Boxtrolls and Puppet Animation

  Boxtrolls is an upcoming stop-motion movie created by the studio Laika. It's dragonhead, Travis Knight, is president, CEO, and head animator, which is to say he has to really like what he does. Laika is unique, not just in stop-motion, but in most animation studios in general. Rather than getting a team of animators for a project, they keep the group they have, which allows for learning from past projects, as well as each bringing their own unique style to the table. This keeps each film getting more precise, while keeping the same charms of the animators. I've dabbled in stop-motion in the past, while it is a repetitive pain in the neck, I feel it's simultaneously the easiest and hardest form of animation. The objects are physically there so you never have to worry about proportions, however, making a mistake in one frame can make you have to do an entire scene from the beginning. I really like there overall style of what I've seen of the film from trailers, commercials, and the like. Puppet animation has a unique atmosphere that nothing else has, live action or animation. It's hard to tell precisely what it is however, I think that it's the backgrounds and characters are physically there, made of cardboard and the like. It reminds me of when I made little cities out of my old toys and cut up boxes, and it makes me want to do it again. There's just a special charm in stop-motion that can never by replicated by any other media.