KUBO VISUAL INSPIRATION
Last time, I wrote about the conception of Kubo. This time, I thought I’d focus a little bit more on the visual approach.
As mentioned before, I began discussing Kubo with the film’s DP, Frank Passingham, long before I sold the idea.
I generally like to start a visual discussion, with (drumroll)... pictures. Lots and LOTS of pictures. Paintings, photos, film stills, anything that will cause an emotional reaction and is closely related to the story I’m trying to tell and the tone I want to strike. From there you develop your own ideas, your own image system and your own way of telling your story, but it’s alway good to start with a visual framework, IMO.
Above are some stills from a group of images I sent to Frank from David Lean’s briliant OLIVER TWIST. Now most people are familiar with Lean’s more epic work, DR. ZHIVAGO, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. But, Kubo is an intimate story that takes place in an epic world. So, I looked to Lean’s smaller films like OLIVER and GREAT EXPECTATIONS as I started to flesh the story out.
Lean’s opening scene from OLIVER, in which Oliver’s mother fights through a raging storm to to find a safe place to give birth, is one of my all time favorites. A person, on their own, battling nature to save someone else. Lean shows this visually by placing a small figure against a large, dominant background. Dark clouds looming as the storm approaches. Simple. Elegant. Moving.
From there, Lean cuts in tighter so we can see the emotional state of Oliver’s mother. See the anguish. Feel the concern. Truly brilliant.
I tried to create a similar mood while boarding the first sequence for Kubo. You can see the comparison above. Marc Haimes (screenwriter for KUBO and NIMONA) and I worked closely together on the script to describe this moment. Working from those pages, I created loose thumbnails/ storyboards that I handed off to the amazingly talented Daniel Hashimoto of ACTION MOVIE KID fame. Daniel created a beautifully realized animatic that juxtaposed the intimate and the epic in a way that played to the strengths of our world. Using the fantasy elements of the story to heighten the drama.
It was the first sequence I ever showed to the studio. It stayed almost exactly the same throughout production. You can see bits of what Frank and the incredible team at Laika did with that animatic in the trailer.
More to come...
