KEVIN: Hello, everyone.
Welcome to Talks at Google.
I'm Kevin [? Valk. ?]
And we have
the directors of
"The Boxtrolls."
[APPLAUSE]
We have Mr. Tony Stacchi
and Graham Annable.
So let's take a look at the
trailer for "Boxtrolls."
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC SEAN PATRICK DOYLE,
MARK ORTON, LOCH LOMOND,
"THE BOXTROLLS SONG"]
[END PLAYBACK]
[APPLAUSE]
ANTHONY STACCHI: First of all,
thank you for inviting us.
And then when we
first saw that trailer
that they were going to release,
we objected immediately.
We said, there's
no way you can show
how we build the characters
before the movie even
comes out.
Don't show them with
their faces off.
But in fact, we
were totally wrong.
Because what people have
found the most interesting
about that, especially
the more and more
we travel around and
show the puppets,
is the fact that these
are handmade objects,
that these are
tangible things that
really exist in the real world.
And every animator and
every filmmaker's quest
is to put together something
that nobody's ever seen before.
It used to be like
when we were young,
when you saw your first CG
animated dinosaur running
across a field or the water
tentacle in "The Abyss,"
it seemed every few years there
was something else amazing
that you've seen.
But nowadays we have so
many amazing visual images
that we see that it's
become sort of passe.
So our quest on this movie,
the fact that Alan Snow's book
"Here Be Monsters" had this
great Victorian setting.
And Laika had been a studio
that had been together
for three films at this point.
That we could put
together something
that would be a visual sort of
feast, something that nobody
had ever seen before.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah.
Stop motion has a
tendency to feel
like it's shot on
a tabletop set.
And that's because it's
shot on a tabletop set.
And so we knew with a lot of
lessons learned on "Coraline"
and "ParaNorman," we
were going to find
ways to try to bring a
bigger sense of scope, scale
to the film.
We wanted this big, comedic
adventure, "The Boxtrolls,"
to feel different and yet
preserve what was special
about stop motion.
So we really approached
this film as a hybrid.
At its core it is stop motion.
It's still puppets,
and it's still sets.
But we found all kinds of
new ways and different ways
to integrate our view
effects department
to bring that world
to a larger scale
than I think audiences
had ever seen
before in a stop-motion movie.
ANTHONY STACCHI: And it all
started about 10 years ago
when Laika bought the rights
to Alan Snow's book "Here Be
Monsters," which is a
fantastic Dickensian steampunk
tale smashed together
with a Monty Python tone.
Which we loved right away.
Problem was--
GRAHAM ANNABLE:
What we didn't love
was the fact that it truly is a
cast of thousands in the book.
Part of Alan Snow's
appeal in his writing
is that he is every page
creating new characters
to get the old characters
out of the situations.
And we knew very
early on we weren't
going to be able to
maintain that kind of pace
with building puppets.
So we eventually gravitated to
the most compelling invention
that Alan had in the book,
which was the boxtrolls.
And it was the
emotional story of
these little boxtroll characters
raising this character Arthur
in the book that became
the heart of the story.
And it was what
we rallied around.
And it sort of became a rule.
Travis describes it
as ruthless economy.
Once we knew that that
emotional story was
the boxtrolls and
Eggs, everything else
had to get thrown out.
And it could only creep
back into the movie--
ANTHONY STACCHI: It had to fight
its way back into the story.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah, if it
supported that emotional core.
But it's a long journey
figuring out stories.
I mean, "Here Be Monsters"
was bought at the same time
as "Coraline."
So it's been pretty
much 10 years
to get to this point of
actually making the film.
ANTHONY STACCHI: And
every animated film
is storyboarded first.
We get to make the film
before we make the film.
We storyboard the
whole thing out.
We record temp voices to
figure out our performances
before we actually go
to the final actors
and get their-- go to Sir Ben
Kingsley or Nick Frost or Simon
Pegg and then get
the final voices
which we need before
we commence animation.
So we spend a long time.
Each story reel
is like a rewrite.
It's like rewriting the script.
And you see if the story works.
And then you present it to
everybody at the studio.
So in this process,
what you're always
looking for is for that one
sequence where you feel,
this is the movie.
This has the emotional
tone, the action tone,
has everything you want
the final movie to have.
Because once you have that one
sequence that really works,
we call it the
tentpole sequence,
then you throw
everything else out
and you start over building
out from that one sequence.
And early on in the
process, this sequence
here was the one that was
that tentpole sequence.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[BOXTROLL SOUNDS]
[WINDING NOISE]
[BOXTROLLS ARGUING]
[FOOTSTEPS]
-Boxtrolls!
Ahh!
Get out of the trash,
you filthy monsters!
That's my trash!
-Oh!
-Get them!
[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]
-Oh, no.
Where is it?
Where'd it go?
-Quick!
Turn around.
Come on.
Move it!
-Over there!
-After him!
-Very nice.
[BOXTROLL SOUNDS]
-Oh!
Ah!
-Now I've gotcha!
[BABY GURGLING]
[BOXTROLL SOUNDS]
-Papa!
Papa!
[BABY CRYING]
[HAPPY BABY SOUNDS]
[BABY CRYING]
[HAPPY BABY SOUNDS]
[THUNDER]
[END PLAYBACK]
ANTHONY STACCHI: So, yeah.
There was a lot
of things that we
loved about this
sequence, the relationship
between the Boxtrolls and the
baby and stuff that just gave
us the little bread
crumbs we needed
to find the core of the story.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah, but
the funny thing with story,
of course, is that we
basically threw everything
out that came
before the sequence,
everything out that
came after the sequence,
and built the whole
movie from this sequence
because this was working.
And within about three
months we cut this sequence.
And it's just kind
of the way it goes.
But it pointed us
in the direction
down the road we knew we
needed to go with the movie.
ANTHONY STACCHI: There's
a famous guy, Joe Ranft,
who was the head of
story at Pixar for years
and a lot of other places.
He always used to teach that
you had to trust the process.
That even though it feels like
you're not making any progress
and that you've gone
down another dead end
or something like that, that if
you just trust in the process,
that you are making progress
and you will find the story.
So we felt on track with
the story at this point.
And we moved on for what we
call the look of picture.
And when we immediately,
on reading the book,
we thought of a few artists
we wanted to work with.
We started to work with a French
artist named Nicolas de Crecy,
a French graphic novelist
who has an amazing ability
to draw images of these
great European cities.
He has a really great shape
language that he draws in.
And has this beautiful
line quality in the way
that he draws.
So we worked with
him for a few weeks
to get some
inspirational sketches.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: He's
definitely the best person
in the world at
drawing piles of junk,
which was a real boon for us.
ANTHONY STACCHI: He
also did this image
of a chandelier made by
the Boxtrolls underground.
And it's from light
bulbs that they've
collected in the garbage and
wires that they've found.
And there was something about
this image that really struck
home with us and Travis
Knight, the CEO of Laika,
where we loved the
idea of this thing.
We loved getting to
know the characters who
would build something like this.
And we all looked
forward to the people
at Laika who are actually
building something
like this with their
amazing abilities.
So we moved forward from there.
And we had a guy named
Michel Breton, who
had worked on "Coraline"
previously at the studio.
And he began to
hone all these ideas
into what we call the
look of picture book.
And it's a book that we hand
out to all 400 people who
work on the job eventually in
the fabrication department,
in the puppet department, and
all the rigging departments
so they know the set of rules
that everything in the movie
has to go by.
Whether it's a torqued shape
that's twisting a little,
has thick and thin lines
on it, has color and stuff.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah, and it
was a real challenge for the art
department to
figure out ways that
would-- A huge part of
what Michel does so well
is his line work, as you
can see in this image.
And they had to find
all kinds of ways
to represent that wonky
realism that Michel brought
to everything through
his line work.
And the scale of this film was
going to be a huge challenge.
But Curt Enderle,
our art director,
was able to find ways using
shadows and shapes and color
on buildings beyond just twisted
light poles and chandeliers
to find ways to bring that
shape language that Michel
had created into the film.
ANTHONY STACCHI: This is
the portly ranked foyer
of the building, and
it's another chandelier.
I clearly love chandeliers.
This chandelier
was built by Curt
in the art department out
of twisted wire and stuff.
So that became the first
object that we really loved.
The thought captured
Michel's drawing style
in the world of the film.
Because you don't get
anything free in animation
and particularly in stop motion.
Anything that appears in front
of the camera has to be built,
has to be made.
We don't inherit any of
the props from "ParaNorman"
or "Coraline" because they're
done in a different style.
So once the images started
to land in black and white,
we moved forward with Paul
Lasaine, a great matte painter
and production designer in LA.
We definitely wanted to make
a stop-motion movie that
wasn't too dark.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah, beyond
just making a stop-motion movie
that felt bigger
in terms of scale,
we also wanted to
see what we could
do to bring brightness, color
to a stop-motion feature.
Because that's
another aspect of it
that they tend to
have desaturated
palettes in a lot of
stop-motion movies.
And it's great, it's wonderful,
it's an effective thing.
But we really wanted to
see and push the studio
to try to do something
a little more colorful.
And Paul Lasaine was the perfect
guy to bring that to the film.
He had worked on Dick Tracy.
He really knew how to
bring color into things.
ANTHONY STACCHI: He also
did a great job of color
styling the Boxtroll
Cavern because the Boxtroll
Cavern itself as a location is
almost a character in the film.
Because at the
beginning of the film,
it's supposed to be a
warm, inviting place where
the hero, Eggs, is raised.
But little by little it becomes
a depressing, drab place
as more and more
Boxtrolls are kidnapped
by the men in red hats.
So he did a great job.
We did that predominantly
through light and color.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Now we found
ourselves in a weird spot
because usually when
you develop a feature,
you kind of start
with your characters
and your character design first.
And then the world kind
of begins around that.
But Michel, Paul,
and Don McClure
had done such a tremendous
job in quickly figuring out
the shape language and
realizing the world.
We had the world
before we really
had the characters nailed.
And that put Mike Smith,
an amazing 2D animator,
in an interesting
position of utilizing
what he saw in Michel's
world to bring characters
that would fit within it.
And he worked much
like Michel had
done where he worked in
silhouette first and began
and then put in the details.
And get that shape
language to show up
in the actual characters as well
as the buildings and the world
around them.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
And we were still
going through a lot
of story changes.
At one point, rather than
having an allergy to cheese,
Snatcher had a really
bad case of equinophobia.
He was afraid of horses.
But he dreamed of being the man
on a horse who rides into town
and is met as a hero and stuff.
So that was another dead end
we went through in story.
When we struck upon this idea
of him having this cheese
allergy, which isn't
in the book but it's
similar to something
in the book,
we knew it would be a huge
test of the department that
makes the faces for our movie.
Also in the
storyboarding process,
we fell in love
with all these ideas
of what the Boxtrolls
could do with their boxes.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah,
initially the puppet department
was really excited
when this project got
green lit because
they were like, wow.
Finally a movie where we've got
a lot of the main characters
wearing massive boxes.
We can just hide all
the mechanics in there.
This is going to be a breeze.
That quickly turned into
a nightmare for them
because as the board's
evolved and the story evolved,
we just kept putting the
Boxtrolls into situations where
we had more and more
special-case things
that they needed to do.
And they very soon
realized there
was no way they were
going to be able to--
ANTHONY STACCHI: They hated us.
GRAHAM ANNABLE:
--and had to come up
with a lot of innovative methods
to get the Boxtrolls to feel
and look and work for the story.
ANTHONY STACCHI: The
Boxtrolls hide in their boxes.
So the way that's done,
because there's so much rigging
inside the Boxtrolls'
boxes, their arms
can actually retract
into the boxes.
There's enough movement in
the shoulders of the arms
so they can begin the motion in.
But then there's
shorter and shorter
arms are made to
click on so it looks
like they retract into the box.
The same as of the head.
The head can begin
its motion down.
And then there's
smaller and smaller
heads that you click
on so they appear
to disappear into their boxes.
Which is one reason why in
animation you do things fast.
Because then you use fewer
and fewer in-between frames
to get where you want to go.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Quick is good.
ANTHONY STACCHI: But
even before then, there's
an old test that
you do in animation,
which you animate a flour sack.
Just a flour sack.
To see if you can
give it personality
and you can give it
expression and emotion.
You can make the flour sack
sag or be excited and stuff.
So we wanted that kind of
bendability in our hard boxes,
too.
So they began a long
run of testing boxes.
So this is what
we did for months.
We played with cardboard boxes.
And they were also trying
to find a material that
would look like cardboard
and not be too rigid.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah, originally
they did try using cardboard.
But there was just
no way it was going
to hold up to the rigorous
shooting schedule.
ANTHONY STACCHI: So
this is an early test
where we're getting
the amount of movement
that we wanted out of them.
We'd also done tests where
they moved like chimpanzees
or moved like different animals.
But more and more we
found that their character
came through much better
if you kept it simple.
This was the first test
that made us all think,
we may not be idiots.
This might actually
work because he
was such a lovable little guy.
We also combined a few other
extinct forms of animation
at Laika.
We do a lot of 2D animation,
traditional hand-drawn
animation in our process.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah,
it's interesting.
I mean, it's all tied into
our RP process, the face
replacement
animation that we do.
And it utilizes right
from the beginning.
The model sheets
of the expressions
that are drawn in
2D are then handed
to an excellent 2D
animator, Dave Vandervoort,
in the studio who fully
animates and pencil tests
the complete range of
each character's emotion.
Try to figure out exactly how
extreme all the face masses are
going to move for
each character,
happiest, angriest, all the
expressions they could possibly
do using, usually,
hopefully, finished dialogue
if we have it available.
And that 2D animation
then becomes the guide
that is handed over
to the CG 3D animators
in Maya, who then begin to
build the faces in the computer
digitally and get all the
facial expressions working.
And then that, once that gets
approved by the directors,
becomes the faces that
get printed physically out
of the 3D printer and then
get put on to the puppet.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
This is an example
of the faces that are printed.
And we print these
by the thousands.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah.
For Eggs--
ANTHONY STACCHI: Every real
nuance of change of expression.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Eggs
had about 15,000 pieces
created for his
face for the film,
which in different combinations
because they're usually
actually typically split
between the brow and the mouth.
So all those
different combinations
with the 15,000 pieces,
allowed for about 1.4
million possible expressions,
which I think I've
got about six.
So Eggs is a little ahead of me.
ANTHONY STACCHI: And there's
a whole Dewey Decimal system
of how we track these things,
of what the expression is doing.
Usually the faces
split along here.
So you have different
eyebrows that
can go along with
different mouths.
And there's a whole room
that we call the face library
where there's boxes of
these that are basically
like a pizza box.
And they're full of face
after face after face.
We have a little clip that
shows you the process.
If I can get this back on.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-They don't make you.
You make you.
-We knew from "ParaNorman"
that we had this color printing
process that worked really well.
But it worked well to produce
some naturalistic skin tones.
And now, looking at
these really vibrant sort
of theatrical paint jobs
that the directors wanted
on "BoxTrolls," we were
sort of scratching our heads
saying, well, in theory
the machines can do it,
but we don't really
know if they can do it.
And maybe they can do
it once, but are they
going to be repeatable?
If you get a
beautiful paint job,
how is that paint
job going to animate?
We came up with a way to do it.
It worked really well.
-My little angel.
My weird little angel.
-Looking at how we
were able to improve
the process on "ParaNorman"
and then, looking
at the script of "Boxtrolls"
and these really specialty story
moments, we needed to
have something unique.
And allergy Snatcher is a
perfect example of that.
-Isn't this nice?
-His face has so much swollen
weirdness to it that having him
say a line of dialogue, you get
so much followthrough with his
cheeks and his lips--
-Sopping on the
choicest cheeses.
- --that really we learned very
early on that there was no way
that we could try to
recycle these poses.
-Stand back, peasants.
You don't touch your king.
-So what we decided to do was
to tackle every single one
of allergy Snatcher's shots
as its own unique animation.
And then we would have
to print out those faces.
Faces, they were so big.
We were only able to print
12 faces in 12 hours.
-And how many can you
usually do in 12 hours?
-Probably 150 of, like,
Eggs, as an example.
-See.
You're not like them.
[BOXTROLL  SOUNDS]
-You have no idea that this
thing that you're watching,
this creature, is not real
because of the amount of nuance
and subtlety and
naturalism that we
were able to put
into these faces.
They feel like they're
really little creatures
with skin and movable
muscles and volume change.
And when you pick them up
and you tap on their faces,
they're just a hard
plaster that isn't movable.
But through
replacement animation,
you get some really
lovely, smooth animation.
-Nice.
Heh, heh, heh, heh.
[END PLAYBACK]
ANTHONY STACCHI:
So that's probably
the most high-tech element
we've added to stop motion.
Stop motion is a technique
that's as old as cinema itself.
I mean, George Melies, the
great French silent filmmaker,
was doing it at the
turn of the century.
And then there's
been a long line
of individuals
throughout cinema who
have continued to
move it forward.
George Powell did replacement
animation in the '30s and '40s
and stuff.
And then what Travis has done
at Laika, his vision for Laika,
is to try to take this group
of people, which he likes
to describe as
Luddites and futurists,
and have them share
more than a parking lot.
Have them share a whole studio.
And early on they brought
this rapid prototype process
to "Coraline."
And at first the faces were
only printed in black and white,
and they had to be hand painted
And then on "ParaNorman,"
they were able to print them
with a little bit of color
on them, freckles, and
a little bit of rouge
on the cheeks and stuff.
And then for our film, it took
another great leap forward.
As you can see, these faces
are very elaborately colored.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah, it
creates a kind of bizarre step
in our process, though,
definitely in its directors.
There's a phase where we approve
storyboards and the story reel.
And then when the RP
folks get involved,
it's an interesting
thing for the animators
because it sort of divvies
up their performance,
their overall performance.
They need to basically sit
down with their assigned
shot in storyboard
form and begin
to visualize the
entire performance,
but focus just on the
face performance up front.
Because production-wise,
those faces
need to get signed off on
and approved and then printed
so that they're
ready for the stage.
May be anywhere from one
or two weeks to two months
down the line.
And so they need to sort of
figure out the entire face
performance up front,
get us to sign off on it,
and then find themselves
two months later sitting
with that pizza tray with
the faces that they chose,
we all chose, a few months ago.
And make sure that
the performance
they had in their head that was
going to work with that face
all comes together
in a beautiful way.
ANTHONY STACCHI: And the way
they get us to sign off on it
is they send us what we
call a playblast, which
is their Maya animation, a 3D
CG animation of the face shapes.
They send it to editorial, and
we cut it into the story reels
on top of the
storyboard drawings.
So this is the Maya
animation of the faces
prior to being printed out.
So we look at the
performance on here.
And we can add in between or
say, push this a little bit
further.
And oftentimes later in
the production cycle,
we'll already have
these printed faces.
So we'll say, use those faces
that we used in sequence 32
where Fish's face
was much more angry.
Use those mouths.
And it's amazing.
We say sometimes it's
animation by librarians
because it's
amazing that they've
made these many faces that
can move in and out of so
many different poses
without there being a pop.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: There's
a moment right there
where you see Fish's face
kind of stretched a bit
with the nose.
That's because the
animator wanted
to try to have a little rub
with the puppet hand on the face
when he was going to be out on
stage with the final puppet.
But that's, again, that
scary sort of commitment
up front because he's got
to figure out and guess
at the time he's going to use
for how long that hand's going
to rub that face.
And we all, again, have to
sort of commit up front to,
that's the faces we're
going to use for this.
Here's the final version of
it when the faces are actually
all together.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-Eew.
Yuk!
Ooh!
Ah!
Hmm.
[BOXTROLL SOUNDS]
[TICKING]
-Hah!
[BOXTROLL SOUNDS]
[RINGING]
[BOXTROLL SOUNDS]
[END PLAYBACK]
ANTHONY STACCHI: So that's
the final shot of that.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Now one of the
things we do in our process
as well is we have
breakdown meetings, which
is where all the heads, all the
futurists, all the Luddites,
and the heads of
their departments
come together for the
meeting where we break down
each sequence of the
film shot by shot.
And it's always kind of
an incredible process.
Very energetic meetings.
Everybody comes in there with
their homework already done.
And shot by shot,
different departments
are vying for why they
should or shouldn't
be involved in each
piece, and who's
going to do what, basically.
And again, because this
film right from the get-go
was going to be a hybrid and
a real use of the effects
department, the digital
guys were involved heavily
with the whole process.
But at the end of
the day, it always
came down to what delivered
the style of the film best.
And so we had a lot of
surprising inventions,
always, from our rigging
and puppet departments
where practical
effects showed up
in places where we
didn't even anticipate.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
For me, I worked
in stop motion a
little bit in my past.
But prior to that I
mostly worked on CG films.
And usually on a CG
film, you know the issues
you're going to confront.
We need fur.
We need wet fur.
We need a snowstorm.
We need to develop
all this stuff.
What I was really surprised
at the culture at Laika
is a lot of those
decisions aren't
made until the 11th hour.
You have this breakdown
meeting, and people are still
discussing, how are we going
to do the water in the sewer?
I know we're going into
production on that shot.
And I could never
get used to the fact
that it waited to this late
hour for this meeting for it
to happen.
There's a shot in the
movie of Eggs in the sewer,
and he's going to
go above ground.
And usually in
something like that,
you would use CG to do water.
Because water is
very difficult to
do in any kind of traditional
form of animation.
But at this meeting
we ended up having
a totally different
way of it being done.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-There's nothing
that exists before we
start on one of these films.
Every single thing
that you see has
got to be designed
and built by hand.
-Eh?
-What?
-You don't get anything
for free in stop motion.
We've really got to plan
out every single element.
-And that goes as far as the
fire and the smoke and water
and all the natural elements
that you see on screen.
-Tell me everything!
-As an art director
it's awesome.
I mean, how often do you
get to create everything?
I mean, that's an
incredible sense of power.
-One of the things that's
incredibly difficult
to do in a stop-motion film
is bring the environments
to life in a believable way.
And it's something that
was very important for us
in this film to have
that level of atmosphere.
-We talk about, what's
water going to look like?
What's the destruction?
What's dust going to look like?
What are the materials
that we would
use to create these images?
And that's where we start.
-You can't change nature.
-We created this
entire sewer system
with flowing water
and dripping water
out of just plastic and glass.
-What we have behind
me is a sheet of glass
that has ripples in it, and
it's made from shower glass.
And that's passing
from left to right.
And that's giving us our flow.
And then what
we've done is we've
created a little nest
of mirrors and wires
and bits of blue masking tape.
And so what we're
seeing is we're
seeing the effect of the rippled
glass passing over those wires
and mirrors.
And that's giving us the
illusion of the highlights
above ground.
-How curious.
How peculiar.
-The 24 or 25 different
kinds of weeds
that we have growing
in Cheesebridge
are all specific weeds.
But yet they're sort of
stylized in a way that puts them
into our world, which I
think is the important thing.
-A new species,
never seen before.
-For the fire, we did a lot of
early tests using cheesecloth.
Our rigging department
did this amazing series
of flames and this amazing
fire out of just using
suspended upside
down cheesecloth
hit with kind of this
orangish-yellowish light.
And it looked incredible.
-The attraction to
making natural elements
is partially the challenge
of taking on nature.
You just become
more appreciative
of the things you take
for granted by delving so
much deeper into the subject.
-These are the little moments.
-And when you've
got it, you just
feel like you're kind of
neck and neck with nature.
There's quite an
empowering feeling
about it trying
to emulate nature.
-Yeah.
[END PLAYBACK]
ANTHONY STACCHI: In
the end, it doesn't
matter how you get there as
long as you can reproduce
the style of the
film the best way.
So every film is different.
In a lot of special
effects houses,
their goal is to have everything
look realistic, to look real.
For our v-effects
department, their problem
is that every film is
stylistically different.
So they need to make
it look like that.
We use CG extra characters
in the background,
and they have to be
indistinguishable
from these puppets in all
their texture and form.
And all the effects
has to do that.
There's probably not
a frame in the film
that doesn't have some
sort of CG assistance
to it, whether it's compositing
or adding atmosphere and stuff.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: We've
got three clips here
to give you a sense of just how
much the v-effects department
helped out in certain sequences.
ANTHONY STACCHI: Now the
core of every sequence is--
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Always
at the core of it,
it is a stop-motion feature
because it is always puppets.
And anything that they
touch and interact with
is physical as a set.
ANTHONY STACCHI: So it's
rig removal, then adding
the far background, far distant
atmosphere, closer atmosphere.
Then we start to
drop in a CG city
because they're not
going to interact
with the city in this shot.
Then there's the atmosphere
between the characters
and the camera.
There's an all CG city,
all rendered on style.
Now we built a lot
of those buildings
whenever the characters
had to interact with them.
But in this scene
they had to match
the look of those
built buildings.
Adding more atmosphere
and chimney smoke.
Here's the Red Hats pursuing
Eggs, Fish, and Shoe.
Their animation element is
comped in, the far background.
With cheesecloth
clouds that were
generated by the art department.
And then we put in more
atmosphere in the city.
Now this next shot, everything
that the characters touch,
every rooftop and
stuff, is real.
But everything else
is CG set extension.
Rig removal.
GRAHAM ANNABLE:
This film, too, we
used extensively a
pre-vis department
to help for a lot of
these action sequences
to really figure out the
scope of each of the shots
and to maximize or minimize how
much overbuilding would happen.
So we knew exactly
what the characters
were going to interact with
before we went out to the sets
and how much coverage
we were going to need.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
And that sequence
there took a few months
to board and figure out.
And we thought, oh,
yeah, sequence 700.
That's how we know
them, by their names.
Sequence 700, that's going to be
the hardest, the rooftop chase.
Or sequence 2350, the battle
at the end of the movie, where
Snatcher destroys
the market square
in the giant Mecha-Drill.
Now that'll be the hardest one.
And we were wrong both times.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Way wrong.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
Because we didn't
have any idea what
we were doing.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah.
The hardest thing to do in
"The Boxtrolls" far and away
was ballroom dancing.
ANTHONY STACCHI: Nearly
killed the studio.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: That really
kind of caught us off guard,
and it really did max out every
department in the building.
And as described earlier, the
breakdown meetings that we
have, that was when
Tony and I realized
we were in a lot of trouble
because, again, those meetings,
there's coffee, cookies,
and everybody's chatting.
And it's got a lot
of energy to it.
We walked into the room
for the breakdown meeting
for the dance sequence.
Dead quiet.
Nobody was talking.
No one would even make
eye contact with us.
ANTHONY STACCHI: Because they
knew better than we knew.
GRAHAM ANNABLE:
Yeah, they all just
were quietly leafing
through their packets,
looking at each other
like, how do we do this?
ANTHONY STACCHI:
Every department.
It was a difficult
thing to storyboard.
It was a great storyboard.
Manuela Coetzee, who
boarded the whole sequence.
Then Dario Marianelli,
the composer,
had to write a
brand-new waltz and also
make it score in
different places,
a little bit more
romantic, a little bit
more action oriented.
And then we hired
two choreographers
from the Portland Ballet
to come out and reproduce
the entire dance sequence
on one of our stages.
And we shot it there.
Then we did a CG pre-vis of
that too so we could figure out
the speed of the camera
rotations and movements
as we were swirling
amongst the dancers.
And then the
animation people had
to come in and figure out
a way to make the skirts
on the female characters
that they could dance with.
Because underneath those
skirts there are no legs.
There's just like
a slinky apparatus
to make the skirt go up
and down and swirl around.
There was even a shot in
the middle of the sequence
where Eggs hides underneath
the skirts, which we knew
would be impossible because
the skirts that we had built
didn't seem to lift
high enough to do it.
So you had that nightmare
scenario for us,
which is a real character
touching a CG element.
Touching a CG element and trying
to do that is really difficult.
Anyways, we continued forward.
And this is Jan
Maas, the animator,
in time lapse animating
Egg's and Winnie's entry
into the dance.
So it's pretty rare that
he was able to animate even
with stairs and walls
in the background.
Usually those had
to be composited
in because animator
access is something
you have to worry about.
The animators have to be
able to comfortably reach
the puppets at all time.
So most of the time
for the sequence,
he was just boarding characters
on the parquet floor.
And we would add
everything else in,
compositing in the v-effects
department after that.
It was incredibly
difficult for Jan to do.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: It was
tricky for all of us,
too, because out of all
the sequences in the film,
this one was the most
pieced apart for the longest
time in the production schedule.
So we never knew how all
these pieces were treated.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
Unfortunately for us it
was done in the summer.
Gets awful hot in
the summer, so we
had to visit Jan
with his shirt off.
Which is even more
terrifying than Snatcher.
So this is the exciting life
of a stop-motion animator.
And then when you see
this sequence in the film,
you realize that
the camera's doing,
that's the camera
in the upper right.
It's doing an elaborate
camera move up into the air.
And the whole room is
full of CG extra dancing
around these characters.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: And again,
it took all 18 months
of our shooting schedule to
produce a little less than two
minutes to finish
footage in the film.
ANTHONY STACCHI: And here he
can show you that sequence now.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[WALTZ MUSIC PLAYING]
ANTHONY STACCHI: Puppets.
They have to be real.
But most of the rest of the
characters are CG extras.
-There you are.
We have to get to your father.
-You can't just cut through.
We dance.
-We'll wha--?
-Like this.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
One, two three.
ANTHONY STACCHI: This is that
shot that Jan was working on.
-Just make a box.
-You made me get out of my box.
-With your feet, silly.
That's it, Eggs!
You're dancing!
[LAUGHTER]
-Snatcher's here.
-Who?
Where?
-My turn, madam.
[GASP]
-Fru fru.
-Winnie!
-Ha, ha, ha!
-Uh oh.
-Eggs, look out!
[GASPING AND GRUNTING]
[SLAP]
-What is going on here?
No!
No!
No!
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!
No!
[END PLAYBACK]
ANTHONY STACCHI:
So usually when we
do this, when we do this talk
at, say, DreamWorks or Pixar
or Disney, you can see all
the CG animators going,
why would you even
do a movie like this?
What is the point?
You know, and for
us it is because we
think there is a
special quality.
And I think Travis's idea
of updating the company as
much as possible, dragging this
technique and this art style
into the future, is
predicated on that idea,
that there's something
unique looking.
And for me the idea is just
that deep down in the DNA
and in your
subconscious, everybody
remembers playing with dolls or
playing with a model train set,
of moving something around
and giving something
a little bit of life.
And these objects,
the fact that when
you look at them
on the screen, they
don't look like
CG-generated characters.
They don't look
like real people.
They look like tangible
objects that you can grab.
And we've seen it
over and over again
in every place we go
to is that people just
can't keep their
hands off our puppets.
As soon as they see them,
they want to grab them.
We were just in New York.
There were about
30 young girls who
came screaming
down after the Q&A.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: We just
about lost those puppets.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
Destroyed our puppets.
And that's something among
even stop-motion animators is
when they look at
your designs and they
look at your
maquettes and stuff.
And they'll say, I like it.
I like the idea of it.
But when they look
at a puppet that they
can't keep their hands
off of, that they really
want to start
animating, that's when
you know you really
have something.
So that's why we have the
quest for this technique
and for this look.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah.
I think for a lot of
folks, even if they're not
aware of the process
when they watch a film,
they feel that difference.
It is something unique.
And I find that kind of
funny in this day and age
where so many animated
features are CG
generated that, in a weird
way, we are giving audiences
something new by doing
something so incredibly old.
So it's a very
unique place to work.
ANTHONY STACCHI: We'll
show the time lapses.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah,
we should show that.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC LOCH LOMOND, "LITTLE
 BOXES"]
[END PLAYBACK]
[APPLAUSE]
KEVIN: Tony and
Graham, thank you.
That's awesome.
That's a really, really good
insight into everything.
And so I want to
talk about you guys,
kind of interesting how you
got brought onto this project.
So Tony, you have been around
for a while in the industry.
You worked all the way back in
special effects as an effects
animator on "Back To the Future"
and "Hook" and "Rocketeer"
and "Ghost."
And "James and the Giant Peach"
was your first experience
in stop motion.
Is that what drew
you into animation?
ANTHONY STACCHI: No.
Prior to that I went
to school at Cal Arts,
California Institute of
the Arts, in the mid-'80s.
And after that I worked in
the salt mines of animation
in Saturday morning cartoons
in Korea and Japan and Taiwan.
So I did my time in the spice
mines of Kessel and animation
working on "Ewok Adventure" and
"Popeye" and the "Stone Age"
and stuff.
So I was used to
working on crap.
So I got really lucky later.
I moved to San
Francisco, and I worked
at a place called
Colossal Pictures,
which was a fantastic
advertising studio that
did a lot of mixed
media and stop motion.
So I got a chance to try
a lot of different styles.
Then I started working
at ILM and then
working in story
at PDI DreamWorks.
So the Bay Area had quite
a few studios at that time,
and it was a great
area to work in.
You could jump around and
do a lot of different stuff.
So I kept getting a
taste of stop motion
with Henry Selik on "James
and the Giant Peach"
and at Colossal.
And even at that point at
ILM, they still did some stuff
practically. "Rocketeer"
was done with stop motion.
So I kept getting
a good taste of it,
but I never got to work
on a whole feature.
So when the opportunity
came up to visit friends
at Laika about seven years ago
who were working on "Coraline,"
I jumped at it.
And that's when I
met Travis Knight.
And he gave me Alan
Snow's book to read.
KEVIN: And, Graham,
how about you?
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Well, I attended
Sheridan College in Canada
and spent a bit of
time in Toronto.
And I got an opportunity
at one point,
I was animating at that point.
I got an opportunity to
storyboard for Chuck Jones.
They were making theater
shorts back in the early '90s.
And I got this
amazing opportunity
to spend a week in
LA and sit with Chuck
Jones and another group
of other story artists
and work out all
these theater shorts.
And I came away
from that experience
going, wow, I want to
be a storyboard artist.
That's my thing.
And then I spent 15 years
living in the Bay Area
working as an animator
on video games.
But during that time
I continued to do,
I'd been doing a lot
of comic book stuff.
And I'd done my own
series of comic stories
under the name Grickle.
And that was the
thing that, I guess,
Henry Selik saw up
in Portland when
he was beginning to assemble
a team for "Coraline."
And he offered this
opportunity for me
to come up and be a
story artist on his team.
So I showed up there, and
I've never looked back since.
I've been at Laika.
I storyboarded on
"Coraline," "ParaNorman."
And during a lull
on "ParaNorman,"
I got an opportunity to do
some storyboarding for Tony
while he was developing
"Hairy Monsters."
And that sort of morphed
into me sitting in a chair
beside him co-directing it.
ANTHONY STACCHI: I pulled him.
You're not leaving.
KEVIN: So what was
the big difference
for you, because you've
worked on, obviously,
"Coraline" and
then "ParaNorman,"
of seeing the progression
of stop motion
that you guys have
obviously pioneered here?
The blend between CG and stuff.
But being a story artist, where
have you kind of seen the--
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Being a story
artist for me personally,
I'd felt like on
my resume it says
I've worked in two stop-motion
features, "Coraline"
and "ParaNorman."
I figured I knew what was
involved with the process.
I really didn't.
There was so much more
going on past the point
when it leaves the
story department
that I'd only presume to know.
I always describe it as
feeling like a guy who
got really good at
making paper airplanes
and then suddenly
finding himself
at the controls of a 747.
There were just so many
more decisions to make.
And it's just been an incredible
ride the last three years
making this film.
And I was very thankful
to have this guy with me
because the experience you
had in directing features
before was huge.
KEVIN: You mentioned
something to me
earlier, which was about
what stop motion is.
It kind of brings the worst
aspects of live action.
Can you--
ANTHONY STACCHI: Yeah.
100 years of stop motion
has figured out a way
to combine all the worst
attributes of animation
and live-action production.
And combining them all together
in one cocktail of fear
and alienation.
Because it has none
of the benefits.
If you work in
traditional animation,
even in CG animation, it's
a very iterative process.
You do a rough version.
You show it to the director.
You add frames.
You pull frames out.
You push the poses
a little bit more.
You work on your faces.
And little by little you build
the performance you want.
In live action you
do as many takes
as you want with
the actors until you
get the shot that you want.
In stop motion
it's very different
because in stop motion, once
you've got your faces prepared
and the storyboards are ready,
you bring the animator in.
And you may have been working
on this moment for two or three
years.
But it all comes down
to that animator launch.
The moment you sit
down and explain
to the animator what you want.
And at that point,
he gets what we
call a block, which is
essentially just posing
the puppet on six
frames or eight frames.
Now usually you animate
on twos or ones.
We animate on ones,
which means we
move the puppet
every single frame.
And so you get a block
to start off with.
Which may just be
figuring out it's
going to take Fish four steps
to make it across the room
that he's in the shot.
And there may be a camera move.
So the block is very rough.
And it doesn't have anything
to do with performance.
And then the animator
gets one rehearsal
where he does the shot
on twos to figure it out.
And that becomes
his bread crumbs.
And after that, he does
it for the final version,
and there's no going back.
Once he begins to animate
the puppet from position A
to position B to
position C, he's
committed to all that movement.
You can't go back and tweak
any of those poses earlier.
And that is just,
it's nerve wracking.
KEVIN: Terrifying.
ANTHONY STACCHI: Nobody
gets into animation
to perform in front of a crew
of live-action guys standing
over your shoulder while
you spend two weeks moving
a puppet across the screen.
We described it as, it's
opening night every day
for 18 months with
no rehearsals.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: It's much more
like theater to me, I think.
It's that same sort
of stress of like,
you give them as
much information
as you can possibly do.
And then they get
pushed out on stage,
and that's the
performance you'll
get forevermore in the film.
KEVIN: That's cool.
It's like nothing else.
And technically, even though
this is an American film,
it has a lot of
British influences.
I mean, everyone obviously
speaks with a British accent.
And then you have Nick
Frost and Simon Pegg
are huge UK comedians.
And then you have a lot
of Monty Python influences
in there as well.
The whole world
seems almost kind
of a Charles Dickens
kind of story.
And you have the
1-ton weight, which
I don't know if that was a
reference to Monty Python
or not.
But then you have
also that scene
where Snatcher has
that allergic reaction.
And that's from
Python, looks like.
ANTHONY STACCHI: Very much.
No, when we read the
book, Alan Snow's book.
He's English.
He's eccentric.
He's a really great guy.
And has a lot of
crazy influences.
That was the tone of the book.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: We always
described the project
as Python-esque.
ANTHONY STACCHI: We
discussed for a minute, let's
set it in Boston.
And that lasted about
half the meeting.
No, it was always going to stay
that way, so it seemed natural.
And luckily for us, Travis
had no problem with that.
There'd be very few animation
studios in the country
where they would agree to an
all-English cast using people
like Richard Ayoade who
aren't that well known here.
But Travis never blinked.
He thought it was appropriate.
He wouldn't have had
it any other way.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: And it
was a bit of revenge.
I mean, "ParaNorman"
was a film set
in Salem,
Massachusetts, directed
by two British fellows.
We figured it was our turn.
ANTHONY STACCHI: They made
us all look ugly and stuff,
so we made these guys.
And look, as you can see,
there's not a straight tooth.
It's our revenge
on Chris and Sam.
KEVIN: And Dee Bradley
Baker and Steve Blum,
the really, really
talented voice artists.
And they kind of created
the whole Boxtroll voices
and their whole dialogue.
And they drew a lot of
influences, they said,
from Klingon and Java language.
And Tracy Morgan almost has.
He plays--
GRAHAM ANNABLE:
Excellent English accent.
KEVIN: Excellent.
He has almost language.
What was the development
of that language
and when you guys
landed on that?
ANTHONY STACCHI: That
was another thing
that grew in the whole process.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: It was one of
the things where early on we
had all these great aspirations
of maybe writing dictionaries
of Boxtroll language and
have all the words and things
be consistent and specific.
And that's kind of what you
brought to Dee and Steve
initially, and
they tried it out.
But once we paired
it up with what
we had in terms of
the character designs
and where the story
was at, it felt wrong.
It felt too sophisticated.
ANTHONY STACCHI: It
felt like Klingon.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: It
did feel like Klingon.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
Felt like Boxtrolls
were going through the
right of ascension.
It just didn't seem appropriate.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah,
and so Steve and Dee
were hugely helpful
in finding ways
to simplify that language
down into something that
was more emotive and gestural
but wasn't so specific.
It didn't have this
sort of consistent thing
where you felt like you
needed a dictionary.
You knew through the sounds what
the Boxtrolls were getting at.
But you didn't hear
individual words so much.
It was much more selective.
And they were just incredible
at improving all that stuff.
KEVIN: Yeah, it
was really unique.
It was great.
And you talked a lot
about this in your talk.
But where do you start
to define the line
of where you're going
to go stop motion,
where are you going to CG?
ANTHONY STACCHI: Whatever
delivers the style.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: And
it's surprising.
I mean, like all
through the process
it would surprise us where we'd
presume going into a breakdown
meeting that something
would be v-effects digital
and it would end up being
practical and vice versa.
ANTHONY STACCHI: And
we're not purists.
There's a lot of people
who come to stop motion,
and they want to stay practical.
They want to stick with
an idea of stop motion
where it can be incredibly
charming. "Fantastic Mr. Fox,"
"Nightmare Before Christmas."
A lot of those films
is they're going
to make their smoke
out of cotton,
or their rain out of gelatin.
And that stuff's
incredibly charming.
And if that suits the tone
of the story of the film,
that's great.
But in our film, which we
wanted to open it up a little,
make it an
action-adventure-comedy,
we didn't want you to ever see
an effect of something that
charmed you out of the
movie, that threw you out
of the movie.
It's like suddenly
jeopardy feels real
and the world feels
really credible,
but then smoke is
made out of cotton.
So we wanted to treat it,
our stop-motion footage,
as if it was live-action
footage and we
were adding realistic
special effects.
Realistic, but on
style for our movie.
KEVIN: You talk a lot about the
ballroom scene and everything.
I mean, everything from the
Trolls Cavern and the crowd
shots and stuff was, and I
was actually surprised that
with all the stop
motion of them jumping
on top of each other
and the boxes as well.
Them gathering up
to go to sleep.
Was there any talk of
doing that CG, too?
Kind of like, hey, do
the CG back characters?
You always wanted
to do stop motion.
GRAHAM ANNABLE:
The one golden rule
in terms of choosing practical
or v-effects in a situation
is a game.
Anything that the hero puppets
interact with needs to be
and should be practical.
So everything was always
designed with that at its core.
And then we would go
from there, however
we wanted to enhance the moment
and bring different effects
into it.
ANTHONY STACCHI: Financially
it's not worthwhile
and we don't do it.
There aren't computer
avatars for the heroes.
We don't have a computer version
of Eggs or the most important
eight Boxtrolls.
So you always want those
guys front and center anyway.
So even if part of the
pile stacking around them
later is CG, when those
guys are stacking,
they're real puppets because
we don't make copies of them
digitally.
You don't want to
make the movie twice
when you make a movie like this.
So making a real Eggs and a CG
Eggs would defeat the purpose
and be twice as expensive.
KEVIN: No, absolutely.
And did you find
yourself falling back
on some of the v-effects stuff?
ANTHONY STACCHI: No, no, I mean,
the Boxtroll Cavern invasion.
In fact, there's a
couple of animators
that want to punch us out
because when Snatcher invades
the tunnel there and lands, we
animated that whole sequence
before we add the effects of all
the dust and stuff dropping in.
And we kept telling
the animators,
don't worry about animating
the rocks rolling around
on the ground.
Don't worry about it.
But they would do it every time.
So when we added
all the CG effects,
it covered up a lot of
their most subtle bits
of animation and stuff.
But we wanted it to look
super destructive, really
over the top.
KEVIN: And was it
helpful, because obviously
with all the sequences, of
having two directors on this?
So being codirectors as opposed
to just one person having it
all.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: During the
preproduction phase of it,
we're kind of joined at the hip.
And we are involved
together on almost all
the meetings and decisions.
But once the shooting
schedule begins,
that's when the studio
really benefits from the fact
that there's two of
us to be able to split
between two different
edit suites.
And we can streamline and
make as efficient as possible
all the animation launches.
We sort of split
up on sequences.
We constantly check in with
each other all day long.
ANTHONY STACCHI: We're
right next to each other.
There's 55 stages going on.
There's 27 animators working.
And they're all working
on different shots.
There's twice as many
stages as animators
because you always
want their next stage
to be setting up
when they finish.
So those things, you
have to go out and meet
with those animators at
least every other day
while they're working
on their shot.
You have set visits.
You watch what they're doing.
Or they're completing
their shots
or completing their rehearsal.
And you're reviewing
them in editorial.
And you never want
an animator standing
there waiting for
director input.
So that's when it's
really important.
KEVIN: And with the story, too.
It didn't get as
dark as the book.
The book is definitely
a little bit darker.
It got a little
bit when he's kind
of discussing about
the Boxtrolls,
about how they're stealing--
ANTHONY STACCHI: Oh, yes, her
morbid fascination with them,
yeah.
Yeah.
KEVIN: But was there any push by
the studio about you guys even
to pull back on that
darkness or put more in?
Or was it just where
the story took you?
ANTHONY STACCHI: It didn't
have a supernatural element
like "Coraline" did
and "ParaNorman."
So we were happy for that.
We definitely wanted
to brighten it up.
But we also felt from
the very beginning
that the property, the story
appealed for younger kids.
So we never wanted
to jeopardize that.
We don't do focus screenings.
Travis doesn't
believe in that stuff.
We have our own kids.
And we make movies
that we want to see.
And we judge them
by our own kids.
And honestly, I show it to my
kid, who's sick of seeing it,
to try to figure out the moments
that might be too powerful.
But we definitely believe
that because we're
an independent film studio
and because Travis really
has the vision for
this studio that he'll
want to find stories
that are willing to go
a little bit darker.
Because you need those
lower depths to get
the higher highs emotionally on
the other end of the spectrum.
And honestly, when
you were growing up
and you were watching Dumbo
and Pinocchio and a lot
of those older films,
they were willing to go
to some of those darker places.
And a lot of other studios are
attached to big corporations.
And they can't take the risk.
They need to stay in a
sort of a middle ground
there because their films
are so expensive to make.
And they're so much part
of the merchandising stuff
that they can't risk
alienating any possible facet
of the public.
We don't have those constraints.
KEVIN: I got you.
And so with you guys having
this big success and you guys
signed with Focus for
three more movies.
I know they're
not announced yet.
But where do you see
this going and pushing?
Because obviously
the ballroom sequence
was a huge learning
experience for you guys.
Would you guys ever tackle
something like that again?
ANTHONY STACCHI: Not me.
I actually have a
couple of apps I'd
like to pitch and see
if I can come down here.
KEVIN: You're hired, sir!
GRAHAM ANNABLE: Yeah.
It's hard to predict because one
of the things I've found really
amazing about
working at Laika is
each project has
been very specific
and been its own thing.
Certain things get
learned, and we evolve,
and the departments
keep refining things.
But each project
brings a whole new set
of problems, a whole
new set of challenges.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
A couple of months
ago, everybody at the studio
would jump when we called.
Now they completely ignore us
when we walk down the hallway.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: We're old news.
ANTHONY STACCHI: The
other day I was talking
to Brad Schiff, our
animation supervisor,
and he's like, [PPFF]
the faces on your movie
are nothing compared
to what they're doing.
They have five minutes
now of the next film done.
And they've already
started doing stuff,
continued to push the rapid
prototype process and stuff.
That's kind of what's
fun about the place,
too, because it gets boring for
people and heads of departments
to repeat stuff.
So they actually
like challenges.
And the next film has
a lot of challenges.
KEVIN: Well, we're
excited to see it.
Q&A for you guys.
So we got the first question?
AUDIENCE: Do you
feel that animators
who come from a traditional
or CG background get better,
become better animators because
they have to plan so much
and basically do their
final shot just once?
ANTHONY STACCHI:
I mean, it's funny
how many of the
stop-motion animators
you meet who that's
predominantly what they do.
There's quite a few of
the stop-motion people.
I know quite a few
stop-motion animators
who stop motion is what
they've always done.
And they've also animated
on the computer, too.
I don't meet so
many animators who
make the transition
the other way
and choose to go into
stop motion later.
Partially for the
reason I described.
All animation is hard.
And hard enough.
And then they look at what
stop-motion animators do,
and they go, ugh, I don't
want to go anywhere near that.
Quite a few
stop-motion animators
started out wanting
to be 2D animators,
but they couldn't draw.
Or they didn't like
all the drawing.
Or they hated the fact
that in drawing you
have to worry about stuff like
volumes changing and staying
on model and stuff.
Here and in CG in
some ways you're
freed up if you don't have
great drafting skills,
or if you don't like worrying
about staying on model,
staying on the character
design and stuff.
Here you're purely dealing with
performance and timing, which
is something that
certain animators, that's
what they love the best.
Others love drawing.
But all you're worried
about is the performance
that's going on here.
So that's why I think some
CG animators and stop-motion
animators.
The world has been opened up to
people who want to be animators
but don't draw.
So I don't know how they get
used to it except they've never
known anything else.
There are places where they
do stop-motion animation
where there's no rehearsals.
Some TV stop motion and
stuff like that or people
who have worked on "Gumby" and
some of that older stop motion.
So in some ways, as
hard as what we do,
it's actually luxurious
compared to other jobs
that they've been on.
It's just that Travis has a very
specific sort of rigorous idea
of the quality of the
animation that they want.
So it is working at
the highest level.
And I think that's probably
the most intimidating thing.
GRAHAM ANNABLE:
Yeah, definitely.
I think the fact that Travis
is one of the lead animators
and one of the
best in the studio,
that department certainly
feels the pressure
to keep their A-game up.
AUDIENCE: OK, so my
question is actually
about the statement
you made about using
practical characters
for anything that
was going to touch
another character.
Is that about appearance
or about performance?
ANTHONY STACCHI: It's
about difficulty.
It's just very hard to do.
Our plan initially
on that shot where
Eggs is hiding
under the skirts was
to put a ring around the
real puppets that were there
that he was going to
interact with so they
would dance into place.
And then Eggs would grab
the ring and lift it up.
And we would use that ring as
a guide to put in a CG skirt.
And that would just
be very difficult
and time consuming to do.
Not impossible, but
just very hard to do.
So that's mainly in
situations like that,
we like to just try to avoid.
Because it means a
lot of rotoing out,
hand painting frames,
and stuff like that.
GRAHAM ANNABLE:
It's just the way
the process has developed that
we're more efficient to keep
it all practical
in a lot of ways.
And there's a consistency
to the appearance
that you don't have
to worry that you're
going to get into
some weird realm
where the two
things bump together
or aren't looking
right, like Tony said.
AUDIENCE: Sounds
like more performance
where a single animator or a
clump of, a team of animators
can worry about, these
two characters doing
the right things to each other.
As opposed to two
different worlds
that have to be composited
and then tweaked.
ANTHONY STACCHI: It goes back
to making the movie twice.
Because you have the two worlds.
One is always
enhancing the other.
I mean, there's a couple
of wide shots in there
that are predominantly CG.
You can do camera
tricks to give you
that wide views of the city.
But that becomes problematic
when you're doing stereo in 3D.
Those little cheats
don't work as well in 3D.
So there's always an
answer to every problem,
but I don't know any of them.
I just sit in the room and wait.
Let those guys at the other
end of the table hash it out.
AUDIENCE: I was curious.
You referred to
cost a couple times.
And you said it
would double the cost
to do both CG and practical
versions of the characters.
How does the cost actually
compare overall doing this?
ANTHONY STACCHI: I
actually try to stay out
of that as much as possible.
But I do know that all
three of Laika's films
cost less to make than it
takes to make one big Pixar
film or one big DreamWorks film.
And their films are upwards of
$200 million it costs to make.
So these are significantly less.
We have about 400
people at the peak that
work on the films in
that 18-month cycle.
When we start
storyboarding, it may
be five years ago
or six years ago,
we start really
working on the story.
We have a really small crew.
And then the crew just gets
bigger and bigger and bigger
until you hit that
18-month production.
And then people start to drop
off because the puppets are all
made and the sets are all made.
So that crew is big.
It sounds like a lot,
but it's still not
as significant as a
big CG feature film.
We only have 25, 27 animators.
Pixar, DreamWorks, some of
those places, they'll have 65,
70 animators work on one of
their films by the end of it.
And they're just aren't
60 or 75 really good
stop-motion animators
in the world.
Even if you wanted to throw
that many bodies at the problem,
you couldn't find them.
KEVIN: The last thing
I wanted to talk about.
Was there any moment
in the film that
was just your favorite moment
or your most proud moment
that you guys were able
to accomplish, other
than the ballroom scene?
GRAHAM ANNABLE: For me
personally, Snatcher's end.
Out of all the screenings
we've attended and done,
I always make sure and
sneak into the theater
to be with the audience
when that moment happens.
Because for me,
storytelling-wise, that
is definitely the most
gratifying moment in the film.
ANTHONY STACCHI: For me,
when I first started on it,
I loved the story.
And my son was born about the
time I started reading it.
So immediately I felt
like the Boxtrolls
are like these Lost Boys.
And it's the story
of a lost boy.
And I started commuting
from LA up to Portland,
so I had a lost boy at
home that I wasn't seeing.
So for me that really
appealed to me.
There's a little sequence in the
film where Eggs and Winnie are
sitting on the
edge of the cavern,
and they're talking
about what a father is.
And for a long time I kept
keeping that in there.
And Travis liked that
moment and Graham liked it
because they both
have young sons, too.
And they know when
you work in animation,
the definition of an animator
is an absentee father.
So that element was
important, but the story
didn't need that moment
for a lot of its time.
And I always felt like, that
needs to be in the film.
That's at the core of the film.
It's really important.
But I had a hard
time justifying it
a lot of times to
the story department.
They were like, why is this
big conversation Winnie's
having when she's
talking about her father
doesn't seem to fit in there?
And eventually the
film got to a place
where that scene made sense.
So there was a lot
of other scenes
that I fought just as hard
for that died, miserably.
But that one survived.
And for me, that was it.
GRAHAM ANNABLE: It's one
of those rare moments where
the story gets to
breathe a little bit.
ANTHONY STACCHI:
And it slows down.
And just for me, it's the core,
the emotional core of the film.
KEVIN: No, absolutely.
And it's phenomenal.
So let's thank Tony and
Graham for joining us.
So "Boxtrolls" will be
available digitally, I think,
by the end of the month.
And then on disk
soon after that.
ANTHONY STACCHI: January.
KEVIN: Yeah, so we
look forward to you
guys' next film when
that's announced.
And thank you guys all
for joining us today.
[MUSIC LOCH LOMOND, "LITTLE
 BOXES"]
