Animator Discusses Wes Anderson’s Journey to the Isle of Dogs

But Anderson’s influences extend beyond the world of stop-motion children’s stories. As evidenced by a handful of striking sequences in Atari’s odyssey through Trash Island, Anderson’s references include Akira Kurosawa films: “...specifically, High and Low and The Bad Sleep Well,” says Stalman. Unsurprisingly, Anderson also enjoys the iconic animation work of Hayao Miyazaki.

As lead animator, Stalman’s job was to help bring Anderson’s vision to life, to “bring a richness and depth” to character development. That depth is translated via the detailed articulation of Atari and his canine cohorts. It may surprise some to learn that Isle of Dogs is the first time Stalman, a veteran animator whose credits include Kubo and the Two Strings and Fantastic Mr. Fox, has worked with four-legged characters. “I had no idea at the beginning how that was gonna go down,” he says. “Whether we were going to make them more human as we went along, or if they were going to start having more dog traits.” The result is a bit of both; the dogs, led by a hardened stray named Chief (voiced by Bryan Cranston), are able to speak like humans, but their movements and expressions are very canine.

Like Anderson’s live-action films, there’s a distinctive quality that sets his stop-motion projects apart … a peculiar version of reality where everything looks and feels familiar, but is somehow…off. Take, for instance, the fur on the dogs and how it moves in each frame – the result of being positioned and re-positioned by the animators. Known as “boiling,” the effect occurs with hair, fabrics, and of course, furs. Stalman notes that some stop-motion productions will use digital effects to erase any evidence of an animator’s touch to preserve the illusion, or “magic” of animation.

“I had no idea at the beginning how that was gonna go down ... Whether we were going to make them more human as we went along, or if they were going to start having more dog traits.”

But that effect is the magic. “It just became a part of the texture of the film,” Stalman says, describing what some filmmakers have come to perceive as a flaw, but to him is a natural trait of stop-motion animation. He found a kindred spirit in Anderson, who fully embraced this characteristic. Reflecting on what made collaborating with Anderson so special, Stalman says, “It was refreshing to work with somebody who embraces the stop-motion and doesn’t want to hide the hands behind it.”

Those hands do much more than merely move the puppets from one position to the next. The way Stalman describes it, stop-motion animators are essentially the first group of actors to develop and portray these characters, long before Bill Murray and Jeff Goldblum come in. They often perform the roles in front of a camera to create a visual point of reference, and, like any good thespian, they create details about the characters, some of which are never divulged on screen.

The end result is a beautiful collaboration between a filmmaker and his animators, all of whom, Stalman says, bring “some new spark of life or piece of themselves” to their characters — whether it’s a rebellious 12-year-old boy, a corrupt cat-loving mayor, or an intrepid teen reporter from Ohio. Or a dog.

The North American premiere of Isle of Dogs will close the 2018 SXSW Film Festival at the Paramount Theatre (713 Congress Ave) on Saturday, March 17 at 8pm.