and Ember. However towards the middle of the movie Wade finds a way to bridge the gap between them and offers a gesture of love in the form of a bubble date! With the help of Gale, Wade comes up with the thoughtful idea of creating an air bubble for Ember to travel in through a tunnel flooded with water to show her a vivisteria flower. As Ember was denied this opportunity once before as a child due to xenophobia, it is a touching and heartwarming moment which Newman accents beautifully. As Wade courageously carries Ember through the tunnel, we see dual vulnerabilty from both characters. In one sense, Wade reassures Ember from the outisde of the bubble with his wide, soft crooked smile which shows a sense of innocence and vulnerability and perhaps even some intimidation from fiery Ember. Very aware of Ember’s independence and ability as well as wanting to protext her, Wade implies “I’m here to protect you but you are you” says Newman. On the other hand, Ember, completely at the mercy of an unpredictable air bubble has to put all her trust in Wade despite trepidation. So, both in uniquely vulnerable postitions, the two proceed to the Garden Central Station to find a vivisteria flower. As they float through the water there is an implied, steady musical pace defined by a shaker to support their journey as well as a soft, playful melodic motif played on a xylophone. Soulful processed vocalisatons are also heard to give an underwater feel and provide a majestic and spiritual sound to reflect what Ember is experiencing. Upon finding a vivisteria, the flower opens and immediately the score becomes brighter in tone and more rhythmic. The texture starts to thicken with an added rhythmic bass line, percussive snaps and subtle strings to reflect Ember’s increasing joy and bliss. Wade guides Ember higher up the tree where they find more and more vivisteria, reaching peak serotonin levels. Here, Ember begins to beam with light and love and reflects her rays to illuminate the entire vivisteria tree. A breathtaking sight. The musical crescendo, higher pitched vocalisations and swell of strings reflect Ember’s release of light and sense of fulfilment we see clearly on her face.

You were the dream 

Fast forward to the end of the movie where we now find fire town under attack from water that has burst through the dams. After having his feelings hurt and his love rejected by Ember, Wade still comes back to help save the Fireplace, displaying his loyalty and unconditional love. As the Fireplace soon becomes flooded, Ember reaches to save the blue flame but misses and get pushed into a corner from the wreckage with no way out. To her surprise, Wade has made it through capturing the blue flame in small lantern and reveals himself. A swift stringed upward motif accompanies his reveal and acts as a call. As Ember receives the blue flame from Wade a downward melodic motif responds to match her action. These short and sharp minor melodic motifs are effectively used via a call and response technique to reflect the panic and alarm they are both feeling but comfort in that they are in it together. After the chimney gets filled with rubble from more destruction to the Fireplace, it is clear that there is no way out. As Ember’s heat is confined to the hearth, Wade slowly begins to evaporate. Emotional orchestrated strings start to swell as Wade sacrificies himself and embraces Ember tightly, causing her heat to vaporize him. 

From silence to soft sombre piano that begins to sound, we see the Fireplace being restored and find Ember sitting alone with the blue flame in the hearth. Ember begins to emotionally confess to her father that this was all her fault and that she does not want to run the shop as is it not her dream but his. He proceeds to comfort her by saying reassuringly “you were the dream” followed by an embrace and many tears. The octave mandolin and soft, heartfelt vocalisations that we heard at the start of the movie re-enter the scene to reflect the heightened emotion felt by the family. As the family cry and mourn together, cries are heard from the chimney. As Ember goes to investigate, she realises it is Wade and proceeds to comment on the same sad scenarios that Wade used earlier during the Crying Game to try and make Ember cry. Soon, enough tears form in the bucket below to give Wade the right amount of water to come back to life. The two reunite and at this moment we hear the musical theme used during the Bubble Date scene to reinforce Wade and Ember’s love for one another despite their differences. 

The irony is the movie highlights the water peoples’ sensitivity and easy ability to cry, however Elemental’s ending shows how important their emotions are in helping to save Wade. The ending highlights the importance of sharing your true feelings before it is too late. Ultimately, Ember and Wade prove that when they touch, instead of being lethal, they simply change each others’ chemistry. That is one steamy love life!