Text | Zazie
Hollywood has a whole bunch of great cartoons every year, but my favorite cartoons of the past 2016 have been two.
One is "Zootopia" released in China at the beginning of last year, and I believe no one has not seen it. There is also a new work by Laika Studio, "Legend of the Magic String", which is finally released in China today.
Let's take a look at the cast of the voices: Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Marla, Ralph Fiennes, the super Oscar lineup. It is worth mentioning that the voice actor of the main character Kubo is Art Parkinson, do you know who this little guy is?
Anyone who has seen Game of Thrones will remember Rickon, the youngest child of the Stark family, and Art is the actor of Rickon. This is his first film to play a leading role, the performance is very good, I believe it will be able to shine in the future.
Art Parkinson
Tales of the Magic Strings tells the story of a typical Odyssey hero's journey adventure set in Edo-period Japan, and contains a variety of classic Japanese elements throughout the film. At the beginning, it is a huge curtain-like wave, and at the first glance, it is a tribute to Katsushika Hokusai's "Kanagawa Waves".
The protagonist, Kubo, makes a living playing shamisen commentaries, and whenever he plays the piano, the pieces of paper in his backpack automatically become the art of origami.
Origami art
One of the inspirations for "Legend of the Magic String" is the Japanese film master Akira Kurosawa. The director of the film personally admitted that Akira Kurosawa's visual style influenced the animation.
The members of Laika's studio put in great effort to make this oriental-style film, for example, the stylist of the film learned the famous folding techniques of the modern Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake; the lighting photographer watched a number of documentaries filmed in Japan; and the puppet group also specialized in the construction of samurai armor at the Portland Art Museum.
Villain Auntie's look (voiced by Rooney Mara)
The film uses the technique of stop-motion animation, which allows the characters to move by shooting the subject frame by frame and then showing all the frames in a row. Stop-motion animation is generally performed by clay puppets, puppets or mixed material characters, which means that every character, prop, and scene needs to be made by hand.
Handmade real scene shooting
Legend of the Magic Strings is already the fourth stop-motion feature film at Laika Studios, the first three being Ghost Mother, Psychic Boy Norman, and Box Monster. Laika is so fond of stop-motion animation, but they are not stubborn, but actively combine stop-motion animation with the latest technology, including CG, 3D printing, and their newly invented rapid prototyping technology (RP), which has been used in The Legend of the Magic String.
Ghost Mother (2009)
An important reason Why Laika Studio is so great is that it has a very good and unique leader. The STUDIO's CEO, the director of Legend of the Magic Strings, is Travis Knight.
Yes, his father was Phil Knight, the legendary owner of Nike.
But do you think Travis Knight is a rich second generation hiding in his father's shadow? That would be a big misunderstanding. Little Knight has been in the animation industry for twenty years and has been involved in the production of three other stop-motion animation films by Laika, and is very experienced.
Knight is recently promoting the new film "The Legend of the Magic String" in China, and Iris and he have completed a wonderful interview, the following is the full text of the interview.
Directed by Trast Knight
Iris: Legend of the Magic Strings is Laika Studios' fourth stop-motion feature film, so why have you been focusing on the time-consuming, complex, and difficult creation of stop-motion animation?
Knight: I've loved stop-motion animation since I was a kid, and it's been around for over a hundred years. It's a beautiful and special way of shooting, where objects are real, light is real, cameras are real. Animators use their hands to bring these things to life, beautiful, warm, and glamorous.
While it's a very old way of filmmaking, by combining CG, 3D printing, and other new technologies, we've brought it to a new era and brought it back to life. We made stop-motion animation unique, hoping that the audience would see something different, because no one did it.
Box Monster (2014)
Iris: "Ghost Mother" walks the gothic style, "Norman" talks about the psychic, "Box Monster" talks about the monster, "The Legend of the Magic String" can talk to the dead relatives with a bit of psychic color, why do you like stories with supernatural and ghost elements?
Knight: It's interesting. You tell stories, you create worlds, you shape characters, you embark on journeys, but beneath the surface of this story, creators always want to tell something very personal that comes from their own thoughts, experiences, and lives.
When you take the story out of reality and into fantasy and supernatural settings, everything becomes quite stylized, beyond everyone's experience, which in turn allows you to talk about real, important themes that we are all familiar with but that don't happen in our daily lives.
The surreal setting allows us to tell exciting stories, they are full of drama, beautiful and dark, and these exaggerated elements make the story very tense.
Psychic Boy Norman (2012)
Iris: In Legend of the Magic Strings, the protagonists are led by monkeys and beetles, what is the reason for this setting?
Knight: For himself, and to save the villagers, Kubo began his journey, where he met two guides. The protagonist embarks on a heroic journey and meets a guide on the way, a plot that is a tradition of folklore and mythological stories. But the guides are usually men, and in this film, for very special reasons, we chose women to be the main guides. We portrayed the character as a strong, fierce, savage white monkey, and it was necessary to show her sense of strength, not gentleness.
Later, Kubo encounters the Beetle, who is portrayed as a Japanese samurai with a shell like armor and horns on his head like a samurai helmet, because he was a cursed samurai, he was a great warrior, he held fast to his beliefs, and he was a loyal man. The two characters have personalities, black and white, opposing each other, but when they are together, they are very complementary and perfect.
Beetle (voiced by Matthew McConaughey), Kubo and Monkey (voiced by Charlize Theron)
Iris: In Laika Studio's previous works, strong women are a more distinct element, such as the mother in "Ghost Mother", Aggie in "Psychic Boy Norman", Winnie Portley-Rind in "Box Monster", and now the mother and aunt in "The Legend of the Magic String", are there some similarities between these strong female characters?
Knight: A lot of it's because of my personal experience, I was raised by my mother, and she's a really good woman. Childhood meant a lot to me, when I was very close to her, she was my best friend and had a huge impact on my later life and career. If she hadn't brought me music, art, and stories, I wouldn't have been where I am now, and I wouldn't have been where I am today.
Growing up in such a family also allowed me to create female characters that are usually strong and powerful. I think it's very natural to present aspects of our lives, you know there are a lot of strong women in life, but in Western cartoons there aren't many such female characters, so I want to do that.
When we started working on Ghost Mother, we contacted a lot of studios, but no one wanted to make this film, and one reason was because the protagonist was a very strong girl, and they said that boys wouldn't go to see cartoons where the protagonist was a girl.
It's weird, it's an outdated idea, and strong women mean a lot to all of us in our lives.
Kubo and mother
Iris: Grandpa Luna eventually turned into a fanged flying beast, where did you get your inspiration?
Knight: The Legend of the Magic String is inspired by folklore and mythology from all over the world, our studio is on the West Coast of the United States, but our artists come from all over the world.
So when we created this story, we drew inspiration from everyone's experiences, cultural backgrounds and hometown legends, and finally created a rather diverse story. In general legends, there is a hero vs. the big boss, such as the knight vs. the dragon, and we also inherit this traditional hero narrative line, at the end of the film, let the hero play against the final boss.
But what is different for us is that the final story is not about violence, revenge and desire, but about understanding and forgiveness, and finally the power of love, family, and empathy triumphs over violence. Although the protagonist is physically weak, the Moon King is far superior to him, but because the family brings him great energy, he can face such a powerful opponent.
Iris: Why "Luna"? Does the moon have any special significance?
Knight: In myths and legends all over the world, the sun and the moon are very important elements. The moon is the symbol of the night, the eternal eye of the night, and it keeps an eye on Kubo, and if he doesn't let him go out at night, he won't be able to go to the bigger world. Many myths draw inspiration from the sun, moon, stars, and the universe, which has a sense of epicness.
When the protagonist is confronted with God, such a powerful opponent as the universe, we can highlight his growth.
Grandpa Luna (voiced by Ralph Fiennes)
Iris: This is your first time directing a film, choosing to tell an oriental story, do you have any feelings for Asia?
Knight: When I was eight or nine years old, my father took me on a business trip to Asia, and we went to Japan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. I grew up on the West Coast of the United States, it was my first time in Asia, and it was an eye-opening trip for me as a young man, and it even changed my life. I still reminisce about the experience when I get home, it's a completely different cultural experience.
So when I was directing a film for the first time, I wanted to put in the elements that I had loved since I was a child, including family, story, fantasy, and of course, oriental culture, which was very important not only to me, but also to my family, to my father. This cartoon combines all of these elements, and in Western movies, we rarely see these elements of oriental culture, and I mix them up because I liked them since I was a child.
Iris: When you try to mix Eastern and Western cultures in one story, do you find any major differences between them? How do you reconcile elements of different cultures?
Knight: We do have a lot of differences, and the beauty of cross-culture is that there are a lot of things that connect us. One of the inspirations for this film is Akira Kurosawa, and interestingly, he grew up in Japan, but was greatly influenced by the West, especially Shakespeare. Many of Kurosawa's good works are adapted from Shakespeare's plays.
It's beautiful to be influenced by other cultures, whether it's the United States, China, Korea or the United Kingdom, and it's wonderful in itself that these different cultures come together in a single work of art. This cartoon is a mixture of Eastern and Western cultures, a true cross-cultural fusion, very interesting.
Iris: The design of the shamisen and origami in the film is very oriental, but these are all superficial aesthetics, is there any deeper oriental cultural spirit in the film?
Knight: Yes, mostly Buddhism. Buddhism is completely different from Western theology, and what inspires me the most is that even if the things that are important to us have disappeared and are no longer around us, we can still see beauty in our shortcomings, and we can still move forward. This kind of thinking is very powerful, we rarely see it in American culture, in American movies, so we not only invest in oriental elements in art design, we also want to show the oriental spirit.
Iris: This cartoon is beautiful from beginning to end, I would like to ask you which one is your personal favorite?
Knight: It's a road adventure story, and we've designed a lot of scenes for this imaginary world, and these scenes are very dreamy, with ice and snow, huge monsters, huge skeleton monsters, underwater eye gardens, and finally dragons and beasts.
But my favorites are those quiet moments where the characters are chatting together, getting to know each other, sharing emotions, eating together, staying in caves, sitting on boats, watching the sunset. These scenes are visually beautiful, but I think it's the emotions that move people the most. While adventure films are always so dreamy and exciting, the most important thing is love and family.
Iris: Art Parkinson's performance in the film is very good, why did you choose him in the first place? Did you know him from Game of Thrones?
Knight: I'm a big fan of Game of Thrones! I love epic fantasy stories like this, it's one of the best fantasy works of our time. I wasn't familiar with Art before, we started working with him three years ago, and he didn't appear in Game of Thrones.
We tried out countless actors for the role of Kubo. We design a character first, and then find an actor to match the sound when there is no picture, and when the sound comes out, the role comes to life. Dubbing is quite important, so we tried a lot of actors, and when we heard Art's voiceover, his voice was quite beautiful, both penetrating, fragile and emotional, the texture was quite good, he was a very good and natural actor.
In the dubbing he deliberately imitated the American accent, but when we first met, we used Skype, and I found out that he was a kid from the Irish countryside, the Irish accent was particularly heavy, and I thought to myself how could this be the same child! But he's very talented in accents, he's a great kid, and his performance in the film is very moving.
Iris: What did you gain from being an animator for the first three works of the studio, and did you have any experience in directing The Legend of the Magic Strings?
Knight: I've been in the animation industry for twenty years, and it's been a long time in my life. I've done a lot of different things in those twenty years, as a production assistant, as a stop-motion animator, as a CG animator, as a development department, as a producer, as a company.
These different jobs have provided me with different perspectives on making cartoons. As an animator, you focus on the details, you give life to all these things, you make the characters come alive on the screen. But sometimes you have to see the bigger picture, as a director, you not only need to pay attention to the details, the plot, etc., you need to communicate with other team members. Therefore, many years of experience as an animator can be regarded as a director's training and preparation.
Iris: You started out as a singer and then switched to animation, can you tell us why?
Knight: I've always been interested in art, I love to draw, I used to draw when I was a kid, I used to draw and create my own cartoons. Around the age of ten I started trying to make cartoons, and I wanted to know how cartoons were made, so I went to school to teach myself. As a teenager, I fell in love with music. I love all kinds of art, which are all sources of inspiration for different aspects that allow people to see the world more creatively.
Animation is also musical and rhythmic, the previous experience as a musician helped me become a better animator, the action and rhythm in the animation constitute the behavior of the characters, making the characters come to life, this process is very musical.
Iris: Can you tell us a little bit about the music of The Legend of the Magic Strings?
Knight: Music is quite important in this cartoon. When we listen to music, we can feel the emotions that may not be easy to describe. I think music is all about resonance, it's the inspiration for emotions, it's our creativity and our soul. In this cartoon, Kubo is a musician, and music is his way of expressing himself, the art form he creates.
Because of this, music is so important in the film that we need the right rhythm and melody. We brought in the excellent composer Dario Marianelli, who was able to blend Eastern and Western music very well, whether it was Asian or Western instruments.
The voices and emotions he creates are unique, and it's a cross-cultural attempt. The music in the film is very compatible with the mood of the characters, and it allows the audience to better substitute for the characters.
*The Legend of the Magic String will be released in theaters today.