#laika as in coraline paranorman etc

[puhpandas]

Evan would be in the Laika artstyle Gregory would be like 90s anime super sparkly huge eyes artstyle

[aggressivelyarospec]

Anonymous submitted: "Missing Link" (2019)

An excellent throwback to the classic 'gentleman adventurer' subgenre, with a fun mystery, great characters, and very well done action sequences.

Has less horror than other Laika films (Coraline, ParaNorman, etc) but is just as dark as their other stories, with murder, racism, sexism...Basically, this movie is to adventure/mystery films what "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was to noir: a serious film that simply used another art medium to help tell it.

Recommending it as aro-friendly due to how the character of Adelina is handled. Instead of getting into a relationship with Lionel at the end, she turns him down and tells him that she plans on becoming a gentlewoman adventurer, traveling the world on her own.

Also has found family themes, with Lionel teaming up with more friends to have adventures of their own as well.

*Should be noted that the trailers for this movie aren't very good & very misleading about the tone - much darker than they make it out to be

That movie has already been submitted, thank you!

[bunny-hare]

Silly Game Time: Are you fan of the fantasy genre? If so, what's a fantasy story (movie, show, book, game, etc.) you really like, and why?

Ohhhhh BOY-!

I like so much fantasy media I wouldn't know where to start, so I'll talk about the things I saw last or current hyperfixations.

Movie: I rewatched many LAIKA movies recently! Namely, Coraline, Kubo and the two Strings, ParaNorman and Boxtrolls.

I've also been meaning to (re)watch Princess Mononoke with my SO @tigerdepths and at my Monster Hunter Stories server, I proposed watching either MH movies, the anime, or The Sea Beast.

We also watched How To Train Your Dragon last month.

Show: Aside Monster Hunter: Ride On, I've got that magical girl brainrot right now. I watched Wonder Egg Priority yesterday with tigerdepths and have been thinking a lot about Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Book: rhvdthfgj ok- first of all: I'm weak, so don't judge me. I totally was re-reading Final Fantasy Type-0 novelization 😭 aside that, also I've been re-reading many short fairytales (Peacock Princess, like 3 different versions of Little Red Riding Hood, Little Mermaid because I'm so weak for that one for whatever reason and I cry everytime), also been reading folk tales (mostly Celtic, from China, Mexico and Japan).

Game: Must I say I've got that Final Fantasy brainrot right now? Also Monster Hunter brain rot and now due the latest Nintendo Direct I have to add my Rune Factory brain rot too! Wooh!

Now as of why's: many of these could be summarised in "I really, really like big fantasy monsters and how they affect the surroundings", and "I'm a sucker for love stories" (note: not necessarily romantic love, I love Long Mu's legend and that's 100% familiar love but also fits under "I like big lizards" category, and I'm counting unique, unconventional friendships as love too)- that said, I also love romantic love, I love BL/GL and I'll die on that hill and I shamelessly am re-reading Type-0's novel to quench my shipper needs on these barren shipping lands (also, I kinda eyed about the Book of Bill too but I wouldn't say I read it, thus, it's not on the list but Gosh- I'm so brainrotting about parapines too).

[lizziefox]

About me <3

Hi, I’m BloomingSkeletons! You can call me Bloom for short or Lizzie, either is good with me. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I’m an Ao3 fanfic author who mostly does crossover works.

🦋 🦋 🦋

My Interests:

(Or more commonly known as my massive amount of hyperfixations)

Green- things I am absolutely head over heels for

Blue- things I enjoy but not as much as the green category

Purple- things I adore but I don’t spend a lot of time on

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Anna and The Apocalypse, Gravity Falls, Laika Movies (Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and The Two Strings, Missing Link & Wildwood), The Mitchells V.S. The Machines, Star V.S. The Forces of Evil, Invader Zim, Amphibia, The Owl House, Over The Garden Wall, Camp Camp, Bob’s Burgers, Demon Slayer, Hilda, She-Ra and The Princesses of Power, The Dragon Prince, Luca, Nimona, Wreck it Ralph, Monsters Inc, Megamind, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Stranger Things, It (2017/2019), Anne With An E, Tim Burton (Wednesday, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.), Ghostbusters, Bridgerton, Locke and Key, Spooksville, Are You Afraid of The Dark, All Of Us Are Dead, Mad For Each Other, Little Shop of Horrors, Dash and Lily, Little Women, Lisa Frankenstein, Freaky (2020), Spider-Man (ITSV/ATSV & Raimi), Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, & Emma), When Harry Met Sally, Scott Pilgrim, & The Umbrella Academy

🎵 🎶 🎵

My Music Taste:

I listen to a lot of instrumental, actually. Mainly soundtracks from the films/shows listed above but I enjoy them. But, some of my main favorite artists are;

David Bowie (obviously), Beabadoobee, Laufey, Sleeping At Last, Moto Boy, Billy Joel, AURORA, Cody Fry, The Arcadian Wild, Coconut Records, The Decemberists, Djo, Flower Face, The Happy Fits, Lana Del Rey, Mckenna Grace, P!nk, & Stevie Nicks.

-I’m always down to listen to music that’s new to me though, I like to expand my listening options :)

📚 🖼️ 🧸

My Hobbies:

Writing: Fanfiction (all the time) and poetry (sometimes)

Drawing: I’m always doodling something in my sketchbook, on receipt paper, or on my drinks (I am unstoppable)

Reading: I LOVE folksy horror books as well as retellings of popular fairy tales & romance

Collecting: Legos, Funko, Plants, Squishmallows, you name it! My current fixation is on finding a Bill Denbrough Pop to complete my Losers Club set :)

🫶 🫶 🫶

This is a safe space <3

I know all sorts of people from different walks of life. I don’t judge a single one for what they have gone through. I hope you’re having a good day or night (whenever you’re seeing this) and I hope many blessings are sent your way.

- Lizzie <3

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Stay tuned!

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

CORALINE's 15th anniversary re-issue is continuing to do pretty great, as more showtimes are being added by popular demand. Other territories are getting this, too. The re-issue looks to make over $30m in North America by the time it wraps up its run. For context, on its original run, it made $75m domestically. That's fantastic.

And I feel that this re-issue did so well and not so much the SHREK 2 and LION KING ones because... Everybody and their brother I think has seen both of those movies in cinemas. SHREK 2, released back in 2004, used to be the long-time record-holder for highest grossing animated movie both domestically *and* worldwide. Worldwide it was dethroned in 2010 by TOY STORY 3, and domestically in 2016 by FINDING DORY. LION KING was a long-time record-holder, too. Released in 1994, made $768m-ish back then, and was surpassed by FINDING NEMO domestically and worldwide in 2003.

LION KING was re-issued a number of times, too, adding to its overall gross. There was the 2002 "Special Edition" IMAX-only re-release, and then a 3D re-release in 2011. The 3D re-release took in a whopping $91m domestically and $186m worldwide. Now add in this year's brief re-issue, it currently sits a little under a billion worldwide in gross money. Adjusted, it's like lightyears above and away.

SHREK 2 never saw a theatrical re-issue, at least in the states, except for the most recent one. Again, I think it making less than $5m this year boils down to "so many people already saw it in theaters". Its performance was probably similar to that of a Fathom Events re-issue of a classic movie.

CORALINE, by contrast, did alright in early 2009. $75m here, $124m everywhere, against a $60m budget. Probably not a great total, but LAIKA is owned by a nepo baby, so they got to keep making features. Every movie since then technically kinda lost money, but again, they get to keep making these movies... So this re-issue was a chance for people who missed it to see it in theaters, along with people who saw it on DVD as kids. I think the horror elements really work in its favor, too. With SHREK 2 and LION KING, it's kinda like "oh, those are back in theaters, huh?" With CORALINE? At my cinema job, I noticed lots of groups, teens, etc. Those who likely - again - saw it on DVD as kids and were terrified, haha. That was like gateway kid-friendly horror.

Not even Henry Selick's other beloved movie, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, could do that kinda business last fall. That's been theatrically re-issued a gazillion times, too. That movie by no means flopped or anything back in 1993, it did decently, better than most animated movies not made by Disney Animation back then. It was a good few clicks above, say, FERNGULLY at the time. I would argue, having lived it, that NIGHTMARE really inched into the mainstream in the early-to-mid 2000s. After the DVD was released. It practically became synonymous with Hot Topic if INVADER ZIM already wasn't, the characters and world appeared in KINGDOM HEARTS, more parks stuff came about. With how ubiquitous it is now, you'd think it was the size of ALADDIN and THE LION KING on first release back in '93, but no. That's one that grew over time, too.

And to have two pictures like to your name, that's pretty solid I'd say. Not even the stop-motion films Tim Burton actually directed, and not a picture that he had a large role in like NIGHTMARE, had that kind of longevity I'd argue. CORPSE BRIDE has its fans, and FRANKENWEENIE's a hidden gem, but I don't see them having the same status as NIGHTMARE and CORALINE. Those two are something else.

Makes me wonder what'll happen if they do a re-release of PARANORMAN, or another LAIKA picture. If it'd do impressively well in the re-issue.

CORALINE's lifetime gross is $161m+ worldwide, as of now.

[crystal-lillies]

Horror films you’ve seen?

Hello anon!

Willingly, I've seen The Woman in Black (for Dan Radcliffe), My Bloody Valentine (with a friend for Jensen Ackles and bad "3D" graphics), Coraline (Neil Gaiman + LAIKA, chef's kiss), ParaNorman (gotta love the LAIKA films amirite), and I feel like at least one more but can't recall more at the moment.

Unwillingly, I've seen The Grudge+The Grudge 2 (both of which gave me lasting anxiety), and a few I don't remember the names of.

Honorable mention to the horror movie I can't remember right now (but I know did get a sequel) that I was almost dragged to see but I defected and saw Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters, which was playing at the same time, instead. (Still worth it 100x over)

I've seen clips and bits willingly and unwillingly through research and school of many horror films like Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, the Halloween franchise, the Saw franchise, the Paranormal Activity franchise, the Exorcist franchise(?), IT, etc.

I'm not too much into horror and tend to avoid it whenever possible, though if there is a compelling enough story for me behind it and not too many triggering things for my anxiety, I am not opposed to giving something a try (in the middle of the day, preferably not alone).

Thanks for the ask!

[pinktwinkiezoppo]

"Dipper with Dib, Wirt, Norman and Coraline a few times (part of it is called Conspiracy Theorists I think??)": Originally called Spook Crew, more commonly known as "Mystery Kids". Main Group is Dipper, Mabel (GF), Norman, Neil (Paranorman), Coraline, Wybie (Coraline), Raz, Lilli (Psychonauts: Video Game). Can include or exclude anything from: Other LAIKA properties, Invader Zim, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Over the Garden Wall, Danny Phantom, etc.

Ah, thank you

[c0ffeebee]

seeing you put Anastasia, my ABSOLUTE favorite movie out of all of the movies ever made ever, on my dash and knowing you like RotG, I gotta ask: top 10 favorite animated movies, ranked, with a short (or if you wanna indulge, longer) reason why you love them??

oh shit that's a tough one! cause i love animated movies and i don't think i can rank those... for some reason i always have troubles ranking stuff anyways, but when it's my favourite things from one of my favourite genres? too hard to do

so, i'll try to talk about the first ten that will come to mind and hope it's gonna be good enough

first of all my favourite animation studio is and probably always will be laika, so five positions on this list would be occupied instantly:

Coraline

i fell in love with this studio's work because of this movie, i love everything about it, the story, the characters, the creepy vibe, the black cat being important lol, the old lesbian couple of drama queens? action, friendships, family feels, and important, important lesson on being careful with your wishes and supporting your family even in darker times? amazing

i've read the book and i think it's also one of the best on-screen adaptations i've ever seen

ParaNorman

see i love all of laika's movies basically for the same things: INCREDIBLE, MIND-BLOWING amount of work they put into everything, the soul in each movie, the dark vibe of most of their films, the kindness, the lessons, the difficult themes they aren't afraid to speak about, the twists with villains and heroes and how complex the world really is? how complicated people and relationship are? words cannot express how i love all that, and paranorman is all of it and more, also first openly gay character in children's movies shown on big screen? and no one even talks about mitch, what a shame

Boxtrolls

movie that got hate for including gay couples in the trailer and because one of the soundtracks touched on gay relationship? perfect, also i have to say i LOVE "some kids" song, it's wholesome and cute

this movie is so sweet and yet again deals with so many important things, and it's so underappreciated, and it's got one of my favourite female characters in it, winnie is an icon 💙

Kubo and the Two Strings

it's got everything the movies above have PLUS one of my favourite enemies to lovers ships, and this movie uses both the biggest and the smallest stop-motion puppets ever which is incredible, i love this story with my whole heart, even just taking about it makes me want to rewatch it right now and fall asleep with the warmth of it

Missing Link

i took my parents to see this one in cinema and they were so so impressed by laika instantly, my dad couldn't stop talking about it for a week lol

this movie means so much to me, it's about found family, identity issues, learning from your mistakes, finding your place in the world and so much more

and we are kinda sorta not done with laika yet because guess who worked on one of my favourite animated movies of all time the corpse bride? yes, you guessed it, so

Corpse Bride

again it's stop-motion that deals with difficult themes of trauma and etc, it's got dark vibes, and i love everything about it, the songs, the desings, the details, the characters, and that moment victor and emily play the piano as a duet? i'm gonna cry, peak romance right there

and while we at it

The Nightmare Before Christmas

as you can see i really fucking love stop-motion lol, but it's true, i love this movie and again for a of the reasons i love the others like it, i watch it every single christmas and halloween, i adore it and sally's song? one of my favourite songs ever

Rise of the Guardians

this movie gives me so much joy, i again watch it every christmas season and again it's got everything i love, the animation is beautiful, the characters are written so well, the attention to details there, the found fucking family i will die for them, and oh don't even get me started on their villain and hero parallels, the shared pain? similar backstory? no one understands them better than each other? it's basically sebjace animated that's what i'm trying to say

The Road to El Dorado

fun gay adventures of my sons tulio and miguel? soundtrack full of homoerotic subtext written by none other than elton john himself? beautiful incredible colorful animation? the dialogue? the jokes? the polyamory of it all? chel being an icon? "you fight like my sister!" "i've fought your sister, that's a complement!" i love this movie with all of my heart and soul

Anastasia

do i even need to say anything? anya (who should be nastya in russian but i don't care) and dima are what shaped my ship preferences, they are so... hetero in an unmistakably bi way that it hurts

lovehate? idiots to lovers? childhood crush? pinning? slow built? *smacks the ship* this bitch can fit literally every single favourite ship trope in it!

i love the story even tho it's got no historical accuracy but that's basically fanfiction and we don't need that history nonsense in our slow burn idiots to lovers fic, right?

goddammit now i want to rewatch everything in this list *cries in animated movies*

see that's a ten AND i didn't even get to disney and pixar yet, and they do have some of my favourite movies, you know, like mulan and hercules and coco and lion king and moana and soul and monsters inc and EVERYTHING, god i love animated movies, ok? ok

thank you it was a great way to put my energy into something 💙💙💙

[minty-the-demon]

The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series has vibes similar to Laika movies (Coraline, Paranorman, Kubo, etc). Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon has especially similar vibes when it comes to the Voidlands!

[myzoolucygathercole]

ParaNorman is a 2012 American stop-motion animated dark fantasy comedy horror film directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler (in his feature directorial debut), written by Butler and produced by Laika. It is the first stop-motion film to use a 3D color printer to create character faces, and only the second to be shot in 3D. In the film, Norman, a young boy who can communicate with ghosts, is given the task of ending a 300-year-old witch’s curse on his Massachusetts town.

Personally, I preferred this movie compared to others like Coraline or Frankenweenie etc. However, it isn’t my favourite type of film. I purely watched it for the stop motion and the characters themselves. I found the entire process of making this film to be very fascinating to watch. The extent of detail they used and time they spent on every single scene was so incredible to me.

I just don’t really enjoy dark fantasy or ghost like films. I don’t see the appeal for them and i’ve just never connected with them as much as other genres. Although, horrors are one of my favourite types of films to watch. Even though this film isn’t a horror, it still links in some way to movies like Paranorman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ParaNorman

[musicalhell]

I'm curious, have you ever consider doing a Know the Score on the music of Laika Studio films? (Films like coraline, paranorman, kubo etc)

Interesting idea...I’ve name-dropped Coraline and Kubo in previous episodes, but it would definitely be worth looking at the scores in-depth...

[vkr-kayne]

71 74 82 87 97 Hope you're doing great!

thanks anon, I hope you’re doing well too!!

71: favorite kind of tea? 

Green tea! big fan of chai and black tea as well

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. 

I’ve known them since kindergarten and while we don’t talk as often as I’d like nowadays, they’re one of the kindest and most accepting people I know and I’m extremely lucky to have had a friend like them for most of my life :)

82: are/were you good in school? 

Surprisingly, yeah! i honestly have No idea how though because I always wait til the last possible moment to do assignments and usually rush through them lmao

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? 

I’m not much of a movie person haha, but Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a classic favorite if you’re itching for some laughs- and all Laika films kick ass (Paranorman, Coraline, Kubo, etc.)

97: myers briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? 

ISFP-T (the “Adventurer” type), Libra (Libra rising & sun / Aries moon), and most recently I was put in Slytherin!

[annabethisterrified]

im happy with the news about the raven cycle becoming a tv show, but consider... a movie adaptation made by laika (the same guys who made coraline, paranorman, kubo and the two strings, etc)

Oooh yes! That’d be awesome!

[crunchybones-mcspine]

84 + 87?

Oh my goodness hi hello hi

84 - Are you planning on getting tattoos? Which ones??

Yes I am! I want to get a sprig of lavender, likely on my ribcage. A lineart bee, probably on my shoulder. And have been thinking over getting the treasure planet map on my inner arm. Maybe a snake somewhere too! I have lots of love for tattoos as an artform but am very scared of committing to one.

87 - What are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once?

The Iron Giant

Treasure Planet

Wall.E

Grand Budapest Hotel

Anything by Laika studios (Coraline, Paranorman, Kubo, etc)

Into The Spiderverse

Megamind

Yes most of these are animated but they are either really interesting conceptually, or just the most incredible works of art. In my opinion, of course.

Oh and The Mummy because its hilarious and I had the bigggest crush on Evie growing up.

[1801016-2]

Media Industries Research

Summary of Research Findings [500 Word Statement]

For this ‘Media Industries: Roles and Practices’ research project, I investigated the higher end, bigger budgeted side of stop motion animation in feature films. From a range of online sources and a the book ‘Stop Motion Animation, Frame by Frame Film-making with Puppets and Models’, I focused my research on the set up of departments, and the materials favoured by the big names in the industry, namely Laika and Aardman. I found that the fabrication teams can consist of around 60 people at one time, and it works in a hierarchal structure from trainees and interns, to juniors, seniors, team leaders, and the head of model making. These roles become more generalist as they gain more experience. 

Model making consists of a few teams such as: Sculpting, Moulding, Armatures, Casting, Painting, Hair, and Costume. The initial sculptors work with the director and concept artists/ designers to create production sculpts out of clay before they turn it into a working puppet. This initial model can take around 6 months alone to produce. As for moulding, I discovered there are many more possible types than I first thought: fibreglass, aluminium, polyurethane, silicon, cold moulds, carousel moulds etc. Armatures is an innovative department that makes (usually metal ball and socket) armatures from the joint up, and have found shortcuts in found materials such as guitar tuners. Casting then takes the moulds made earlier, and fills them with a range of materials, such as silicon or foam latex, to make the body, skins, and replacement limbs. These models with them be painted, whether it by by hand with paints, or with an airbrush, or layers of coloured powder. Then they move on to the hair and costume team who again use many different materials to produce the wonderful puppets we see in popular films. These materials include: plant or synthetic fibres, animal hair, tyvek, foam (often disguised as other textures). This entire process can take about 4 months to create one puppet, and film protagonists often have up to 16 versions.

I then looked further into the methods for animating faces, as it is often the depth of expressions that boost the costs of stop motion production. I began with the simpler techniques, such as the entire heads being individually sculpted for ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’, and the intricate mechanics of levers and pulleys inside the heads in ‘Corpse Bride’, directed by Tim Burton. Aardman still uses multiples of mouths made of their own recipe plasticine, which can be re-sculpted to film in-betweens. Recently, the industry had moved into rapid prototype printing. For Laika’s ‘Coraline’, they first used 3D printing. (I may be wrong but,) I believe they used binder jetting, which layers glue into powder to make a hard 3D model, first sculpted in Maya, then painted by hand, creating around 20,000 faces. They took this further in ‘Paranorman’ by printing in coloured powders, that then needed only to be touched up by painters. In ‘Kubo and The Two Strings’ they found this method couldn’t keep up the demands of the detail they wanted, so they swapped to poly jetting that makes entire faces out of coloured plastic, allowing for around 64,000 faces. Even more was possible in ‘Missing Link’ by printing resin for over 106,000 faces. All of these faces create combinations of expressions in the million, across a cast.

But in conclusion, I found that the industry uses mostly the same materials and processes that low budget animators do too. So it is entirely possible for students like us to produce industry standard puppets. In addition, it is by using found objects that stop motion can often be given its unique charm. In reality, the costs of feature films usually build up because of the large teams who need salaries paid for the years they spend making the film. Then the fact that they use expensive methods like 3D printing on a larger scale.

Word Count: 656 [A little over the desired but, oh well.]

[michaelchapmanba3a]

I recently managed to interview Joespeh Wallace, a Stop Motion animator and puppet maker to see his thoughts and opinions the future of Stop Motion Animation and he replied with this.

In my dissertation, I'm writing about the cost benefits of Stop Motion in comparison to other mediums. With that said, to make a feature length stop motion film, how much including materials and labour would the average film cost?

I think there was once a preconception that stop motion was a very expensive medium to work in but that is categorically untrue these days. In fact, most stop motion feature films tend to be at the lower end of budgets compared to their CGI counterparts.

A large scale stop motion film such as Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie cost $39 million, but Pixar’s Toy Story 3 cost a huge $200 million, so there is a huge difference in production costs between stop motion and CGI. Other attributes include the IP itself, the director and the studio, what the commercial potential of the film is, where it is being made etc. Here is an example of three budgets for CGI films:

Toy Story 3 - $200mx

Wreck It Ralph - $165m

Zootopia - $150m

And here is a fairly lengthy list I’ve put together of some major stop motion films from the last few years:

Anomalisa - $8 million Mary & Max - $8.2 million The Nightmare Before Christmas - $19 million Chicken Run - £22 million Shaun the Sheep - $25 million Curse of the Warerabbit - $30 million Frankenweenie - $39 million Fantastic Mr Fox - $40 million Corpse Bride - $40 million Pirates! - $55 million Coraline - $60 million ParaNorman - $60 million The Boxtrolls - $60 million Kubo - $60 million Captain Morten and the Spider Queen - £7m Chuck Steel - $15m

As you’ll see the top budgets here all go to Laika who are bank-rolled by the sports company Nike (run by Philip Knight, father of Laika CEO Travis Knight). I have heard rumours that despite their elaborate marketing companies and big budgets, the company struggles to make profit from their films and rely on the subsidy from Nike.

I’m afraid the second half of your question is really an impossibility to answer. As you can see from the examples above, there is no generic budget for a stop motion film. Each production is different and each production depends on varying factors from investment and financiers to the production company involved, whether it’s European finance (later Aardman features / Captain Morten) or if it’s American investment. US productions tend to have bigger budgets and will tend to have one production company whereas European productions happen as minority co-productions where there are several partners each putting in a pot of money. This means the investment is slightly lower risk and the films can, sometimes, be a little more artistic and risk-taking than their American counterparts.

In recent years we have seen the merging of two animation mediums, CGI and Stop motion. Do you think this form of merging animation will continue?

Animation and filmmaking techniques have always been merged throughout the history of cinema. From Winsor McCay performing live with Gertie the Dinosaur, to Švankmajer mixing puppet and object animation with live action and cut-out. With the development on CG animation in the 90s, everyone believed stop motion was dead. Productions like Jurassic Park and Mars Attacks hit a point in time where the stop motion animators were laid off and CG was pushed through as the new way of doing things. Of course now, stop motion is more prominent than ever and has re-found it’s place doing what it does best, as a textural, physical, moving and charming storytelling device, and CGI does it’s own thing, in the mainstream, as bug-eyed, shiny kids-fare.

CGI is being used more and more in both live action and stop motion films for subtle special effects, extending backgrounds, adding particle effects, crowds etc. Just as it is used as a tool in live action, it is also utilised in stop motion films from Aardman to Laika. This is, of course, also an aesthetic decision that has to do with realism in animation. The worlds that Laika create are stylised but follow certain codes of live action cinema and they desire their fire and smoke to emulate reality. Whereas a production like Fantastic Mr Fox or Isle of Dogs, both directed by Wes Anderson, take the step to stylise, to a very tactile degree, all elements of the production; so the smoke, fire, water etc, are all created with materials that live within the world of the stop motion film.

Do you think Stop Motion is slowly being phased out in mainstream media? If so why? 

If by mainstream media, you mean broadcast, advertising, music videos, internet, children's shows etc then no absolutely not. We are in a period where there are more stop motion feature films than ever, there are more universities teaching animation than ever, we see stop motion on television in children’s series (The Clangers), in advertising (Great British Bake Off - Mikey Please), in music videos (countless examples from Hayley Morris to Péter Vácz), we see puppets on stage, in theatre, in opera, on billboards. As the sheen and weightlessness of CGI wears off for audiences, we are seeing more and more works like Isle of Dogs that embrace the language and texture of stop motion as a medium, as an artifice and as a storytelling device. As the British Film Institute re-instate long-lost funding for independent animation and more studios spring up in the UK and abroad, continuing the legacy of this great art, I cannot begin to think that stop motion is dead or being phased out.