LAIKA celebrate tenth anniversary
This month marks ten years of LAIKA, the Oregon-based, award-winning animation studio behind such films as Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls. To mark the occasion, the studio have put together a special tenth anniversary video reel presented by CEO Travis Knight and bringing together footage from their assortment of feature film projects, including their latest Kubo and the Two Strings, due for release in 2016.
When LAIKA began we had a simple goal: to make movies that matter. LAIKA is devoted to telling new and original stories in new and original ways. We aspire to make films that are bold, distinctive, and enduring. We are committed to telling stories that are thematically challenging, aesthetically beautiful, emotionally resonant, and a wee bit subversive. By combining stop-motion animation with cutting-edge creative approaches, we’ve embraced the fusion of art and craft and technology, honoring tradition while looking toward the future. We invented new systems and technologies for liberating the camera, to make our films more cinematic. We created new techniques for building and animating our puppets, to make our characters more lifelike and to connect more immediately and intimately with audiences. We discovered new processes for integrating practical and digital visual effects, to make our worlds more authentic. But we’re never satisfied. There’s an inherent restlessness at LAIKA. We always want to challenge ourselves.
Stripping everything else away, we’re simple storytellers. We’re the heirs of flamboyant stage magicians, plainspoken raconteurs spinning yarns around a campfire, and knuckle-dragging troglodytes scrawling stick figures on a cave wall. We believe telling stories is one of the prime functions of the human mind and spirit. A good story can elicit empathy, opening us up to new possibilities, to new ways of thinking, to recognizing the shared humanity in which we all participate. And, in the end, that’s ultimately LAIKA’s reason for being.
These last ten years have been magical, but as I look forward I’m more excited for what the future holds. We’re just getting warmed up.
-Travis Knight, LAIKA’s President and CEO
Kubo and the Two Strings will mark longtime producer Knight’s directorial debut, and recently launched its first teaser trailer which you can watch below:
For more on the work of LAIKA visit laika.com