There are never enough puppets and sets to go around, so we’ll oftentimes shoot animation in multiple passes. At peak production, we had 91 units humming – that’s 50 percent more than any of our previous films. Since animators are capturing performances at a clip of about five seconds per week, we need to have many stages and a lot of animators working simultaneously in order to get these films done within a two-year production period. One of the biggest challenges with making these films is scheduling. Steve Emerson, VFX Supervisor: It was McVities, the saloon where the bar brawl sequence takes place. Which set was the most challenging, and why? In total, we built 110 sets for 65 unique locations. It was a globe-trotting adventure, which meant many locations. When we began the process, Chris Butler asked us to imagine if David Lean directed “Around the World in 80 Days” starring Laurel and Hardy. Steve Emerson, VFX Supervisor: The scope. What made this film so different from Laika’s previous stop-motion films? Where we belong in this life isn't about place. Walking in someone else’s footsteps (and in Link's case, they're pretty big footsteps!) can take us on a more rewarding journey. Spectacle aside, I wanted all the action and funny business to be rooted to a genuinely heartfelt theme, in this case: fellowship. (Actually, it’s not, but Around The World In 139,680 Frames isn't a very good play on words.) Sir Lionel and Link are an odd couple on a kaleidoscopic roller - coaster ride spanning the globe. The key to this adventure was not the ‘X marks the spot, ’ but the journey itself, and the relationship that forms between these characters. The intention was to tell a story that was equal parts ripping yarn and buddy movie. He enlists the help of renowned explorer and investigator of myths, Sir Lionel Frost, to guide him on a quest halfway around the world to the mountains of the Himalayas to find his long - lost relatives, the Yeti. He’s the last of his kind, and he’s lonely. Stop - motion animation has a rich history of soulful primates (perennially popular King Kong, of course, being the granddaddy of them all), so it seemed the perfect medium with which to realize our hirsute hero.Įveryone has heard legends of the Missing Link.a solitary creature roaming the forests of North America. He's basically what you'd get if you crossed John Candy from Planes, Trains and Automobiles Link, or Susan as he renames himself in our film, is his very hairy Watson. If Sir Lionel is a nod to Sherlock Holmes, then Mr. And what better pursuit for this dashing animated hero than the search for mythical creatures? Basically, I figured if I was going to throw all of my childhood inspirations into a pot, the stew was going to be seasoned with cool Harryhausen-esque beasts.Īnd that brings us to the yang to Sir Lionel's yin. Someone passionate and idiosyncratic and ready to surmount any obstacle in pursuit of his prize. ’ A little bit Indiana Jones, a little bit Sherlock Holmes. So, on numerous occasions throughout my career, I found myself thinking ‘animation needs a new kind of hero. As he probed the darkest mysteries of the Victorian Age, eccentric genius Sherlock Holmes had me equally thrilled and tantalized. well, it pretty much shook my percolating creative mind into a big frothy mess of fantastical possibilities.Īnd when I wasn't discovering the cinematic delights of whip-cracking archeologists, I was eagerly reading about the exploits of a very different kind of hero, one whose popularity has not waned in over 130 years. It was certainly a defining movie during my childhood, with its swashbuckling derring-do its deft dance between history and mythology its larger-than-life characters running the gamut from drama to romance to comedy. Now, I’m not one for hyperbole, but categorically, without a doubt, hands down, beyond question, the best movie ever made in the history of the universe is Raiders of the Lost Ark I knew I wanted to make films.and animated films in particular. When I left the theater after seeing these films, I knew I wanted to make worlds like that. These are the films that became part of the vocabulary of our childhood and have stayed with us forever. Not because we didn’t understand them the first time, but because we loved them so much. There are movies that we watched over and over again as kids.
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