Mark Shapiro talked us through the process Laika go through to create a stop motion film; from 4 years of concept art to 2 and a half years of production, plus using 3D printers and machine-controlled puppets to make the characters, hand-making and animating every single prop (including the clocks!), using a countless number of different materials to create the right textures on each character, prop and background in between the concept and animating stages, it's safe to say they put a lot of work into each film they make.
- All of this work takes about 20 departments per scene to perfect every detail.
- They used a mixture of practical and natural lighting - the natural lighting being in the tunnels but a lot of practical everywhere else.
- All together it takes about 10 years to make a film!
- They use Maya to build the characters faces and print them, to then move onto Dragonframe to record their stop motions - the same software that we use in college!
- It's all mechanical animation instead of claymation (they're all about the future) - their armatures are made from aluminium/steel, since other materials such as tin don't have as good stability. The largest puppet on set was 5ft tall!
- People on their team have strange backgrounds - were previously teachers, carpenters, actors, jewelery makers etc. - this gives them a different outlook on how to build sets and animate.
- All together it cost them about $85 Million to create the Boxtrolls
He also spoke a lot about the marketing of the film; things are done differently in the US then they are in the UK. This is an interesting factor because I didn't realise how different the campaigns are in different countries, they had to find out what appeals to different people and create a series of posters instead of one for worldwide.
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They have been a huge inspiration to me, have taught me a lot about stop motion and animating in general, and I hope to be in a successful company such as this one day!
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