Though it might seem like just any other puppet you’d find at the Laika stop-motion animation studio, its hardest challenge yet was creating the furry, plump and bright orange monster that became the title character of their latest film “Missing Link.”
The team of stop motion animators had to determine how to make Link’s belly jiggle as it walked, how to stretch its arms, and how its fur should move in the wind. And like any troublesome actor, that often meant this diva of a puppet frequently showed up late to set.
“This little avocado with a face is the most complicated thing we’ve ever created at the studio,” Brian McLean, Laika’s director of rapid prototyping told TheWrap’s Steve Pond following a screening of “Missing Link” at the Landmark Theatres in Los Angeles. “His simple shape and silhouette was really difficult to figure out how...
The team of stop motion animators had to determine how to make Link’s belly jiggle as it walked, how to stretch its arms, and how its fur should move in the wind. And like any troublesome actor, that often meant this diva of a puppet frequently showed up late to set.
“This little avocado with a face is the most complicated thing we’ve ever created at the studio,” Brian McLean, Laika’s director of rapid prototyping told TheWrap’s Steve Pond following a screening of “Missing Link” at the Landmark Theatres in Los Angeles. “His simple shape and silhouette was really difficult to figure out how...
- 10/20/2019
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Laika, the revered Oregon stop-motion studio run by Travis Knight, gets more epic with its fifth feature, “Missing Link,” a globetrotting, “Indiana Jones” style adventure comedy. It’s a buddy movie about explorer Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) and a Sasquatch named Mr. Link (Zach Galifianakis), who embark on a quest from the Pacific Northwest in search of the legendary Shangri-La, home of Link’s ancestry. They team up with adventurer Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana), who possesses the only known map to their secret destination.
Once again, Laika embraces inclusion in its first movie not starring a child hero, written and directed by Chris Butler (“ParaNorman”), who said: “Link embodies a child-like innocence and the kids in ‘ParaNorman’ acted more adult than the adults in this movie.” True to Laika’s mandate to push stop-motion and storytelling in new areas of exploration, “Missing Link” moves in a completely different direction from its four Oscar-nominated predecessors.
Once again, Laika embraces inclusion in its first movie not starring a child hero, written and directed by Chris Butler (“ParaNorman”), who said: “Link embodies a child-like innocence and the kids in ‘ParaNorman’ acted more adult than the adults in this movie.” True to Laika’s mandate to push stop-motion and storytelling in new areas of exploration, “Missing Link” moves in a completely different direction from its four Oscar-nominated predecessors.
- 3/18/2019
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
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