Tag Archives: Travis Knight

Interview: Writer-director Chris Butler talks ‘Missing Link

A “Missing Link” has been found — in cinematic form, that is — and for writer-director Chris Butler, the discovery has been years in the making. But it’s not like Butler has been sitting around, biding his time since his last feature film as a writer-director, “ParaNorman,” in 2012.

That’s because “ParaNorman,” as well as “Missing Link” are stop-motion animated films from the acclaimed studio LAIKA, based in Portland, Oregon, where the action is meticulously assembled frame by frame as Butler and his fellow animators magically bring inanimate objects to life on the big screen.

The years LAIKA has been producing its stop-motion features have paid off handsomely, though, since all four of the studio’s offerings since 2009 — “Coraline,” “ParaNorman,” “The Boxtrolls” and “Kubo and the Two Strings” — have been awarded with best animated feature Oscar nominations.

“They take a long time to do, and ‘Missing Link’ was probably our longest production — five years, pretty much, from beginning to end,” Butler said. When ‘ParaNorman’ was finishing, ‘Missing Link’ already existed in some form, so I gave what I had at the time to (LAIKA CEO, animator and director) Travis Knight, and we agreed that it should be my next project. As I started to develop it, I also got involved with ‘Kubo’ and did a couple of rewrites of the script, so for a time, I was doing half a week on ‘Kubo’ and half a week on ‘Missing Link.’ After that, while ‘Kubo’ was shooting, I was in pre-production on this.

Opening in theaters nationwide Friday, “Missing Link” stars Hugh Jackman as the voice of Sir Lionel Frost, an adventurous monster hunter who, in a bid to fit in with upper-class society, sets out to prove the existence of the fabled Sasquatch in the Pacific Northwest. Much to his surprise, he locates the 8-foot-tall creature quite easily, and to his bemusement, Lionel discovers the furry behemoth can read, write and speak, too.

Seeking Lionel’s help, all this missing link (Zach Galifianakis) hopes for is to find his equally legendary cousins, the Yeti, in the Himalayas in what was thought-to-be the fantasy land of Shangri La — simply because he’s lonely and wants to be around others of his kind. The trip across the globe won’t be easy, though, since feared bounty hunter Willard Stenk (Timothy Olyphant) is pursuing Lionel and his new Sasquatch friend, who are accompanied by Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana), the spunky widow of Lionel’s late partner.

With an “Indiana Jones”-type of adventure narrative (accompanied by loads of comedy) and majestic sets throughout the film, there’s no question that “Missing Link” is LAIKA’s largest production in scale to date. It’s a film meant to be seen on the big screen, and one that Butler hopes isn’t just a movie to viewers of all ages but an experience.

“When we’re making these features, we’re thinking of them as proper movies,” Butler, whose stop-motion resume also includes work on Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride.” I’ve said many times, but the idea that animation is just some babysitting device to plop a child in front of while you go off and do other things … that idea doesn’t work for me. What I want is to have a cinematic experience. We’re going to create an experience that families can go to together, enjoy together, laugh together and talk about. That’s important to me.

Missing Link is a PG film both kids and adults can enjoy in equal measure, one through which Butler said he wants to create the same sense of wonder that he experienced when he was growing up.

“I loved animation as a kid — it inspired me and moved me and set a course for the rest of my life,” Butler recalled. Today, when I see or talk to kids or young students who say that ‘ParaNorman’ or ‘Coraline’ or another movie that I was involved in has changed the course of their life, that’s important to me. That’s what makes it worthwhile. The work is never a cartoon. It’s much more than that.

Essentially, Butler said, he respects the intelligence of all of his audience members, whether they are 5 years old or an adult. The youngsters, he said, are much more perceptive than people give them credit for.

“My philosophy has always been, ‘Never talk down to kids.’ Sometimes people will query some of the decisions I’ve made or the dialogue I’ve put in the film, and will say, ‘Well, kids won’t understand that,’ and I think that’s a misunderstanding of what being a kid is,” Butler explained. “There’s so much as a child that goes over your head, but there’s also the bits that you grasp that make you grow and challenge you to think more, that challenge you to evolve, which seems to be an apt description for ‘Missing Link.’ So, for me, I try to never talk down to a kid, ever.”

United Artists

Casting Wolverine

Appropriately, Butler creates three-dimensional characters to embody the puppets his animators are bringing to life, and with that, he’s thrilled that among the cast this time is Jackman. The actor, of course, rose to prominence in the “X-Men” movies as Wolverine; but in the midst of making those superhero adventures, he’s managed to expand his palette as a song and dance man on the Broadway stage, as well as in the smash movie musicals “Les Miserables” and “The Greatest Showman.”

Because of the actor’s willingness to play all sorts of different characters, Butler said bringing Jackman into the fold on Missing Link was an easy decision.

The biggest thing he brought to the film, and it wasn’t really a surprise, but it was why I hired him, was the fact that Sir Lionel’s character is flawed. He’s self-centered and arrogant, but he becomes a much better character on his journey through the movie, Butler said. That’s why Hugh Jackman was vital to me. He’s so effortlessly charming that even when he’s doing bad things, you kind of like him. I knew I needed someone like that to play this character because you need to be on his side from the first step of his journey all the way through to the end.

Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO Radio, WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.

Copyright 2019 DirectConversations.com

Tim Burton Book 2
Click book cover for info on how to buy!

Movie Review: ‘Missing Link’ an amazing discovery

“Missing Link” (PG)

The stop-motion animation wizards at LAIKA have kept their winning streak alive at five with “Missing Link, ” — a visually stunning, enormously entertaining adventure comedy about a worldwide adventurer who helps a lonely bigfoot-like creature in the Pacific Northwest travel halfway across the world to the Himalayas and Shangri La so he can find others of his own kind and hopefully find the companionship and acceptance he’s been longing for.

While “Missing Link” might not have as much story depth as previous LAIKA films like “ParaNorman” and “Kubo and the Two Strings,” it definitely has lots of humor and plenty of heart, and great voice performances by Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana, Zach Galifiankis Timothy Olyphant and Emma Thompson.

Most importantly, though, the stop-motion animation is absolutely jaw-dropping and the sets are stunning, because almost everything you see apart from a few computer generated backgrounds is real. It’s one of the best movies of the year so far.

Lammometer: 9 (out of 10).

Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO Radio, WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.

Copyright 2019 DirectConversations.com

Tim Burton Book 2
Click book cover for info on how to buy!

Interview: Travis Knight talks quest behind ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’

Focus/LaikaFollow @TimLammersFilms on Twitter

If Laika has taught us one thing during its 10 years of existence as a stop-motion animation studio that’s produced the Oscar-nominated features “Coraline,” “ParaNorman” and “The Boxtrolls,” it’s that they respect the intelligence of the people watching their films. Yes, the visuals they painstakingly produce, frame by frame, are stunning to be sure; but first and foremost, Laika’s films are about story — and the studio’s latest offering, the epic Samurai family adventure, “Kubo and the Two Strings,” is no different.

“Our films really come down to the way we feel about our audience. We don’t view the films that we make as product,” Laika CEO and “Kubo” director Travis Knight said in a phone conversation from New York Thursday. “While what we’re in is show business — it’s show and business, and art and commerce — I think it’s important to not discount the art portion of it. In the end, we are making films and telling stories. We ask ourselves, ‘So who are we telling stories for? Who is the audience for these movies?’ We have nothing but the utmost respect for the audience of these movies.

“We will not pander, and we respect the intelligence and the sophistication of audience, and we don’t talk down to them. That comes through in our movies,” Knight added. “If you look at a lot of other movies, and that is not the case. That is not the way producers are looking at their audience. But for us, that is how we look at our audience. They are our families, these are our people, these are our children that we are making these films for. We love and respect them, and we want to make something worthy of them. That’s the approach we take to our movies.”

Opening Friday in theaters nationwide in 2D and 3D, “Kubo and the Two Strings” takes place in ancient Japan, where it follows the fantastical adventure of Kubo (voice of Art Parkinson), a humble boy with an ailing mother who accidentally summons spirits from his family’s past that target him to exact an age-old vendetta. His only hope of successfully combating the spirits comes in a quest to obtain three pieces of armor that belonged to his late father, the world’s greatest samurai warrior.

Joined by Monkey (Charlize Theron) and Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), the magically-gifted Kubo, armed with his stringed musical instrument known as a shamisen, embarks on the quest to face the spirits. But the quest isn’t merely about confronting the malevolent Moon King (Ralph Fiennes) and evil twin sisters (Rooney Mara); in the process, Kubo strives to discover the truth behind the loss of his father.

Marking Knight’s directorial debut (he’s also serves as producer and lead animator on the film), “Kubo and the Two Strings” took about five years to produce, a time period much longer than most computer-animated features. However, Knight feels that it’s not the extra time Laika’s artists put into their work that separates them from their computer-animated colleagues, but their ability to put a human imprint, so to speak, on their films.

“There is certainly a timelessness to stop-motion. When you look at a stop-motion film, you see the will and the skill, and the imagination of an artist who’s brought something to life with their hands,” Knight said. “The computer is an extraordinary tool, but there’s no humanity in a tool. It’s all in service of its operators. So, the stuff you see that comes out of comes out of computers is a bunch of ones and zeroes and  I think you can do amazing things with a computer — and we’ve seen it with exceptional effects and beautiful films — but it’s just sitting there, waiting to be worked with by its operator.”

Tim Burton Book 2
Click book cover for info on how to buy!

On the other hand, it’s about, well, the hands, as well and hearts and minds behind the drive of a stop-motion animator.

“Inherently in stop-motion there’s this hand-crafted quality, which really does give it its humanity,” Knight said. “These objects become alive because of the will and imagination of the animator. It’s magical to me because it almost evokes this primal feeling. My youngest son is 3 years old, and sometimes I watch him from across the room when he’s playing with his action figures, with one in each hand and doing little voices, creating scenarios – I recognize what he’s doing is telling stories. Nobody taught him to do that. That’s just an innate part of who we are as storytellers. That’s just who we are as humans.”

Laika, Knight said, is essentially an extrapolation of that.

“What you see with stop-motion films is that they’re essentially toys,” Knight said. “They’re dolls brought to life as if they have an inner-life and they’re moving around, and living and telling these stories — they’re creatures with their hopes and dreams. I think it really is evocative of imaginative play like when we were kids. Stop-motion taps into an aspect of that that is very primal.”

Ellen Ripley Alien Sixth Scale Figure

One of the many keys to the success of “Kubo” is that the story and the way it’s told is strikingly original. True, it is inspired by the such storytelling luminaries as Akira Kurosawa and Joseph Campbell — and to a greater extent how those storytellers influenced “Star Wars” — yet “Kubo” manages to forge its own identity.

“Unfortunately, originality is rare in this business these days,” Knight lamented. “We are in an industry right now where the pendulum has swung in one direction and where old presents are re-wrapped and offered up as new gifts. Old ideas are being dusted off and being regurgitated, but we’re fighting the good fight of trying to tell new and original stories, which has become increasingly difficult in this atmosphere.”

Movie reviews: ‘War Dogs,’ ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ on KQRS

Warner Bros.Follow @TimLammersFilms on Twitter

Tim Lammers reviews the Jonah Hill and Miles Teller true-life comedy drama “War Dogs,” as well as Laika animations studios stop-motion fantasy “Kubo and the Two Strings” on “The KQ Morning Show” with Tom Barnard and the crew. Tim, Tom and the crew also weigh in on the latest remake of “Ben Hur” and its box office prospects Hear the segment starting 7 minutes in.

Tim Burton Book 2
Click book cover for info on how to buy!