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Sky-High Talent. Peter Sohn has soared from production artist to short film director while at Pixar Animation Studios.

CGSociety :: Artist Profile
9 April 2009, by Barbara Robertson

By the time audiences meet a grumpy old balloon salesman and watch his house float into the sky in the Disney/Pixar’s new feature 'Up,' they will have been primed for a big sky adventure thanks to Pixar story artist Peter Sohn’s first short film, 'Partly Cloudy.'

In this film, clouds not only take on the familiar animal shapes we often see forming above, but cloud people actually create real babies. One cloud, Gus, has mastered the art of creating beautiful, but especially dangerous infants – crocodiles, porcupines, and others like that – and they make the delivery service increasingly difficult for Peck, the stork.

When Sohn pitched that idea to Disney/Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter, he moved from story artist to director.

Sohn joined Pixar nine years ago as a production artist to work on Brad Bird’s 'The Incredibles.' Because that film was still in development at the time, though, he started in the art department for 'Finding Nemo.' He didn’t stay a production artist for long.

“I was asked to draw designs for people in the dentist’s office,” he says. “But, I didn’t just want to draw default people, so I put them into a little scenario with kids looking into the fish tank and reacting to the dental equipment.”

Peter Sohn at Pixar

'The Incredibles' © Disney/Pixar

'Finding Nemo' © Disney/Pixar

Pencil sketch of two of the characters in Pixar's 'Partly Cloudy'. © Disney/Pixar

Director Andrew Stanton and others saw the scenarios and moved him into the story department for the 'Finding Nemo’s' third act. When he joined the crew of the 'Incredibles,' he did so as a story artist and animator rather than production artist. He went on to become a storyboard artist and animator for 'Ratatouille,' and a voice artist, as well: He was the voice of Emile, Remy’s brother, in 'Ratatouille.'

“That came from pitching storyboards,” Sohn says. “They asked me to do the scratch voice and then liked it enough to keep it in the movie. That’s just luck.”

It wasn’t luck, though, that brought him to Pixar. It was hard work on his part and that of his parents, an intense love of animation, and focused determination.

Sohn was born in the Bronx and raised in New York where his parents owned a grocery store.

“My father got a job as a hot dog cart salesman when he came from Korea,” he says. “He had no money, but he saved enough to buy his own store.”

Because both his parents worked from five in the morning until 10 at night, the grocery store aisles became the after-school playground for Sohn and his younger brother.

“We didn’t have a guardian and there was no television at the store, so we’d build towers with Campbell soup cans and I’d always draw little drawings and make up stories,” he says.

Each time his mother needed to deposit cash from the store in the bank, she took the boys with her on the elevated train into the city. “If it was a good time, we’d go to a movie,” Sohn says. “She loved movies. In Korea, in the town she grew up in, they didn’t have printed posters. Someone had to draw them. So she used to draw the movie posters for the neighborhood.”

Because his mother didn’t understand much English, she chose Disney films. “They were told so well visually, there was no translating necessary,” Sohn says. “She could understand Dumbo and Peter Pan.”

And then one day, Sohn met a man who showed him how artists created those films. “I was really young,” he says. “I don’t remember his face, but I remember the acetate sheet and understanding that the movie was made. It was made. It blew me away. Ever since, I wanted to find out more.”