Set Visit: Exploring Laika Studios For ‘Kubo And The Two Strings’By Bryn Gelbart
July 11, 2016
Stop-motion savants Laika Studios’ past endeavors have felt like they fell straight out of Tim Burton’s playbook. The studio that brought us the hauntingly gorgeous ‘Coraline’ and the chilling but charming ‘Paranorman’ is going a completely new direction with their latest adventure ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’. We got the chance to visit Laika’s set for ‘Kubo’ in Portland and explore the fantastical world for ourselves.
‘Kubo’ is being pitched as a Star Wars style quest movie. “An intimate family story played out in an epic world,” is how producer Arianne Sutner described it. Laika CEO and ‘Kubo’ director Travis Knight took inspiration from childhood favorites. “The films of Hayao Miyazaki and Akira Kurosawa were huge influences on Kubo,” said Knight.
The Japanese influences give the film a unique style and premise. Kubo (‘Game of Thrones’ Art Parkinson) is a young, genius storyteller whose primary focus is taking care of his mother and entertaining large crowds with his origami come to life. When he realizes there is an adventure waiting in his family’s past, he forges forward to find his late Samurai Warrior father’s belongings with the help of Beetle (Matthew McConaughey) and Monkey (Charlize Theron).
It was truly astounding too see and hear the amount of work that goes into Laika’s animation process. Sutner told us that animators, of which there are dozens, can be working on one scene for an entire year. On average, each animator creates three seconds of footage per week, which does not sound like much but at 24 frames per second, that’s hours to make each second as congruous and composed as the ones that precede and follow. This style of animation makes up a majority of the film, but more CGI is being used in ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ than in any Laika movie before.
Laika was founded in 2005. In the decade that has followed stop-motion technology has made huge leaps forward. Laika Supervisor of Rapid Prototype Brian McLean explained how the models for ‘Kubo’ were all 3D printed in plastic. “We reached out to Stratasys and collaborated with their R&D in Israel,” McLead said, explaining that they designed these models using Stratasys hardware alongside software Laika programmers had written. The puppets themselves were built on metal armatures, which acted as skeletons to allow the animators to manipulate the characters to their will. Due to the excruciating slow pace of work, there of course need to be more than one of each puppet. “For Beetle we had 15 different modes, with 83 selective parts,” said Puppet Fabrication Supervisor Georgina Hayns.
To make the faces more expressive on this project, the faces were divided into two separate mix and match parts. One for the eyebrows and one part for the mouths. “They are like fancy Mr. Potato Heads,” said McLean. This method allowed Laika animators to create millions of unique expressions per character. “Is it the most affordable option? No, but it is great for the storytelling,” McLean commented when asked the benefits. “And that’s the great thing about working with Travis. Most CEO’s don’t care on that level.”
Assistant Art Director Phil Brotherton showed off the gorgeous panorama sets. Each has removable walls and adjustable lights in order to make manipulating the puppets as easy as possible. Laika has this art down to a science at this point. “The whole film is shot on Canon 5Ds,” Brotherton said, gesturing to the modest two digital camera rig before us.
The hero’s journey of ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ seems to be straightforward, but what is going to potentially make the film special comes with the details. “Costumes are the supporting narrative to the film,” said Costume Designer Deborah Cook. It’s safe to say every other member of the team feels this way about their niche of the craft, and that is what makes every day at Laika a step in a new, innovative direction.
Kubo and the Two Strings hits nationwide August 19, 2016 from animation studio LAIKA and Focus Features.
