Inspired by the Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials of the 1960s and 70s as well as Ray Harryhausen’s King Kong, McLean says: “Laika has essentially resurrected this 100-year-old technique of stop-motion animation, but we’re not afraid to fuse it with cutting-edge new technologies or create hybrid films with CG elements, all in the service of having this classic cinematic medium compete with its flashier CG cousins.” To put that in perspective, our first film, Coraline, had about 20,000 faces for the entire film and our most recent film, Kubo and the Two Strings, had about 64,000.” “We ended up producing over 106,000 faces. And I think that was extremely important to allow that comedic timing to come through in our film. They would create custom animation, timings, reactions and responses based on exactly what the shot needed. Instead of a facial animator having to pick from a library of pre-existing expressions, they had the opportunity to start with a clean slate. “But for Missing Link, we actually produced faces unique for every single shot. McLean, who was awarded the Scientific and Engineering Oscar plaque in 2016 and was part of the VFX team nominated for an Academy Award for Kubo and the Two Strings, adds: “For the first time in any Laika film, we actually embraced a full shot-specific animation philosophy where in past films - because we were 3D printing every single face - we oftentimes would reuse facial expressions for different shots throughout the film. Laika’s “hybridised” filmmaking process combines old-school methods with cutting-edge technology to push the boundaries of the medium and has distinguish the studio on the animation scene.īrian McLean, Laika’s director of rapid prototyping, says: “As far as the use of 3D printers in the filmmaking process on Missing Link, it was similar to ripping the engine out of a car and starting from scratch.”
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