On June 20th, 2025, Pixar, the popular American animation studio, plans to release their new film, Elio. The movie is centered around an imaginative 11-year-old boy who suddenly gets beamed up into space, and named Earth's official alien ambassador! On his out-of-this-world adventure, he's joined by his fearless Aunt Olga (voiced by Oscar-winner Zoe Saldaña) and meets an unlikely new pal: a zany alien named Glordon. While journeying across distant galaxies filled with wacky and unbelievable alien creatures, Elio discovers that the secret to figuring out where you are meant to be may be written in the stars.

How this highly anticipated movie comes to life

Before people can begin animating the actual movie, the artists create a series of drawings to plan out their animation, otherwise known as a storyboard. Think of it as a comic strip that outlines the movie's scenes and actions. For Elio, this would include sketches of his encounters with aliens and his adventures in space. Once the story is mapped out, artists use special software to sculpt each character in 3D. These softwares are constantly evolving, which explains the extreme quality difference in a movie released now, compared to a movie from the 2000s. For Elio, this includes designing his hair, space gear, and even the alien worlds he visits. Next, these characters need bones, so the animators begin a process called Rigging (otherwise known as the addition of “digital bones”). According to Adobe, “Rigging is the process of assigning joints to an object, so the 3D software knows how to manipulate the mesh for posing and animation. This is a crucial step which requires the help of 3D software and careful adherence to best practices to accomplish.” In other words, it lets animators move the character's body like a puppet. Without rigging, Elio couldn’t wave, jump, or make silly faces!! Soon, the animators begin to start the actual movement part to the animation. Animators control the rig and carefully adjust every tiny movement. They sync Elio’s mouth to voice recordings and animate his reactions one frame at a time, 24 frames for every second of the film! This is a very tedious process, but the end result is always incredibly worth it. One of the final steps in animation is Rendering. Again, Adobe Studios explains this concept by saying, “3D renderers use lighting and effects to create style and realism, then capture images or video sequences of animations.” Basically, once everything is ready, computers will take all the visual data into higher quality frames. This process can take anywhere from hours to days to weeks, just for a little bit of animation, making it one of the most tedious processes. Finally, designers will begin to add sounds, like music, and match up the voice actor’s voices to the characters. In Elio, award-winning actor Zoe Saldaña spent hours recording her voice lines in a studio. Later, sound editors carefully matched her voice to the animated character, helping bring Aunt Olga to life with emotion and personality. In total, animation is an incredibly tedious process, but the end result is totally worth it! There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes when creating films like Elio, so keep it in mind next time you watch an animation film!

Will you be watching Elio in theatres over the summer? Watch the official Elio trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETVi5_cnnaE