Meet the Filmmakers of The Film #TheBoxTrolls!

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I recently had the amazing opportunity to head to Portland to visit LAIKA and meet with Travis Knight, Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable to chat about the making of The Boxtrolls. LAIKA is the stop motion animation studio who brought you the films “Coraline” and “ParaNorman.”

(L to R) Director Anthony Stacchi, Director Graham Annable, Producer David Ichiok and voice talent Nick Frost review a scene during production of LAIKA and Focus Features’ family event movie THE BOXTROLLS, opening nationwide September 26th. Credit: LAIKA, Inc.

It was a fantastic opportunity to see the how these unique films come to life.

There is so much that goes into making one of these stop motion masterpieces. Not only do they build everything right in the studio…

They bring an entire world of characters to life. The Boxtrolls follows the story of a community of quirky, mischievous creatures who have lovingly raised an orphaned human boy named Eggs (voiced by Isaac Hempstead-Wright of Game of Thrones) in the amazing cavernous home they’ve built beneath the streets of Cheesebridge. When the town’s villain, Archibald Snatcher (Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley), comes up with a plot to get rid of the Boxtrolls, Eggs decides to venture above ground, “into the light,” where he meets and teams up with fabulously feisty Winnie (Elle Fanning). Together, they devise a daring plan to save Eggs’ family.

The voice cast includes: Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Elle Fanning, Jared Harris, Toni Collette, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan.

We chatted with Directors Anthony Staachi and Graham Annable about how difficult it is to make this film.  An animator typically took 1 week to complete 3.7 seconds worth of footage, which is just under 90 individual frames.

The stop-motion flames “burning” in the furnace of the Mecha-Drill are courtesy of a working iPad displaying a loop video inside the “mouth” of the device and more than 20,000 props were handmade for the movie.  55 different sculpts of prop cheeses were created for “THE BOXTROLLS.”

The Directors also discussed how they have been with the company for some time and how much they enjoy making these films. It’s a hardship at times to make these films, but it truly allows them to create something magical on the big screen.

One story they shared about recording with Sir Ben Kingsley was particularly funny. They flew all the way out to England to record his lines in the film. They were in a small cramped recording studio that Ben likes to work in and they tried to give him direction, but he was in such character that they couldn’t interrupt him. They just let him run with his lines until he was done. It’s great to hear that they let the actors explore their characters for the film.

It was truly an eye opening experience for how this film is created. Stay tuned for more on my visit to the set of The BoxTrolls!

For more information on all things The Boxtrolls visit:

The Official Site: http://www.theboxtrolls.com/
The Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theboxtrolls
Or The Official Twitter: @TheBoxtrolls

I was provided an all expense paid trip to visit the set of the film and to conduct interviews. All opinions are that of my own.