Kubo and the Two Strings Q&A with Director Travis Knight and Producer Arianne Sutner

Screening of Kubo at the Curzon Mayfair

SIGGRAPH's London chapter recently hosted a local screening of Laika's latest stop motion triumph - the Annie-nominated “Kubo and the Two Strings”.

After the movie I was honoured to host a Q&A with Director Travis Knight and Producer Arianne Sutner who talked about the making of the film, and revealed some amazing insights into the work flow of LAIKA studio.

Events like this are a great way for our students to meet leading film-makers in person, and find out what makes the industry tick.

The event took place at the Curzon Mayfair on December 6th, and it was fascinating to hear the insights of director Travis Knight and Producer Ariane Sutner into the making of the film.

Kubo is a wonderful film (best seen on the big screen) and a fascinating blend of old-school stop motion techniques and also cutting edge CG. The studio makes extensive use of 3D printing to create incredibly flexible puppets with sophicticated mouth shapes for finely tweaked lipsync. In some ways, the stop motion is so sophisticated, it almost looks like a CG movie.

The film featured many ground-breaking techniques, such as the creation of the world's largest-ever stop motion puppet, so big that its limbs were controlled by vehicle brake pads, and the animator's head could fit into one eyeball.

Kubo and Monkey. Real puppets!

Best of all, the LAIKA team brought some of the puppets with them, so we were able to admire close up the wonderful craftsmanship that goes into the creation of the puppets themselves. 

----Alex

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our new BA/MArt, now recruiting for September 2017, follow this link.  To apply, visit the offical page here.