Behind each film lies a hidden world of imagination, ingenuity, and craftsmanship that has redefined the limits of modern animation. Immerse yourself in LAIKA's creative process through behind-the-scenes photography, video clips, and artwork from the films. Explore the production design, sets, props, puppets, technology, and costumes that have become the studio’s hallmarks.
At the heart of every LAIKA film are the artists and innovators who meticulously craft every element. While most of today’s animation is rendered digitally, LAIKA embraces a hybrid approach— while remaining deeply rooted in the tradition of physically handcrafted stop-motion, their revolutionary use of technology continues to push the medium forward in ways never imagined.
Delve into the creative process and get lost in the characters, imaginative stories, and hidden worlds of LAIKA's unforgettable stop-motion animation.
Coraline Puppet, LAIKA.
Ashland Film Set, Coraline, 2009.
It is a celebration of human ingenuity— from the skills that build wonderous worlds to the imaginations that breathe life into them, one frame at a time.
Invented in 1833, the daedalum is the earliest version of stop-motion technology and a precursor to the zoetrope, a very early version of the motion picture projector that creates images using stop-motion techniques. But even this technology builds on even older forms of optical illusions.
ZOETROPE
You may not know the term zoetrope, but you've likely seen one—a cylinder with images on the interior that creates a moving image when it spins. The zoetrope gained popularity when Milton Bradley Co. marketed it as a toy in 1866.
With the birth of motion pictures in the late 19th-century, filmmakers began to experiment with animation techniques to create special effects. The first stop-motion film is thought to be The Humpty Dumpty Circus by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1898.
That means there have been over 120 years of stop-motion animation films—and 190 years of technology, innovation, creativity, and new ways of looking at this venerable technique.
Daedalum by William George Horner, 1933.
3D Printing process, Kubo and the Two Strings, 2016.
Founded in 2005 in Hillsboro, Oregon, the globally renowned and award-winning stop-motion animation studio LAIKA is devoted to telling new and original stories using this enduring artform. Like those early trailblazers, LAIKA continues to innovate and create new technologies in stop-motion animation and filmmaking.
With their first film, Coraline (2009), LAIKA pioneers the use of cutting-edge 3D printing in stop-motion animation. With their following films: ParaNorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), Missing Link (2019), and the upcoming Wildwood, LAIKA continues to blend the worlds of imagination and realism, technology and artisanship, making unforgettable characters and their worlds come to life in an identifiably LAIKA universe.
Missing Link, 2019.
“Stop motion is like the worst, most painful way to bring a story to life, but there is something that's just rare and special and beautiful about it, that you can literally see the hands of the artists at work, bringing something to life, a frame at a time. It's just something that has magic to it.”
Travis Knight, LAIKA President + CEO