Boxtrolls and Stop Motion

Travis Knight, lead animator, president, and CEO of Laika, helps create a whole new stop motion film. From the creators of Coraline and ParaNorman, two Oscar winning films for their "creepy artistry", make a new movie called The Boxtrolls. The Boxtrolls is described as an absurdist coming-of-age comedy taking place in a Victorian town where monsters literally live bellow the wealthy citizens and a boy named Eggs who was raised by the boxtrolls learns to live with the humans above. 

   Everything learned from creating Coraline and ParaNorman are used together to make The Boxtrolls. Computer generated effects are merged with the stop motion to create effects they may not have been able to capture. They use tactics like colored 3-D printing to make all of the puppets' faces and built motion control devices for the biggest puppet made. To avoid going back and redoing a scene they carefully choose the right animators for the right scenes. Every moment of creating the stop motion film is precision. 

   This article has allowed me to see the processes used to create stop motion films. It seems painfully long to me to move each puppet slowly, frame by frame, for a feature length film. But the end result is beautiful and gives a feel other animation styles can't capture. Overall The Boxtrolls seems to have a great story and I look forward to seeing the results in theatre.