William Gale Vinton was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work alongside several Emmy Awards and Clio Awards for his studio's work.
Philip Hampson Knight is an American billionaire business magnate who is the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., a global sports equipment and apparel company. He was previously its chairman and CEO. As of December 2023, Forbes estimated his net worth at $45.0 billion. He is also the owner of the stop motion film production company Laika. Knight is a graduate of the University of Oregon and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was part of the track and field club under coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon with whom he would later co-found Nike.
Laika is an American stop-motion animation studio specializing in feature films, commercial content for all media, music videos, and short films. The studio is best known for its stop-motion feature films Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link. It is owned by Nike co-founder Phil Knight and is located in Hillsboro, Oregon, part of the Portland metropolitan area. Knight's son, Travis Knight, acts as Laika's president and CEO.
Dario Marianelli is an Italian composer.
Kiyoshi Saitō was a sōsaku-hanga artist in 20th-century Japan. In 1938, he issued his first prints in his now famous "Winter in Aizu" series. Saitō was one of the first Japanese printmaking artists to have won at the São Paulo Biennale in 1951. Saitō's early works depict villages populated with local Japanese with a high degree of realism and three-dimensionality. His more mature works merge modern elements with Japanese tradition. His prints feature architecture and plant life flattened in two-dimensionality.
Lou Romano is an American animator and voice actor. He did design work on Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles, and he provided the voices of Bernie Kropp in The Incredibles, Snot Rod in Cars and Alfredo Linguini in Ratatouille.
Anthony Stacchi is an American animator, effects animator, storyboard artist, screenwriter, and film director.
Graham Annable is a Canadian cartoonist and animator. He is the creator of Grickle, published by Alternative Comics, and one of the founders of the Hickee humor anthology. Annable has created works for the television, film, video game, and comic book industries.
Transformers is a series of science fiction action films based on the Transformers franchise Michael Bay directed the first five live action films: Transformers (2007), Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Dark of the Moon (2011), Age of Extinction (2014), and The Last Knight (2017), and has served as a producer for subsequent films. A sixth film Bumblebee, directed by Travis Knight, was released in 2018, while a seventh film, Rise of the Beasts, directed by Steven Caple Jr. was released in 2023.
Christopher Shannon Tindle, known professionally as Shannon Tindle, is an American animator, storyboard artist, television writer, screenwriter, and film director. Tindle's work on the television series Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends received an Annie Award nomination in 2005 for Best Character Design in an Animated Television Production. Later, at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2006, he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for "Go Goo Go", while the episode was also nominated for Outstanding Animated Program.
ParaNorman is a 2012 American stop-motion animated comedy horror film directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler, and written by Butler. Produced by Laika, the film stars the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jodelle Ferland, Bernard Hill, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Tempestt Bledsoe, Alex Borstein, and John Goodman. It is the first stop-motion film to use a 3-D color printer to create character faces, and only the second to be shot in 3-D. In the film, Norman Babcock, a young boy who can communicate with ghosts, is given the task of ending a 300-year-old witch's curse on his Massachusetts town.
The Boxtrolls is a 2014 American stop-motion animated fantasy comedy film directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi loosely based on the 2005 novel Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow. It is produced by Laika. Set in the fictional European country of Norvenia in the late-19th century, the film tells the story of Eggs, a human boy raised by trash-collecting trolls, known as "Boxtrolls", as he attempts to save them from Archibald Penelope Snatcher, a pest exterminator. This film was the animated film debut of Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who voices Eggs, the main protagonist, and features the voices of Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning, Dee Bradley Baker, Steve Blum, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan, and Simon Pegg.
Angus MacLane is an American animator, filmmaker and voice actor, best known for his work at Pixar Animation Studios. He co-directed the film Finding Dory (2016) and made his solo feature directorial debut with the Toy Story spin-off film Lightyear (2022). MacLane is also a Lego enthusiast and created the CubeDudes building format and designed a LEGO WALL-E that has become an official set from The Lego Group.
Kubo and the Two Strings is a 2016 American stop-motion animated action fantasy film produced by Laika. It is directed by Travis Knight with a screenplay by Marc Haimes and Chris Butler from a story by Shannon Tindle and Marc Haimes, and it stars the voice roles of Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro, Rooney Mara, and Matthew McConaughey. Set in feudal Japan, the film revolves around Kubo, a young boy who wields a magical shamisen and whose left eye was stolen during infancy. Accompanied by an anthropomorphic snow monkey and stag beetle, he must embark on a quest to defeat his mother's evil twin Sisters and his power-hungry grandfather, the Moon King, who is responsible for stealing his left eye.
Christina Hodson is an English screenwriter. She is best known for writing the films Bumblebee (2018), Birds of Prey (2020), and The Flash (2023). Her film Shut In (2016) appeared on the 2012 edition of the Black List, an annual list of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays, but its resulting film was critically panned; two more of her screenplays remain on the Black List.
Bumblebee is a 2018 science fiction action film based on the Hasbro and Takara Tomy's Transformers toy line character of the same name. It is the sixth installment in the Transformers film series, serving as a spin-off and prequel to the 2007 film. The film is directed by Travis Knight and written by Christina Hodson. It stars Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz, Jason Drucker, and Pamela Adlon, and features Dylan O'Brien, Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux, and Peter Cullen in voice roles. It was Knight's first live-action film, as well as the first film in the Transformers series not to be directed by Michael Bay, who instead acted as a producer. Principal photography on the film began on July 31, 2017, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. Set in 1987, Autobot Bumblebee is sent to Earth but is injured and is found and helped by a teenage girl named Charlie.
Brian F McLean is an American special effects person.
Brad Schiff is an American stop-motion animation supervisor. Known for his works at Laika as an animation supervisor in acclaimed films such as ParaNorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014) and Kubo and the Two Strings for which he received an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects nomination at the 89th Academy Awards.
Wildwood is an upcoming American animated adventure film directed by Travis Knight and written by Chris Butler, based on the novel of the same name by The Decemberists' Colin Meloy and illustrated by his wife Carson Ellis. It is produced by Laika, making their sixth stop-motion animated film. Featuring the voice talents of Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Waits, and Richard E. Grant, the plot follows Prue McKeel and Curtis Mehlberg as they attempt to save Mac from the crows led by Alexandra, while drawn into a hidden magical forest.
Kubo and the Two Strings (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2016 film of the same name. The album featured original score composed by Italian composer Dario Marianelli, with a cover rendition of The Beatles-band member George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" performed by Regina Spektor. The score consisted of traditional Japanese music blended with Western and Eastern sounds, was recorded using ethnic instruments from Japan, in addition to modern instruments and orchestra, in order to create that feel.
