Partly Cloudy's theme and animation tie it very strongly to Up. All images © Disney/Pixar. All rights reserved.

Prior to going Up (May 29) with Carl and Russell in the latest Pixar feature, we discover how storks deliver babies in Partly Cloudy, the whimsical short from animator/story artist Peter Sohn (Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, The Iron Giant). Turns out that Sohn, who voiced Remy's brother, Emile, in Ratatouille, also served as partial inspiration for Russell, the youngster who bonds with the 78-year-old Carl in the Pete Docter-directed Up. Never has there been such a strong thematic and visual pairing between a Pixar short and feature. In Partly Cloudy, a neurotic gray cloud named Gus is tasked with making dangerous babies, which puts an extra burden on his beleaguered pal, Peck, the stork assigned to deliver crocodiles and porcupines and electric eels -- oh, my! A misunderstanding nearly wrecks everything, but, like Carl and Russell, they come to realize the importance of their friendship.

Bill Desowitz: How did the first public screening go in Austin last Saturday?

Peter Sohn, in his Pixar directing debut.

Peter Sohn: It was really fun. I was breathless for a while, but right at the first couple of laughs with the kittens in the beginning, I was thrilled. It's a great town down there. I had never been there before but everyone was so friendly. And I got to see Up for the first time in its finished form. I was moved by it and I was with Pete [Docter] and I had a lovely time.

BD: They certainly go well together -- I don't think you could've found a better match. Was it a coincidence?

PS: Yes, it was a coincidence. I had been helping out with Up and then had asked if I could pitch some shorts. So I pitched three of them, all thematically different, and this is the one that JL [John Lasseter] really connected with.

BD: So let's start at the beginning with the influence of Dumbo.

PS: Yeah, I had seen it as a kid and it was one of those things -- I'm sure that countless kids have experienced the same thing with their parents -- it was very moving to me. I don't know, maybe I was just a sensitive kid, but the whole idea of where the storks get the babies from started that young. I was inspired since then but [the story and characters didn't come together] until the making of the short this past year.

BD: Talk about the pitch and how it went from there.

PS: The original pitch was just as I explained: There's the world of storks that deliver babies, but where do they get these babies from? And my answer was obviously the clouds. And I had done some drawings of these cloud characters -- taking some photos and Photoshopping eyes and a nose in and then having some birds all flocking up to the skies. I pitched this story of a smaller gray cloud that [lived below and] made some of the dangerous babies. And I showed John these images and he touched on one of them and said let's start developing this one. And that was close to a year-and-a-half ago and it's been a really interesting learning experience for me. Obviously, this is my first [short]. It really is like raising a baby. I felt very much like Gus during this thing -- making something and wanting people to like it.

Sohn pitched the idea a year-and-a-half ago, visualizing where baby-delivering storks actually get their babies from and picturing clouds creating them out of thin air.

BD: And what was the experience like?

PS: It was really wild because I had worked on a lot of other projects here as a story guy and an animator, and what's funny is that during that kind of production it's not my story. But I'll put my heart and soul into whatever I'm doing. So I would be more experimental with my ideas I'd be giving the directors of the other story teams. And with this one, because it was my idea, I'd be so protective of everything. "This is my kid -- I gotta raise him right!" During story production meetings, I'd pitch certain ideas and there were different endings; there were longer versions. Really early on, the stork gets its own baby. And there was a version where the cloud gets its own cloud baby. But they were too complicated and plot-driven and never got to the root of [whom] these characters were. It's a very interesting thing when you're directing to allow yourself to go to places [that don't work] to find where the story really needs to go. So, in the beginning, I may have been more tightly gripped around some of my ideas, but once I started letting go, it really allowed me to find these characters, and it was really a great lesson for me.