Laika
A brawl is about to go down in this scene from "Missing Link."
- The creative team from stop-motion animation production company, Laika, explains how it made the ambitious bar room brawl scene in "Missing Link."
- It took 100 weeks (the length of the production of the entire movie) to accomplish the scene.
- And it was all done by one animator.
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There's nothing more mind-boggling and enjoyable to watch than good stop-motion animation.
The filmmaking technique, which requires a great eye for detail and lots of patience - as objects are moved ever so slightly between photographed frames so it looks like they are independently in motion once played back - has been dazzling audiences since the 1900s. But it's the Oregon-based company Laika that has recently pushed the medium to a point where it can compete with the glossy computer-generated animation of Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks.
Known best for its Oscar-nominated projects like "Coraline" and "Kubo and the Two Strings," Laika's movies have told powerful stories while displaying incredible artistry. And its latest, "Missing Link" (available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming), is the company's most audacious undertaking yet.
Written and directed by Chris Butler ("ParaNorman"), the movie follows famous explorer Sir Lionel Frost (voiced by Hugh Jackman) who agrees to help a Bigfoot named Mr. Link (Zach Galifianakis) find his long-lost relatives, the Yeti, in the Himalayas. The movie took five years to complete, and the result is a beautiful journey across the globe that has the company once again vying for an Oscar nomination.
Business Insider spoke to Laika animation supervisor, Brad Schiff, and visual effects supervisor, Steve Emerson, about one of the movie's most impressive scenes: a bar room brawl where Sir Lionel and Mr. Link face off against the movie's villain, Stenk (Timothy Olyphant), and his goons.
Here's how the scene was created (check out an exclusive clip of the scene at the end of the story):