Going beyond the realm of the classic animation films by Disney-Pixar, some time ago, I had experimented with a flick about a boy who could communicate with ghosts called ParaNorman and was awe-inspired by its animation technique. Down the road, I watched the fantasy horror flick Coraline which involved an “adventurous girl finding an idealized parallel world behind a secret door in her new home”, and most recently I thoroughly admired the story and the action in The Boxtrolls which is about trash collecting trolls raising a boy. The art behind these movies called ‘3D stop-motion’ is about maintaining balance in the intricate movement of objects while filming each frame. Also referred to as ‘claymation’ since they use plasticine figures which are naturally flexible for sculpting movements. Not surprisingly, they have all been produced by a studio named ‘Laika’ and they have all been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, including their recent offering Kubo and the Two Strings released in 2016.
Stop motion is an animated-film making technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they appear to exhibit independent motion when the series of frames is played back as a fast sequence.
– Wikipedia
Not to mention there are other talented studios who indulge in stop-motion animation, including Aardman Animations (Wallace & Gromit), but the ones that I have recently enjoyed were coincidentally produced by Laika. Props to their creative team and I’d be looking forward to more awe-inspiring stuff from them!
