If you're a fan of the stop motion animation films that have been produced by Laika studios (they're known for producing Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls, as well as contract work for Corpse Bride,) then you may have heard about their new film that's releasing this summer, Kubo and the Two Strings.
Like the films mentioned above, this is a 3D stop-motion animated film that provides some glorious visual effects that is just a pleasure to watch, and this is only the trailer. When I first saw this trailer, I had the same reaction to it as I did to when I first saw a preview for Steven Universe: I thought that there is definitely some potential to this film and I can see it doing really well. In a way, the film's style reminds me a lot of Steven Universe. The scenes have a very distinct color grade to enhance the mood, there's plenty of mystery to it that makes me look forward to seeing it, the fight scenes look very well choreographed, and it incorporates music with very specific instruments to highlight a character's personality and fighting style.
The art style and character design reminds me a lot of those from Over the Garden Wall and Samurai Jack as well, and coupled with the coming-of-age story arc of Steven Universe, this seems like it could be the animated film of the summer that could be enjoyed by all ages. I recommend giving the trailer a watch if you haven't already.
I have been a fan of animation for as long as I can remember. My parents were the first to notice my passion in it and suggest I look further into animating. This is when I took a drawing class where one of the projects was to create a charcoal animation; ie destructive animation where you erase and redrawn your frame every time. So far I haven't been able to devote a great deal of time to actual animating, but in my spare time all I do is watch and analyze animated films.
Animation has been around as long as film has been around. With early innovators like Méliès in 1896 already attempting stop - motion, the animation industry has evolved along with traditional narrative films.
While animation has gone through many phases, many pioneered by Walt Disney and his company, the type of animation that interests me the most is stop - motion animation. Many beloved films are produced through stop - motion including The Nightmare Before Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Coraline.
Stop - motion animation is the process where an animator will move the figure by a small amount, take a picture, and repeat. When all of the photos are put together the figure now has the appearance of fluid motion. One of the best examples of this is The Nightmare Before Christmas with dance numbers and multiple characters in each scene. Even though most of the scenes were shot at 12fps, there are two exceptions.
My favorite studio, and a studio that only does stop - motion productions, is studio Laika. Laika is responsible for the stop - motion films of Coraline, ParaNorman, and their upcoming project Kubo and the Two Strings, just to name a few. Studio Laika has 10 years of experience producing stop - motion films, with several Academy Award nominations. Laika has put out stop - motion films that never cease to amaze me. From color dynamics in Coraline to the incredibly accurate representation of bullying in ParaNorman, Laika has been using stop - motion animation to create incredible pieces of art for 10 years, and I can't wait to see what their next 10 hold.
Many of my friends claim that stop - motion animation is weird or disturbing for them but that's almost the reason why I like it. It's physical objects that are manipulated into giving the appearance of smooth motion, and I think that's fascinating. Hopefully with Kubo coming out in August and Anomalisa already out in theaters, people will be more open to stop - motion animation come to understand and respect the incredible amount of work that goes into these beautiful films.
The spooky, yet heartwarming film, ParaNorman follows an outcast boy who can talk to the dead. It has a really cool main-on-end title sequence that consists of motion paintings as White Stripes' "Little Ghost" plays. The fun freeze-frames on each significant character with their credit. As Art of the Title says, "With ghoulish typefaces and delightfully old-fashioned screen transitions, the sequence pays homage to the Saturday night horror flicks that inspired Norman’s spine-chilling adventure." LAIKA/house artist and illustrator Aaron Sorenson directed the title sequence. The film's co-directors, Chris Butler and Sam Fell, had a vision inspired by old Hollywood horror posters. They wanted art for crew titles and credit roll for eight minutes, so there was a lot of planning and layout to figure out. It took six months in all, and the whole process went through many different stages.
Sorenson said the initial design stages were the hardest. "Getting the compositions to work in a wide-screen format was a challenge, but more importantly we had to integrate the stylized poster images with the characters’ personalities and key scenes."
Also, if you want to see an amazing Making Norman video - check this out:
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.
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."
I really like it when trailers don't give away the entire plot of a film. It's something that's becoming less and less common; movie trailers now, on average, are around two and a half minutes in length and usually give away the funniest lines, coolest moments, and main plot points of a film. It's annoying. Which is why I find it so refreshing when I find a trailer that manages to pique my interest while simultaneously not really giving me anything to work with.
Case in point with one of the trailers going around for the new stop-motion animated movie The Boxtrolls. 75% of the trailer is basically a "making of" video; giant hands sculpt tiny details onto clay faces, animators walk through the small-scale cities that they've made, things like that. It's insightful, and a way to show audiences the faces of characters that they'll be seeing in the film without giving anything away. You see some of the finished product at the end of the trailer, but only the animation; nothing about the story is revealed.
I thought that this was a great marketing tactic. It succeeded, at least, in getting me to do a little research on the film to learn a bit more about it. The Boxtrolls is based off of the 2005 children's book Here Be Monsters!, which was written and illustrated by Alan Snow. The plot summary, in one sentence via IMDB, is this: a young orphaned boy, raised by underground cave-dwelling trash collectors, tries to save his friends from an evil exterminator. Ok, now you've really got my attention.
The company behind the film (Laika, which - fun fact - is based in Portland Oregon and run by Travis Knight, the son of the co-founder of Nike) is the same company behind Coraline and ParaNorman, two really great - and kind of creepy - stop motion films. One of the directors, Graham Annable, has worked as a story artist on ParaNorman and - curve ball - as a clean up artist for The Goofy Movie. The other director, Anthony Stacchi, also directed Open Season, and worked in the VFX department of Antz and James and the Giant Peach.
With a cast that includes Elle Fanning, Ben Kingsley, and Simon Pegg, I'm gonna go out of my way and say that this will be one of the best animated movies of 2014. You heard it here first.
I watched the stop motion feature film "ParaNorman," a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. The film had a very solid story with likeable and relatable characters. The fllm came out of the production company Laika which is a stop motion studio based in Portland, Oregon. Laika also produced the well received film "Coraline," in 2009. "ParaNorman" had a unique aesthetic, different from stop motion classics coming from the Aardman Studios. I find it refreshing seeing a new stop motion company in the states have some success after Aardman has dominated stop motion features for a while.
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.
