The Boxtrolls

[Octoberist]

Great costumes.

 

[Octoberist]

Focus Features and LAIKA to Continue Partnership for Three More Features

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=123663

 

[redhawk23]

Just wanted to chime in and say I loved this film. By not shying away from incorporating different techniques and instead serving the story with a blend of animation styles and techniques, I really feel like this film represents a new forefront in animation. Laika has always had great animation but in this latest film their camera work has jumped ahead by leaps and bounds. Their use of 3d printing to make numerous iterations of facial expressions has allowed for extremely dynamic and smooth stop motion/replacement animation. Laika themselves tend to really emphasize the craftsmanship that goes into their films and the appeal of a lot of stop motion is that you can see all the work that goes into it. With this film, everything is so well put together that it feels much more seamless and with a life all its own. All consideration of the technical aspects seem to fall away and it is very easy to simply be immersed.

That said, there were quite a few elements that I thought they accomplished through CG (which they do use for several elements throughout their films) that I later found out were in fact stop-motion. Notably their flame effects. They hand animated fire by shining an orange light on strands of cheese cloth behind dappled glass. Its very effective.


Beyond just the wonderful animation, the film tells a very enjoyable story. Laika are not afraid to go extremely dark in their films but at the same time they never feel over the top or overly manipulative. This is very much a film I can see children being freaked out by but still liking it but enjoying it even more when they're older. This film seems to succeed in the kind of emotional tightrope balance that the Where the Wild Things Are film attempted but kind of stumbled on.