Influencers & Inspiration Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another…
Walt Disney’s Dumbo (1941) was designed to be a low-budget feature, told in a simple animated style to bring in a lot of badly needed funds into the studio’s coffers. And, from the very moment that the little circus elephant is delivered by a stork, Dumbo is adored by his mother – despite the surprise of his enormous ears. Ears, that leave him shunned and ridiculed by everyone else. But, they’re the very thing that will propel him to fame and fortune, as Dumbo’s ears allow him to fly! Dumbo, the animated feature, did become the major success that Disney needed. And, its story of love and devotion between mother and child, has continued to tug at the heartstrings ever since.
But, almost fifty years later, one little boy named Peter Sohn, a Korean-American living with his family in the Bronx, and watching Dumbo for the very first time, did have a question. Sohn wanted to know: “Where did these birds get all these babies from?”
He answered his own question a couple of decades later, as the writer/director of Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios short film Partly Cloudy (2009). Inspired by his question from so long ago, Sohn created a world where the babies came from the clouds themselves! Sculpted from their own fluffy stuff and, providing a bit lightening, ‘sparked’ to life. But, to create the heart of the story, Sohn turned to something deeper. He turned to his own relationship with his mother, a woman who spoke very little English and relied on her son, who spoke very little Korean, to translate for her. Understandably, this led to frequent misunderstandings. It also left Sohn, a devoted son, searching for a better way to communicate with his mom.
And, how did he do that? Eventually, Sohn just stopped talking – and began drawing! Drawing pictures that not only his mother understood and valued but that others began to, also. Turning his childhood difficulty into the very thing that propelled him, much like the little elephant’s enormous ears propelled Dumbo, to great heights.
It’s another kind of love, that of mother and child. And, it can be inspiring in surprising ways, whether it’s reel, real – or both!
