After nine years, Wes Anderson once again dabbled in stop-motion animation , [Isle of Dogs].
Like [The Great Fox Daddy] nine years ago, [Inuyasha] describes the relationship between people through the relationship between animals and animals.
Wes Anderson has always been known as the "gospel of detail control and obsessive-compulsive disorder." In making this film, he and the team behind the scenes applied these characteristics to the pinnacle of perfection.
[Inuyasha] tells that twenty years later in Nagasaki City, Mayor Kobayashi and his Cat Slave Dynasty launched a campaign to drive away all the dogs, so they sent all the dogs to the garbage island.
▲ Garbage island, full of human garbage
Nagasaki is a city of the future, but it is still like the city of sixty years. Colorful and neon-filled. It's chaotic and noisy
At first glance, this setting sounds almost unfriendly to dogs, but the movie itself is actually a boon for dog lovers.
In the movie, 12-year-old boy Nakataka breaks into the garbage island in search of his dog. On the garbage island, the little boy and the five dogs go through various tribulations and wonderful encounters, and the film is warm and healing.
▲ "King", "Duke", "Boss", "Monarch", "Chief" and Little Boy Zhongxiao (Picture from left to right)
Behind the film, the staff poured a lot of hard work and painstaking effort.
Nagasaki City and Garbage Island
Nagasaki City and Garbage Island are two very different worlds. In the animation's set, the design of Nagasaki City and Garbage Island is the highlight.
The city of Nagasaki, created by the set team, is as beautifully constructed as jewelry, and everything is very elaborate.
▲In the movie, the structure of a temple in Nagasaki City, as small as the handwriting on the sign, is also full of retro atmosphere
The exquisite rooms express the team's most sincere respect for Japanese culture.
The city of Nagasaki represents the future. To express a sense of futurism, the team built 150 tall buildings for the nagasaki city set, each of which is independent. There are also trains passing between buildings.
▲The set of a tall building in Nagasaki City
It is a pity that such a delicate scene is only two or three shots in the film, and the "whizzing" has passed.
Unlike Nagasaki City's futuristic feel, Garbage Island represents the past.
Garbage Island consists of a wide variety of garbage. Even if it's garbage, the production team still takes care of the audience's obsessive-compulsive hearts.
They categorized the island's garbage. Anywhere on the island, there is only one kind of garbage. Waste paper, waste cars, discarded television sets, "neat" garbage paradise.
▲ Different kinds of garbage scenes
The production team carefully designed every piece of garbage on the island and often used the garbage directly from their own homes to set the scene.
▲ Simulated a lump of garbage falling from the sky
The contrast between Nagasaki City and Garbage Island is very strong, and the film constantly jumps between the two, with a colorful world on one side and a desolate doomsday landscape on the other.
▲Nagasaki City and Garbage Island
Puppets and animations
How to match the puppet with the setting, story, dubbing, and even fun of the movie is a problem to consider before making a puppet.
Before making the face model, it is necessary to record the dubbing, and then extract the phonemes in the dubbing one by one, so as to make a face model under each phoneme, and finally achieve the effect of seamlessly fitting with the dubbing.
Each phoneme has to make a face model
Therefore, human characters have a face replacement system, and all face molds are handmade.
▲A wide variety of face molds
During the handmade process, the puppet maker spends a lot of effort integrating the details.
Take, for example, a character named Tracey in the movie. The freckles on her face are made entirely of naked eyes and a small paintbrush. There are 297 freckles on each face, and the puppeteers have painted more than 22,000 freckles on Tracy's face.
▲ Tracy's freckles are a bit "not easy"
The hair of humans and dogs is also inserted by the puppet maker with needles, and at the same time, it is necessary to ensure that the hair of the character's replacement face must be exactly the same.
▲ A maker who is inserting hair for a puppet
After the puppet making is completed, how to make the puppets move has become a new problem.
And all along, the hardest part of stop-motion animation is getting the characters to walk.
To this end, the animators filmed a live-action demonstration video. Based on the movements, gestures and emotional states in the video, combined with the animation storyboard, it seems that the character's walking is more realistic.
For dogs walking, the animators have built a database of canine walking. Animators animate based on information in databases. Different dogs also walk differently, in order to show their different personalities.
▲Different dogs walk.
The animators of Inuyasha Inject life, emotion, and vitality into the picture, giving animation life.
Behind the scenes of [Inuyasha], whether it is a set designer, puppeteer or animator, they all add vitality to this animation with the spirit of "craftsman".
▲ To you than careful Wes Anderson.
On April 20th, let's go to the big screen and see this heartfelt animation!