Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs: Puppet Master reveals the challenges of creating believability

(image via IMP Awards)

 

SNAPSHOT
It was a huge challenge – a huge challenge and I think probably the most ambitious stop-motion film certainly I’ve ever worked on. There’s always a lot of detail. Stop-motion sort of thrives on that you know. You’re creating miniatures, so when you create miniatures they have to be absolutely working miniature versions of the real life. So everything has to have that level of authenticity. (synopsis via Laughing Squid)

Stop motion animation is a demanding business.

While it looks seamlessly easy to the untrained eyes of the audience, the reality, as Puppet Master Andy Gent reveals to Variety about his work on Wes Anderson’s sublimely-good film Isle of Dogs, is that it requires a huge amount of patience and ingenuity to get right.

The biggest challenge of all is making it all look real.

Sure, it’s obviously not in one sense, but the great conceit of any film, stop-motion animated or not, is making it look like it could happen, like this world could actually exist here and now in the real world.

While he may have face some major obstacles and challenges, the result is a gorgeously piece of cinematic artistry that is an absolute pleasure in which to be immersed.

 

 

Here’s the scene referenced in the video so you could fully appreciate what a work of art Puppet Master Andy Gent has created.

 

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