Tag: Travis Knight

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Animation Art Exhibitions Movies

LAIKA
FRAME x FRAME

Pic: Toby Lewis Thomas, courtesy LAIKA and BFI

*****

Exhibition shows at BFI Southbank from Monday, 12th August to Tuesday 1st October 2024 (free to visit, but booking essential – click here) accompanied by the Stop Motion animation season including all five LAIKA feature films and much, much more

In the best part of two decades, US-based Laika Studios – named after the first dog in space – has carved itself a niche as arguably the foremost producer of stop-motion animation puppet films. That’s distinctly different from the other leading company in the stop-motion field, UK-based Aardman Animations, who specialise in plasticine animation. The difference is that plasticine is a malleable substance that can be reworked and remodelled one frame at a time, whereas although puppets can be moved a frame at a time, they can’t be remodelled.

Laika have consistently (and deservedly, in this writer’s opinion) picked up Oscar nominations for each of their five features, a remarkable achievement that speaks of the high quality of their work. Their five features (with a sixth forthcoming) are:

  • Coraline (2009): A young girl is lured into a darker, parallel world.
  • Paranorman (2012): A boy who can speak with the dead, ostracised by his local community, must save his town from dark forces by righting centuries-old wrongs.
… Read the rest
Categories
Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Claydream

Director – Marq Evans – 2021 – US – 96m

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The rise and fall of stop-frame Claymation pioneer Will Vinton and the Portland, Oregon animation studio that bore his name – out on digital from Monday, November 21st

Will Vinton, founder of Will Vinton Studios and the man who made Claymation a US household name, is in the middle of legal proceedings between himself and Phil Knight, founder of multimillion shoe company Nike. How could these two very different individuals have come into contact with one another? Well, they had a number of things in common. Both were residents of Portland, Oregon who had built up businesses there based on a successful brand name.

In the sixties, while studying architecture at Berkeley, Vinton discovered Gaudi’s organic sculptured shapes which were to influence his animation work. Borrowing his dad’s 16mm camera, he started shooting anything and everything going on around campus. At an experimental film community he set up tabletop clay animation sessions, which would often turn out pornographic footage. He became fascinated by the magical process which imbued this material with life.

Closed Mondays

He built a studio in his house where in collaboration with artist and sculptor Bob Gardiner he made the short film Closed Mondays (1974) as an excuse to show off the techniques developed by the pair.… Read the rest