Empire_Australasia_-_February_2017

THE EPIC INSPIRATION

The idea was simple, and it was ridiculously hard.

The challenge I set for the team was to do a stop-

motion David Lean ilm, a Kurosawian myth in

miniature. On Kubo, we really learned how to

push the medium to its breaking point, and then

push beyond it. Tolkien has been a north star

for me since my mom tucked the Lord Of The

Rings series into her hospital bag when she was

recovering from giving birth to me. I have always

wanted Laika to tackle fantasy, grand adventures

and transporting journeys, so when Kubo And

The Two Strings came to us as an idea, it really

spoke to me and I felt we were inally ready as

a studio to attempt the scale and scope.

The idea of making a small-scale ilm

look like a large-scale epic that’s been shot on

a sweeping, endless vista was kind of absurd on

the face of it, but we’ve got such a wide array of

UNRAVELLING

THE STRINGS

Travis Knight, director of Kubo

And The Two Strings and CEO of

Laika, on the inspiration behind

the stop-motion awards darling

WORDS TRAVIS KNIGHT

techniques — people who are creating technology

and people who are doing things the way

Georges Méliès was doing [them] when he sent

rockets to the moon. It’s that combination of

craft and technology — we take the raw and the

reined and we merge them.

THE JAPANESE INFLUENCE

In conceiving and designing the characters

of Monkey and Beetle, we looked to animals

indigenous to Japan. For Beetle, we drew from

the Japanese rhinoceros beetle, known natively as

kabutomushi, which literally means “helmet

bug”. The insect’s features resemble the headgear

worn by medieval samurai. In Japan, the

rhinoceros beetle is associated with strength

and ighting prowess. And in mythologies and

cultures around the world, the beetle is a symbol

of transformation and metamorphosis. Since

transformation is a central theme of the ilm, this

is an instance where the ilm’s thematic

core fused with design for a perfect narrative

synthesis. We based the face design of Kubo’s

evil aunties, The Sisters, on classical Japanese

Noh theatre masks. The Sisters’ masks have the

traditional ‘neutral’ expression which worked

well to cover the nature of their true characters

and lent itself nicely to a spooky effect wherein

we hear them, but don’t see their lips moving.

From top to bottom:

The Sarlacc-referencing

monster with a hundred

eyeballs; Travis Knight

creating a Lord Of The

Rings-style “transporting

journey”; Entering the

Hall Of Bones.