puppetmaking

Today in class we learned about puppet animations and the uncanny valley is has carved into the animation world. Many amazing companies such as Laika (the creators of Box Trolls and Paranorman) and Tim Burton’s Studios (creators of Nightmare Before Christmas and the Corpse Bride) have made leaps and bounds in this type of animation.

In class we saw many beautiful and heavy animations that were produced outside of the two companies mentioned before. One that stuck with me was Barry Purves, Screen Play. This piece reminded me a lot of Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs. Not only because of the Japanese setting and theme but its dark, creative storytelling, and unsettling style. Upon further research into the creation of Isle of Dogs, I found out that 1,000 individual puppets were made for the production with an even split between 500 dogs and 500 humans. The human puppets were made of resin to achieve a warmer translucent skin (this technique was later used in Laika’s Paranorman). The rougher animation style was accomplished by shooting the whole film on twos.

I got the pleasure to see a handful of these puppets and some of the sets when they were on display in the museum on the Savannah Campus and I can say that I was blown away. It was so surreal to see these lively characters sitting still. It was almost as if I was waiting for them to spring to life. Linked below is a video of how the puppets were made.

LeAnn Schmitt