A couple of months ago, director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera brought some footage from Pixar’s next film** Inside Out** to premiere in Los Angeles. Also included in the presentation was a full look at Lava, the short that will screen before the movie, introduced by director Jim Murphy. The first look at a scene from the short is online over at Yahoo.
While we’re loath to say too much about the plot (we’d rather that you experience the whole thing for yourself and let the charm wash over you), Lava focuses on Uku, a lonely, three-mile-wide Hawaiian volcano. Yes, you read that right: the romantic lead in the film is a lava-spewing natural formation. The story is told musically, using the singing voice of musician Kuahna Torres Kahele to tell Uku’s tale of longing for love in an ocean where everyone around him – the birds, the dolphins, even the clouds – seems to have found that someone special.
It might seem like a challenge to bring an essentially static character to life, and indeed the animation supervisor-turned-director admits as much. “We struggled with it a lot,” Murphy tells Yahoo. “But I feel like, once we were able to embrace the limitations of it, it unlocked all sorts of possibilities. I love that about animation: You can really make a mountain come alive. You can’t do that in another medium.”
For more from Murphy, head to Yahoo’s site. Lava will hit our screens along with Inside Out on July 24 next year.