The quality of the cartoons released this year is particularly excellent, such as "Zoo Crazed", "Your Name", "Finding Nemo 2", "Journey to the West: The Great Sage Returns", etc., think back, if there are three in a year When you have four cartoons that you can still think of and find that they are good-looking and fun, you will basically feel that this year's animated films are of high quality. Today, I would like to recommend a stop-motion animation masterpiece that is different from the above several animations-"Legend of Magic Strings".
Speaking of stop-motion animation, the first impression of the post-80s generation should be our own cartoons produced by China, such as "The Story of Avanti" and "Ma Liang" (Chinese animation of that era, even the Japanese envy them), Recent stop motion animations include "Mary and Marx", "The Great Fox Papa", "Zombie Bride", "Mother Ghost", "Sean the Sheep" series and so on.
Due to the development of film technology and the application of CG technology in movies, the long production cycle of stop-motion animation and the limitation of its expression form have led to the relatively slow development of stop-motion animation, and the output is not high. However, this "Legend of Magic Strings" broke my understanding of stop-motion animation, and I felt amazing.
About the production team
American Lycra Studio, company CEO Travis Knight is a real "rich second generation", his father is Phil Knight, the president of Nike Empire.
Maybe he inherited his father’s restless genes (Old Knight decided to sell shoes after graduating from Stanford Business School at the age of 24, which really made his father count down, but he still insisted, and finally made the Nike empire)
After he graduated, he went to an animation company named Will Winton, of course he was just a handyman at the time. However, different from the internship experience of Diaosi, the company he went to was invested by his father, and the CEO of the company also asked Knight to intern at the company for the sake of face. This company has a great founder, Will Winton, the "father of clay animation". It is this environment that made Little Knight interested in doll animation; later the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and Old Knight simply I bought the company and let my son be the CEO.
Little Knight changed the company's name to the current Lycra Studio, and successively participated in the production of Tim Burton's "Zombie Bride", produced and released "Ghost Mother", "Psychic Boy Norman", "Strange Box", etc. Films with a unified style, stop-motion animation combined with CG technology, these animations also laid the foundation for the production of "Legend of Magic Strings".
About the storyline
The story tells the story of a one-eyed teenager, Kubo, who is burdened with family hatred. He originally lived with his mother in a cave by the sea. He spent the day when he set up market stalls and took care of his mother at night. He accidentally forgot the time to go home. He came to kill his father and enemy, that is, his aunt and grandfather's pursuit, forced to separate from his mother, embarked on a fantasy journey of finding the legendary artifact and revenge, and finally realized the importance of family and self-growth s story.
Some people think that the plot is the relatively weak part of this movie, and it is estimated that the ending is too easy to guess. However, in my opinion, the flaws are not concealed. The story includes the growth adventures of the teenagers we are familiar with, the gentle expression of Eastern affection and filial piety, the shadow of the challenge to patriarchal authority in traditional Shakespearean dramas, and the shadows of Indiana Jones. Kind of passing the game.
In the story, Kubo's mother and father are transformed into apes amulets and beetle warriors, and they always accompany Kubo who is looking for artifacts. The symbol of patriarchy, grandpa, is the image of the cold moon king.
In the end, Kubo's weapon to defeat his grandfather was not an artifact that was painstakingly searched for, but a shamisen made from the hair of his mother and father, respectively, revealing a strong oriental Zen. The best result for the enemy is not killing. It is forgiveness.
About behind-the-scenes production
In the behind-the-scenes production of the exposure, the director revealed the production secret "physical model + familiar special effects + 3D printing technology", which explains why the style of the screen is so different from the traditional stop motion animation, although it is a stop motion animation, the performance The reason is not inferior to CG animation. However, because the foundation is still stop-motion animation, making models has become an indispensable part, and it is a super-expressive, super-sized model, each of which is carefully crafted.
Because of the characteristics of stop motion animation, every scene change, every action change needs to be done manually, and every frame change needs to be finally presented in the movie. Therefore, on average, only 2-5 seconds of shots can be completed per day. The production cycle It took a total of 5 years.
The movie includes more than 70 scenes and more than 400 staff members. Every day, their job is to show the changes in each frame step by step. It is boring and boring. The most troublesome thing is the change in the expression of the characters, just Kubo. This one character has 48 million emoticons, and most of them only use it once.
The production team has also made many new attempts on the basis of traditional stop-motion animation, such as printing the mold with 3D printing technology, which greatly saves the time of manual production and avoids the deviations in manual production. For example, using CG animation to show a wide panoramic shot that is rare in traditional stop motion animation.
In this era where everything pays attention to the input-output ratio, and emphasizes fast input and efficient output, there are still people who can produce this stop-motion animation feature that may not be able to recover the cost in such a willful time. It is really admirable. The Oriental Zen rhyme and the tone of calling for the supremacy of family affection shown in the movie can also resonate even more with Chinese audiences. Thanks to this rich second generation who is obsessed with craftsmanship, so that we can see such an excellent animation, so everyone takes advantage of the domestic release, hurry up and see it~
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