What I appreciated was how quickly and subtly you established the sense of danger in the world youve created.

Was that in the front of your mind when you started making this?

Youre gonna bleed.

Its a place where people get hurt and people die alas, like life.

Hopefully the audience goes along for the ride and they feel for these characters when theyre imperilled.

What was your process of crafting the story?

Did the concept come first or the Japanese setting?

We start off with the germ of an idea, and over time we start to develop it.

That happens over a period of time.

Its a fundamental aspect of life, to go through loss.

We dont get out of this thing unscathed.

How do you reconcile those feelings?

What can you do about that?

Its difficult to talk to kids about these things.

Theyre difficult to explain to children.

But its something that can also heal us and make us whole after theyve gone, that grief.

It really is a celebration of humanity in all its beauty and all its flaws.

Theyre still part of our lives.

I think thats what the film is an articulation of wabi-sabi in stop motion animation.

Were not machines, we have hands and were going to make flaws.

Were going to have flawed work, and we have to embrace the beauty in that.

Another aspect of Japanese culture is the concept of Kami, which is that theres energy in everything.

And theres a beautiful idea there, where its a celebration of our loved ones, our ancestors.

And stop motion is about bringing inanimate objects to life, isnt it?

Weve got a lot of thematic ties throughout the film.

When you think about Kubo, hes a storyteller, hes an artist, hes a musician.

I just love stop motion, and have ever since I was a kid.

Everything from the Ray Harryhausen creature features to the Rankin-Bass holiday specials.

It could have that spirit inside of it, even though its an inanimate thing.

Its just a beautiful artform.

It was having to justify its existence.

We wanted to reinvigorate it for a new era.

Its all in the service of the operator to tell a story in a meaningful way.

But because of all the innovations weve had on the three films prior, it made something likeKubopossible.

So what innovations have you made inKubothat you think you could apply in your next film?

Its basically in every single department.

We have these incredible designs that would have been impossible to knit by hand.

For our big skeleton monster, I love it, because its a practical puppet that we built.

Its 16 feet tall, it weighs 400 pounds.

Im glad you brought up the skeleton scene.

I used to have the Japanese print on my wall…

Oh,Takiyasha, yeah!

To see that move was fantastic.

This is probably a stupid question, but why did you have to build it so big?

There are a number of ways we could have done it.

But when you have puppets that are making critical contact, they have to be the right size.

So the skeletons holding the monkey puppet, and the monkey puppets 10 inches tall.

So if theyre making critical contact, that hand needs to be the appropriate scale.

And then the monkey breaks out of the hand and starts running up the arm and over the shoulder.

It needs to be the right size.

Kubo and Beetle are on the top of the skeleton.

But then we had a breakthrough where we recognised that it was effectively just a puppet a giant puppet.

All the same principles applied, we just had to scale it up.

Same principal, we just have to make them bigger.

So instead of a hinge joint on the elbow, we used an automobile brake pad!

But because of the interactivity, the skeleton had to be the size that it was.

Its an amazing thing to see in person its the first time a puppet has dwarfed the animators.

Usually its the reverse!

So going back to the story development, did you have a research trip to Japan?

No, we didnt do that.

My first exposure to Japan was when I was eight years old.

My dad would go, and I tagged along on one of his business trips.

This film was our chance to pay tribute to this transcendent art of Japan.

So for specific purposes, we sent people to Japan.

So the films woven with historical and regional references that we drew from real things in Japan.

So once people have seenKubo, what would you recommend they see next?

You mentioned samurai films earlier on.

I would recommend that any right thinking film lover watch any film that Akira Kurosawa has made.

He was a huge, towering influence on this film.Yojimbois one of my favourite films ever.

You realise that the western versions often pale in comparison to the original, because theyre so extraordinarily beautiful.

Humanism, heroism, existentialism, the heroic ideal, things like that.

So I would encourage film lovers to watchYojimboandSeven SamuraiandThrone Of Blood thats an incredible film.Rashomon.

The other towering influence on the film was Hayao Miyazaki.

From a different perspective, not necessarily from samurai films.

Just the way he approaches his films the sensitivity, the moral ambiguity that he imbues his villains with.

There are so many beautiful things to explore in Miyazakis films.

I love seeing that cross-cultural exchange.

magical place filled with possibility and mystery and beauty.

Thats the feeling we tried to capture in this movie.

Its interesting, the cross-cultural thing.

He was inspired by John Ford, too.

I just love what art can do and what it means for us; that it can cross barriers.

It can speak to us across space and time and culture.

It elicits empathy, and lets us see the world in a different way.

It touches us in a meaningful way.

Whats your favourite Miyazaki film?

Id have to say… its tough.

EvenCastle Of Cagliostro,which I think is one of his first ones…

It was his debut feature, yeah.

Its so unusual and exciting and fun.

The car chase is amazing!

There are so many great things in his movies.

you’re free to have a field day going through them.

Travis Knight, thank you very much.

Kubo And The Two Stringsis out in UK cinemas now.