The seventh edition of The Anim’est International Animation Film Festival will take place from 5 to 14 october 2012 at Patria Cinema, Studio Cinema and Control Club in Bucharest.
Paranorman, one of this year’s most anticipated feature films, will open the festival on october 5. In a special presentation will take part, on this occasion, the famous American studio specializing in stop-motion animation, LAIKA, in the Guest Studio Section.
ParaNorman will have its premiere screening in Romania, for the Anim’est audience, after a few weeks of being released in the USA, on august 17. Directed by Sam Fell (The Tale Of Despereaux, Flushed Away) and Chris Butler, with a story written by the latter, the 3D stop-motion animated feature is the second major project of the Laika Studio, after Coraline (d. Henry Selick, 2009), Oscar and Golden Globes nominee for The Best Animation. After the Anim’est projection, ParaNorman will be screened in Romania by Rolmage distributor.
ParaNorman is a comedy thriller whose hero, an eleven year old boy with special powers, Norman Babcock, has to deal with zombies, ghosts, witches -and the worst- grown-ups, in his attempt of rescuing his small town from a centuries-old curse. Paranorman borrowed the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Casey Affleck, Anna Kendrick, John Goodman, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Elaine Strich, Tempestt Bledsoe, Bernard Hill and Alex Borstein.
Laika – Guest Studio at Anim’est 2012
A stop-motion animated feature, with dolls and objects, filmed with stereoscopic cameras, requires a huge effort by a large team of animators, designers and technicians. From drawing and then manufacturing all objects to their 3D animation, the process is long and expensive – Just in the Coraline project were 450 people involved.
Mark Shapiro, the Head of Entertainment Brand Marketing of American studio LAIKA, will speak at Anim’est about the behind-the-scenes of such animations. He will present a making-of about hundreds of handmade items for ParaNorman, give details, accompanied by images from the film’s lab and bring to Bucharest some animated dolls. Shapiro will also explain what kind of difficulties and risks such a production involves and the reasons why the studio has chosen to specialize in stop-motion animation.
Mark Shapiro manages the LAIKA brand since 2007 and has an extensive experience in communications, advertising, public relations and film production, working for companies such as Nike, Town & Country Magazine and Upper Deck.
The LAIKA studio in Portland, Oregon, is one of the major studios dedicated to stop-motion animated film. It has two divisions: Laika Entertainment, which produces feature films, and Laika / house for videos and commercials. The company owner is Phil Knight, Nike co-founder. In 2002 he purchased Will Vinton Studios, on the brink of bankruptcy, to invest in the production of feature films. A year later, director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) was joining the creative team as a supervisor and in 2005, the studios reinvented themselves as LAIKA.
The first film released was the first great success – Coraline (2009), which will be projected at Anim’est as part of the flashback dedicated to LAIKA in the Guest Studio Section. At this point, the LAIKA animators are preparing a feature film whose title has not yet been announced and will be ready in 2014. The company bought the rights to adapt two fantasy novels: Wildwood by Colin Meloy, and Goblins by Philip Reeve.
