Travis Knight:Telling Stories that Matter
A poster for Kubo and the Two Strings. Kubo and the Two Strings definitely had a good start in 2017. After the film was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film and Best Visual Effects prizes at the 89th Academy Awards in January, it also won Best Animated Film at the 70th British Academy Film Awards in February. The film revolves around a young boy named Kubo, who has magical powers and whose left eye was stolen. Accompanied by Monkey and Beetle, he must locate a magical suit of armor worn by his late father in order to defeat a vengeful spirit from the past.The film, with Cindy Lin from Infotainment China Media as its Chinese distributor, hit China’s big screens on January 13, and is expected to run until March 12. A 3D stop-motion fantasy action-adventure film produced by LAIKA Entertainment, an American stop-motion animation studio, Kubo and the Two Strings marks the directorial debut of Travis Knight. Previously better known as LAIKA’s lead animator, Knight has shown his ability to control the overall pace of a production in this film.
Knight was born in 1973 in Hillsboro, Oregon, U.S.A. While many people have suggested that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, as the son of Phil Knight, founder and chairman of Nike, Inc., he wanted to take a different road. In 1993, he released his rap album Get off Mine as Chilly Tee, as well as a single of the same name. Soon, however, Knight realized that instead of becoming a successful rapper, he was more interested in stop-motion animation, an animation technique that physically manipulates an object so that it appears to move on its own. Knight went back to university before joining LAIKA in the late 1990s, where he quickly devoted himself to the trade. He later went on to serve as the company’s lead animator, president, and CEO. What does Knight have to say about Kubo and the Two Strings? How does he generally view LAIKA’s work? What are the special features of LAIKA? With these questions in mind, China Pictorial sat down with Knight to find out more.
China Pictorial (CP): What was the inspiration for Kubo and the Two Strings?
Travis Knight (Knight): I had been wanting to do a big epic movie at LAIKA for some time, and this just really contained all those elements. My mother had instilled in me a love of big fantasy stories, things like The Lord of the Rings and other fantasy works. And then when I was about eight years old, my father let me tag along on one of his business trips and we trav-eled throughout Asia, including Beijing and Shanghai, igniting a lifelong admiration for Eastern culture. So you might say that my inspiration came from family, and we made a movie that, at its core, is about family. And then our character designer brought us an original idea that became the basis for Kubo and the Two Strings.
I had been looking for something big, expansive and epic in nature. To make a small-scale movie shot on a gussied-up slab of wood in a warehouse look and feel like a large-scale epic lensed on an endless majestic vista is a nigh-on impossible task. It’s ridiculous. Nobody would do that, which is exactly why I was excited to do it with Kubo and the Two Strings. Fundamentally, it’s the same process that Willis O’Brien used in King Kong in 1933, but we’ve created technology and techniques that have completely transformed the medium.
Stills from Kubo and the Two Strings.
Having worked in animation for two decades, during which time he slogged through the mire of artistic creation and development as well as production and management, Knight says that he has devoted himself to the simplest of goals: making movies that matter.
Stills from Kubo and the Two Strings.
Knight and the audience at the Chinese premiere of Kubo and the Two Strings. As a director, Knight combines things he has loved deeply about the movies ever since he was a child: epic fantasy, animation, heroic stories, and the transcendent art and philosophy of Asia. CP: In terms of the plot, Kubo and the Two Strings is quite a typical American story, although the movie has incorporated plenty of elements from the East. What made you want to give an Ameri can story an “Eastern outfit”?
Knight: We have found that the more intimate you make a story, the more universal it becomes. The idea of a young boy trying to reconnect with his family is a universal theme, so that makes for a story that can cast a wide emotional net. Our crew spent much time researching Eastern culture. As I said, I took my first trip to Asia including Beijing and Shanghai when I was around eight years old. Growing up in America’s Pacific Northwest, in many ways Asia felt like home, but in other, very striking ways it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was beautiful and breathtaking. My childhood introduction was the beginning of a life-long love affair with Eastern culture. It’s no coincidence that my first film as a director combines all these things I’ve loved deeply since I was a child: epic fantasy, animation, heroic stories on a grand scale, and the beautiful, transcendent art and philosophy of Asia.
CP: Previously, you mainly worked as the lead animator at LAIKA. How do you feel about your directorial debut in Kubo and the Two Strings?
Knight: Directing the film has been the most creatively satisfying experience of my life. And there’s more of me in Kubo and the Two Strings than in anything I’ve ever done. That can be a slightly terrifying prospect: revealing a part of yourself that you typically keep shrouded and protected. But it’s what we need to do if we want to tell stories that have meaning, resonance and real heart.
Being a director took advantage of every single one of my earlier experiences. This film was technically demanding, but emotionally more so. Life is fuel for art, and my experiences with my family combined with a life working in animation gave me confidence that I could do this story justice. When you’re the director, you’re the nexus of everything. Every single decision ultimately piles up on the director’s shoulders. It can be exhausting. But it’s also exhilarating. You’re surrounded by so many brilliant and passionate artists. You try to inspire them, but ultimately they’re the ones inspiring you. It’s a beauti ful collaboration.
CP: Chinese millennials and kids today are quite familiar with international animations, such as those from DreamWorks or Disney. What makes LAIKA and its works different from theirs?
Knight: From the beginning, our community at LAIKA has wholeheartedly pursued the simplest of goals: to make movies that matter. Of course, that unadorned statement belies the enormous, back-breaking and mindnumbing complexity of crafting an animated film from scratch and slowly, painstakingly coaxing it to life a frame at a time over the course of many years. But, putting all that aside, stripping everything else away, we’re just simple storytellers. We tell stories that move us and that we hope resonate in the same way with audiences of all ages, and families in particular, all over the world.
Kubo and the Two Strings is a public pronouncement of LAIKA’s commitment to tell stories that matter. Long after the thing itself is gone, our story of it can endure, thrive, and grow in power and meaning. The abiding power of stories reminds me that art can transcend any given time, place, and culture. And that art can draw us together over shared thoughts, emotions, and experi-ences and speak to that which makes us who we are. My great hope is that Kubo and the Two Strings is that kind of story.
CP: LAIKA has only produced four films — Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings — in the past 10 years. Is there a par ticular reason for that? Knight: We want to make movies that matter, and to do so in a way that truly pushes the medium of animation forward. That takes time. For Kubo and the Two Strings, the time from the very start of development to the time we came to theaters was about five years. Any one animator on any given week might produce three to four seconds of footage, so we’re having a good week if the entire animation team has produced a minute or two of footage. It’s a slow process, but we think it’s worth it. We continue to take this medium of stopmotion animation to places it has never been and to expand its storytelling possibilities. For this movie, we took techniques from the theater, from the stage, from woodworkers and machinists, from traditional artists and craftspeople, and futurists and technophiles… and maybe even some technophobes.
LAIKA re-imagined the process to revolutionize facial replacement in stopmotion animation: for decades, the puppet’s entire head was swapped out to change the facial expression, but with the breakthrough Rapid Prototyping 3D printers we could create upper and lower portions of faces. This innovation yields trays and trays of facial halves allowing our ‘hero’ puppets to have millions of potential facial expressions. Besides, people who work at LAIKA have an innate artistic restlessness, quieted only when a story challenge is identified and met. 
Travis Knight takes the puppet of Kubo to the Palace Museum during his Beijing promotion of the film Kubo and the Two Strings. In this film, Knight exhibits his ability to control the overall pace of a production.