Kubo and the Two Strings director and Laika CEO Travis Knight on bringing his Japanese fantasy epic to life.
There may be no more beautiful film you see this year thanKubo and the Two Strings.
The studio has such a unique style with everything you do.
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Travis Knight: Thank you.
Can you talk about the inspirations for this film?
At Laika, we always want to challenge ourselves.
We always want to tell new and original stories.
We want to try out new genres.
We want to dive into new worlds and explore different aspects of the human condition.
Those are kind of the core things and the philosophy that drives us in the movies that weve done.
Even in its earliest pitch it was something that seemed like it was really beautiful and special.
To be reductive about it, it was kind of a sweeping stop motion samurai epic.
But its more than that.
There was something about it that really spoke to me.
When I was a kid, when I was growing up, I loved fantasy.
I loved big epic fantasy.
I think its kind of in my bones.
Its in my DNA.
When my mom was pregnant was me, she was readingLord of the Rings.
So it was almost in the air as I took my first breath.
I was around eight years old.
I went there with my dad.
I grew up in Oregon, so I had never seen anything like it.
It was a complete revelation to me.
It was so other worldly almost in its beauty.
It was just breathtaking.
It really made an impact on me.
I was utterly enthralled by it.
Its big fantasy stories.
And its the beautiful transcendent art of Japan all kind of rolled into one.
Its almost like it was made in a factory just for me.
This is the first one you decided to direct.
What went into that decision as opposed to just maintaining the role of producer and CEO of Laika?
I think about the transition going from artist, to producer, to CEO, to director.
Artist animators, they focus on the minutia; they focus on the granularity.
Thats their whole job, is to figure out ways to bring something to life in tiny little increments.
They are focusing on detail.
And sometimes you could lose sight of the big picture.
As a producer or CEO, you are always looking at the big picture.
But it was different.
It was different than anything that Ive done before.
The decisions get so granular at some level that it could be overwhelming.
It could be very demanding.
But its by far the most creatively satisfying experience of my entire career.
It was just an amazing experience.
It was exhausting and took a big toll on me and my life.
It was an amazing thing to be a part of and Im very grateful for the experience.
Laika seems to me its its own unique entity.
The films have their own unique look, first of all because you still utilize the stop motion aesthetic.
How that translates into box office, we dont know.
But lets say you are just outside the mainstream.
Well we would loveFinding Dorymoney.
I think people make films in the way they make films.
I dont critique a live action film because they are utilizing what makes a live action film.
Thats one way of making films.
Just like working in hand-drawn animation as a way to make films is completely valid.
you might make beautiful stories using that technique.
And CG is the same sort of thing.
I think within that band, there are only so many different kinds of stories you could tell.
Its pretty limited, actually.
Theres only so much variety.
But theyre not particularly great for showcasing the diversity of human experience.
Those are the kind of films that I loved when I was a kid.
As most first-time parents, it changes everything.
You start working at the world in a different way.
You start thinking about the world in a different way.
You start thinking about your own life in a different way.
And it completely changed the trajectory of my career.
I mean, obviously, theres exceptions to that.
But stuff that was geared towards families, for the most part, it was mindless.
I didnt want to be a part of that.
I wanted to make a corrective.
So much of the stuff we see is about dividing people.
And I wanted to make films that brought people together.
So that was kind of at the core of what we did right from the beginning.
And we want to tell a lot of different kinds of stories.
And we find that exciting.
We love to do new things.
I dont want to repeat myself.
They are talking about the ideas and the themes and the things that have been raised.
And we can talk about it as a family.
We can connect as a family.
Thats what stories are supposed to do.
They are supposed to bring us together.
So thats the driving force.
Of course you want your films and your art to be seen by as many people as possible.
So I would love for us to have aFinding Dory-sized financial success.
But, at the same time, we tell stories the best way we know how.
We are drawn to telling stories that are not typically told in animation.
I think weve done a good job of telling beautiful, meaningful stories.
But weve yet to find a story that breaks through and goes everywhere.
Of course we want to do that.
But from my perspective, I dont want that to be engineering.
We can absolutely copy formulas and templates, but thats not something I want to do.
I devote my life to this.
This is my lifes work.
Outside of my family, this is the thing that matters to me more than anything.
And I dont just want to make little bits of ephemera.
What were, technically, the most challenging aspects of this one?
It was all hard.
I mean basically nothing in stop-motion comes easy when you are building entire worlds.
And thats really hard to do with stop-motion because it requires really well-observed physical acting.
There are two parts to the performance.
Theres the vocal performance supplied by the actor and theres the physical performance supplied by the animator.
But its important for these things to feel alive.
Thats what we have to do.
So it was the subtlety.
It was really beautiful, refined animation.
But then there was the spectacle as well, these giant monsters which were the size of this room.
Weve been together for 10 years.
But weve grown as artists, and as filmmakers, and as people.
And we learn with each film.
So then you’re free to apply that energy on the next show: whats the next thing?
Whats the next thing thats going to tell this story in a powerful way?
On this film there were a ton of environmental effects that were really challenging.
The flowing robes were just a nightmare.
The long hair…all that stuff is just really a pain in the ass in stop-motion.
But thats what the story was about.
We wanted to ensure that it had that cultural authenticity that was drawn from that place.
Thats the style of dress.
Thats the hairstyle; kind of that Edo period in Japan.
So you have to do that research to get to make it feel like its alive in the film.
But there was nothing that came easy.
It runs the spectrum.
I mean we have a monster that has a little deflated Mylar balloon in its head.
Sometimes its really simple stuff and other times its incredible, massive, throbbing-brain stuff.
And thats an exciting thing to be a part of that innovation.
We try and minimize that stuff as much as possible…but its there.
I think what you are seeing is the hands of the artist at work.
They are giving life to this thing.
Its a human thing.
People really give their lives to these things.
As much as we strive for perfection, we are never going to get there.
We are always going to fall short.
We are never going to be perfect…We strive for the ideal.
We never get it.
But we find beauty in those things that fall short of it.
We find beauty in those things that are imperfect.
We find beauty in those things that are human.
I think that really kind of defines stop motion on some level.
How far ahead do you look down the line?
We probably have about 10 projects at any given time that are in various forms of development.
Some are just ideas that were starting to nurture and cultivate and some things are pretty far along.
We are, in fact, shooting our next film right now.
Its the first time weve ever overlapped productions.
While we were still shootingKubo, we were beginning production on our next film.
It comes out in the spring of 2018.
So, yeah, were probably going to announce it by the end of the year I would imagine.
But they are great and they are really exciting.
And they still have the same ethos that drives everything that we do.
Kubo and the Two Stringsis out in theaters today (August 19).
