In this post i'm going to discuss my thoughts and views on the stop motion animation film, the Boxtrolls.
Straight away from just watching the trailer i'm taken back by the sheer scale of detail tat has gone into the character design, the set builds and props etc. Being an enthusiastic and avid sculptor and modeller myself i love anything that has been made up by hand. Although i do enjoy 2D and software animation, 3D has always been a passion of mine as i love the feeling of creating a physical piece of work whether it be a sculpture, a set design, costume work etc.
I find it really interesting that the whole idea of this picture came from a minority of characters from a book by Alan Snow called 'Here Be Monsters'. Laika Animation Studios bought the rights of the book so that they could use these characters for their animation. After they bought these rights it then took Laika ten whole years before they actually made the film, and i find that sort of dedication and patience really inspirational. Part of their planning process was to make masses and masses of storyboards. They had to create the whole motion picture on paper first before they could even think about any stop motion work, and then when they'd made the storyboards they could begin adding temporary voice acting before looking to their selected professional actors such as Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Sir Ben Kingsley.
I like the fact that the character builders had to come up with their own original ideas and techniques to mask all the mechanical elements of the characters in order for them to look and feel realistic and natural. Due to all the engineering that's hidden away inside the Boxtroll's boxes, it meant that when it came to the characters retracting into their box, only a fraction of their limbs and heads could hide away, forcing the designers to make shorter and shorter parts which would click onto the characters bodies. This gave the illusion of their body parts going inside the boxes. I really like this technique and will definitely be using it in my future projects.
Its amazing seeing how they animated the characters faces using 3D printings. They printed out thousands of different faces which were attachable and detachable from the characters, and the faces could also be taken apart and mixed up to create even more expressions. This is a very time saving, innovative and clever addition to the stop motion world and i think it will be a very popular and successful technique in future stop motion pictures. I also love the idea of having a 'data base' of faces, because they're are basically saved and recyclable which makes any 'redoes' or mistakes easy to correct.
Watching this has really opened my eyes to lots of different animating techniques which i know are going to be really useful in my own work. Also seeing the amount of passion that these animators have put into there production is really inspiring and gives me a huge drive to start making my own animations.
I like the fact that the character builders had to come up with their own original ideas and techniques to mask all the mechanical elements of the characters in order for them to look and feel realistic and natural. Due to all the engineering that's hidden away inside the Boxtroll's boxes, it meant that when it came to the characters retracting into their box, only a fraction of their limbs and heads could hide away, forcing the designers to make shorter and shorter parts which would click onto the characters bodies. This gave the illusion of their body parts going inside the boxes. I really like this technique and will definitely be using it in my future projects.
Its amazing seeing how they animated the characters faces using 3D printings. They printed out thousands of different faces which were attachable and detachable from the characters, and the faces could also be taken apart and mixed up to create even more expressions. This is a very time saving, innovative and clever addition to the stop motion world and i think it will be a very popular and successful technique in future stop motion pictures. I also love the idea of having a 'data base' of faces, because they're are basically saved and recyclable which makes any 'redoes' or mistakes easy to correct.
Watching this has really opened my eyes to lots of different animating techniques which i know are going to be really useful in my own work. Also seeing the amount of passion that these animators have put into there production is really inspiring and gives me a huge drive to start making my own animations.
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