We drive around in circles trying to find the place. There’s no signage indicating our destination — no giant, looming cartoon characters or even a logo, just a faceless building in a maze of industrial parks, about 17 miles outside of Portland. It’s a beautiful drive of course, sandwiched on a vaguely winding highway by dense Pacific Northwest foliage, past Nike’s global headquarters. Compared to the world-class tracks and fields dotting the shoemaker’s campus, Laika’s own offices are an exercise in modesty (in spite of financial ties Phil Knight), virtually indistinguishable from the densely packed businesses that surround it. There are, perhaps, certain advantages to such anonymity — for one thing, it helps the studio avoid random drop-ins by movie fans hoping to chew the ear off of their animation heroes. It also means that our cab driver does a good three passes before finally getting out of the car and asking a smoker standing outside a nearby building where to go. He thinks about it for a moment and indicates a building — a large, but otherwise indistinguishable space.
The lobby doesn’t scream Hollywood either, but it certainly offers some less-than-subtle hints that we’ve found the place: a wall-sized black and white image of classic film cameras (ancient devices, someone tells me, that were utilized on the company’s previous film), and in one corner, a tiny room encased in glass, with Coraline seated at a table in its center. This building is the house that she built — or at least kept the lights on; “Coraline” was released after its planned successor “Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure” failed to materialize. Inside, the cavernous space in excess of 150,000 square feet has become a bustling small town of creatives, laboring away in its recesses, many having traveled through several time zones to be in its rank, like carnies hopping from town to town. Stop-motion animation, after all, isn’t the most prevalent of professions, and while we’ve arguably entered a sort of golden age for the infamously labor-intensive art form, thanks in large part to the success of projects like “Coraline,” the number of studios actually investing in the form can be counted on one hand.
Continue reading How 3D printing changed the face of ‘ParaNorman’
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
How 3D printing changed the face of ‘ParaNorman’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
It’s been a rough year for Best Buy — it’s shuttered dozens of stores, seen its founder step down and even lost its CEO, Brian Dunn. Still, the big box retailer hasn’t given up hope, and today chose a new chief executive, one Hubert Joly. Until Sunday afternoon, Joly was responsible for Carlson, a hospitality and travel outfit that operates hotels and restaurants in over 150 countries. If you’ve eaten at a TGI Friday’s, you’ve patronized Joly’s old firm. Best Buy seems optimistic, according to the Wall Street Journal, noting that Joly has a knack for turning around companies in trouble. Still, Best Buy will have to get along without its new head honcho until September — the new boss is French, and is apparently waiting on a visa. In the meantime, Mike Mikan will continue to serve as interim CEO, presumably helping the board of directors sift through Richard Schulze $10 billion rescue plan.
