The Boxtrolls: Costumes Make the Picture

There’s a lot of work that goes into making a stop-motion film, according to this article by Cartoon Brew.

From the people who brought you marvelous wonders such as Coraline and Paranorman, Laika and Focus Features team up again to present their newest masterpiece The Boxtrolls. In a steampunk meets gothics era, the boxtrolls are being hunted on false accusations. Egg, raised by these creatures, finds himself in the middle of this crisis as more and more of his family is snatched. Teaming up with his friend Winnie, the two fight to find out the truth about this hate toward the boxtrolls and the dark secrets some people in the town of Cheesebridge are hiding.

Laika and Focus have always been known for the hard work and complicated hours of stop-motion that they deal with. But a big part of the entire film (one that is often overlooked) is the costuming. Every stitch, detail, and every single bit of movement has to be engineered to happen the way it does. And it’s taken for granted that the clothes these puppets wear are anything but loose and flowing on their own.

The incredible work that the goes into getting the right feel for the film is remarkable. Deborah Cook has a keen eye, heading the costume designing for this and many of Laika’s other features. It takes hours and hours of pouring over paintings, pictures, magazines, etc., all to get the right look. And without that color palette, without those intricately designed fabrics and chest plates, and without the skill to coordinate an entire movie such as she has, the feature could very well be a bust. But The Boxtrolls are surely something to go see, if not to recognize the incredible work that went into every single frame.

Coraline: A Frame by Frame Process

With Halloween coming up, it’s fair to say that I’ve been celebrating in my own way by watching everything creepy and everything out of the ordinary. This being Coraline, produced by Henry Selick and Claire Jennings through Laika Entertainment (and Focus Features).

For those who are unfamiliar, Coraline (based on the title book by Neil Gaiman) is about a girl who hates her mundane life and finds herself being forced to move into this ancient old house by her parents. Inside, she finds a hidden door that transports her to a “perfect world,” where no one nags her and she can do as she pleases. Unfortunately, something sinister lurks in this fantasy and Coraline has to faces both her own and the physical demons that aim to harm her.

The reason I bring this movie up though, is for the sheer amount of work that went into making it. Every single frame is a stop-motion picture that captures three-dimensional puppets that are moved millimeter by millimeter so by the end of everything, a moving image is created. It’s a process that’s tedious and grueling, but exhibits a sense of refined mastery that could only be done through this type of claymation.
It's mind-boggling to see just how many people are dedicated to making the singular hairs move on one characters head, let alone the amount involved with crafting the universe. The fascinating thing about stop motion is that there are hardly any limits. With the power to manipulate anything and everything frame by frame, the animators have been given a means to do exactly what they want (and as they please). As Selick puts it, "the miracle of stop motion is it's an actual performance through the puppet by the animator."

ParaNorman

In honor of Halloween, I thought I would post about a zombie movie.  This movie is called ParaNorman.

This summer I was an intern at VideoLink in Newton, MA.  Cassie Affleck came in the office one day to promote his new movie, ParaNorman.  He played the voice of Mitch Downe.  For several hours I rolled the ParaNorman trailor so the organizations interviewing him could throw in clips of the movie.  Besides pushing play and record buttons, I learned a lot about how the movie was made, and it fascinated me.  The makers of Coraline made this 3D- stop motion movie.  It was also the first stop motion film to use a 3D color printer to create each character's face.  It is the second stop motion film to be shot in 3D.  The film was in production for about 3 years with the animating stage of production lasting 2 years.  So pushing buttons had its benefits that day.  I got to meet Casey AND learn about the production process.  

It is amazing how "life like" this movie is.  The 3D effects don't distract the audience, but rather give the stop motion another dimension.  This kind of convergence of stop motion, 3D, and animation is what makes me so excited for the future of films.