Elio proves the difficulty of pulling off quirky, original animated storytelling — even for Pixar. The alien abduction film bombed at the box office but is still hoping for an Oscar nomination. Yet it has attracted a small, loyal following that appreciates its imaginative animation and storytelling.

First-time director Adrian Molina (Coco) endeavored to make very personal rite of passage story about the search for identity and belonging. His take was weird, funny, and controversial for its queer-coded messaging.

Molina departed Elio to co-direct Coco 2, and Pixar handed it off to directors Madeline Sharafian (Burrow) and Domee Shi (Turning Red) to complete. They deeply connected with the theme of loneliness and the search for belonging, which they deepened by giving Elio (Yonas Kibreab) a reason to be abducted, thereby strengthening his character and journey. And they had a blast playing with the heavenly Communiverse and subversively leaning into sci-fi tropes.

Sharafian and Shi bonded over Elio, and are proud of the film. They took time out from their next projects to offer some takeaways. “I knew a little bit about the process after Bao and Turning Red, but this was both our first times jumping into a project that we didn’t start,” Shi said. “And, it’s so cheesy, but I really learned the power of friendship and collaboration, especially on a movie that is limited on time and budget and resources. I leaned so heavily on my fellow collaborators…and I was so blown away by everybody’s dedication, hard work, and stamina. It was an endless resource of ideas and energy. I was so moved by this experience. It was like being part of a Communiverse, in a way.”

After taking a much needed vacation after the film came out, the directors enjoyed reconnecting with their crew again. “I think when you go through something really difficult and the project is terrifyingly hard, once it’s over, sometimes I feel like no one wants to really talk to each other anymore, and you don’t want to remember,” added Sharafian. “But, for this crew, we’re so happy to see each other and it still feels like we have this strong connection. We survived this crisis feeling and we’re proud of the final product. I almost wonder if we’re even closer than the average crew after discovering a creativity in that moment that’s very different because it’s compressed.”

Right now, being in development on their respective projects, they even crave being thrown into the battlefield again.”I was training my filmmaking muscles and doing reps to exhaustion every day,” Shi continued. “But I feel like I grew so much because of that. I feel like I don’t have as much patience for slower processes.”

For Sharafian, it’s a time for exploring new ideas and not worry about if they’re good or not. “You have to pick something and go with it, which is something that we learned on this film,” she offered.

In a way, the production mirrored Elio’s chaotic journey. It started with one person and then a Communiverse formed around that person’s kooky passion. There were notes, audience previews, a pandemic, and all kinds of crazy things out of their control. “But then, at the end, you come out stronger, knowing yourself a lot more and feeling more connected with your fellow humans,” Shi reflected.

But while it was difficult for Elio to find its audience, the directors maintained that audiences “totally embraced it” once they saw it. “It’s just about how do you get this thing that you worked so hard on to the audience?” Shi observed. “How do you deliver it in the most effective way and cut through all of the content that is out there right now?”

Among their most cherished moments is the montage that introduces Elio, which Sharafian focused on, and why he wants to be abducted. “When we arrived on the project, design was one of the things that we had very limited resources to be able to shift,” she explained. “The designs are already made and they’re beautiful and charming, so we should focus on the story.

“So I feel like, for Elio, we loved the cape that Adrian had because it added strangeness to him,” Sharafian added. “That made him feel immediately, visually, like an oddball. But the cape wasn’t giving us quite enough. I remember Domee saying that he needed an iconic look so you understand what he’s about. So one of the things that we added that gave him a silhouette and a story right away was this colander hat and he’s got an antenna on his head. Now we understand what’s going on with this guy.

“As far as the signature color that we added for Elio was this neon alien green,” Sharafian recalled. “The rest of earth in Act One was very muted. We’re saving the crazy colors for the Communiverse. So if Elio is wearing this strange neon green, it kind of makes him feel otherworldly and pops him out of the background.”

They also jumbled up his teeth, gave him a goofier smile, and ruffled his hair a little more, making him nerdier and read better as a boy obsessed with space and aliens.”That aspect was something that Maddie and I brought to the character and to the story,” Shi said. “We made Elio want to be abducted; it just happened as a coincidence in the previous version.”

But they needed that eureka moment when Elio falls in love with space and wants to escape there. Fortunately, they were able to bring back a discarded scene, where Elio is all alone and watches the Golden Record Voyager exhibit, and make it work They got lots of help from the Brain Trust: Pete Docter made a music suggestion and Andrew Stanton recommended two LEGO-like minifigures for Elio.

“The scene itself came from a story artist named Dan Park,” Sharafian explained, “and we cut the whole scene out and put it away. Now the movie, months later, has evolved and we’re beating our heads against the wall trying to figure out how to introduce Elio in a way that makes you not just understand why he loves space but feel it alongside him. And we just couldn’t find anything.

“And one of our co-filmmakers reminded us how good the opening was that Dan boarded,” Sharafian continued. “So when we pulled it back in and just attached it to the front of what we currently have, all of a sudden, it made sense in a way that it was clunky before. Now it felt sort of poetic and like it was giving you all this extra information. And then Andrew came in and watched it and added just those small details about the dolls to tell the story without saying it out loud about his parents and how he misses them so much. All those details came together so fast at the last minute. So it was a blessing for us that that scene had already been boarded and already existed. So when we plugged it in, things went really quickly from there.”