Most movies, on some level, are about reconciling the space between parents and their children. It’s the theme that runs right through the heart of Elemental, so it makes sense that’s where Paul Kubala’s head was at when we talked about working on Disney-Pixar’s latest animated release.
“Coming into school, I had no idea what I wanted to do,” Kubala says. “It was actually my dad that pushed me. He was like, ‘Hey, there’s this film studies class where you get to make movies all the time. You should take this.’ And I took it, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I can get a film degree?’”
Kubala, who grew up in Morrison, followed in his parents’ footsteps when he selected the University of Colorado Boulder for college. Luckily, Kubala also took his father’s advice and enrolled in the film studies program. But Kubala wanted something to fall back on if the whole movie thing didn’t work out.
“Something that honors the math and science part of me,” Kubala says, which is how he ended up with a double degree in film and computer studies. “I decided to do both, and I can’t tell if that was for my own reasons or to appease my parents.”
It’s a fitting sentiment considering the movie Kubala is discussing, Elemental, is all about treading the fine line between following the path your parents blazed and pursuing your own. They say art reflects reality, but, really, it’s all the same.
Let’s get technical
Elemental is Kubala’s third project since joining Pixar — he previously worked on Turning Red and Cars on the Road. His title is “rendering technical director” in the visual effects department, and when you ask him what that is, he laughs: “I’ve been trying to explain that to a lot of people. I hear it’s easier just to tell everybody you’re an animator.”
As Kubala explains, his position is a 50-50 split of art and tech. He couldn’t have planned his time at CU any better.
“Basically, when a computer makes that really, really pretty image, the main thing — or one of the main things — that pulls everything together and gets the beautification of the actual image is when you add lighting to the actual rendered image,” he says.
To do that, Kubala gives the computer a series of coordinates to tell it how things look from different viewpoints.
“Once you start having lights that you add in, you need to describe how lights interact with certain objects,” Kubala says. “How does light interact when it goes through a glass full of water? … How does light react when light goes through skin?”
These problems come up at the end of the animation pipeline — long after the story has been set, the characters developed, the shots edited. Yet, the significance these decisions have on the final product, both in the clarity of the image and the emotional arc of the narrative, is massive. Take a visual from Elemental’s climax: fire refracted through water, creating the reflection of a rainbow on a wall. It’s an emotionally charged and beautifully poignant moment, the perfect intersection of artistry and tech that has come to define Kubala’s career.
In his element
Kubala’s love for movies goes back to when he was 12 and bought his first video camera. “I just thought it was the coolest thing ever,” he says. Kubala loved making movies, so naturally, Dad pushed for that when he told Kubala to enroll in film studies.
“It was kind of funny, actually,” Kubala says of choosing computer science as a backup. “I actually did the opposite. I leaned on computer science at first and then went into film, so it all worked out.”
Coming out of college, Kubala moved to Portland, Oregon, to work for the stop-motion animation studio LAIKA before deciding his ultimate goal was Pixar. But it takes, on average, six years of applying to work at Pixar before you get through the door, so Kubala decided to “just apply and see if I can get it or start the six-year journey right away.”
As luck would have it, he found a job that fit his skill set perfectly, applied and saw the six-year application process evaporate with one email and two phone calls. He was in.
Kubala never planned on leaving Colorado, figuring adventure documentaries might be his future. But his talent, tenacity and good timing opened doors for him all along the way — even if those doors weren’t close to home.
“It all worked out,” Kubala says, though his career path did cause him to catch a lot of flack from his family.
“I really look up to my parents, always have, always will,” he says. “One of the hardest things, I didn’t realize, is that these people you really look up to, you’re going to have to disappoint them, sometimes, to chase your dreams.”
Which just so happens to be the very crux of Elemental. How perfect is that?
ON SCREEN: Elemental is in theaters everywhere.
