Watch these stun­ning short films inspired by Kubo and the Two Strings

To mark the release of Kubo and the Two Strings, the lat­est stop-motion trea­sure from Lai­ka (Cora­line, The Box­trolls), Uni­ver­sal Pic­tures part­nered with film­mak­er net­work The Smalls to take a group of ani­ma­tors from all over the world to Laika’s stu­dios in Port­land, Ore­gon for a unique behind-the-scenes look at their incred­i­ble pro­duc­tion process.

Inspired by their trip, four ani­ma­tors set out to cre­ate their own unique inter­pre­ta­tion of the film, draw­ing on Laika’s dis­tinct visu­al style and sto­ry­telling tech­niques. Watch the won­der­ful results exclu­sive­ly below and be sure to catch Kubo and the Two Strings when it hits cin­e­mas 9 September.

“As a stop-motion ani­ma­tor, I’ve been a big fan of Laika’s work since Cora­line. The rich­ness of the worlds they cre­ate is so cap­ti­vat­ing and their atten­tion to detail blows my mind with each new film. Vis­it­ing the stu­dio and see­ing behind the scenes of Kubo and the Two Strings was a total dream-come-true expe­ri­ence for me and I’m so excit­ed to see the fin­ished film!”

“Look­ing up at Lai­ka, as a young stop-motion film­mak­er, is like look­ing at the only island in the sea. It is a rea­son to keep sail­ing, just know­ing it exists. I could eas­i­ly talk about the amaz­ing equip­ment, the out­stand­ing work, and many oth­er aspects that makes Lai­ka so unique. In fact, I felt way more inspired look­ing at the peo­ple work­ing here. You could taste the ener­gy of a group thrilled to be togeth­er, on an island that doesn’t exist any­where else. That’s the spir­it I want­ed to take home for my team to make this video.”

“Lai­ka is a phe­nom­e­non in the film indus­try. Start­ing from the unique mix tech­nique which com­bines tra­di­tion with the hottest tech and CGI inno­va­tions, through a very dis­tinc­tive, beau­ti­ful visu­al lan­guage of their films, and final­ly, excep­tion­al choice of mean­ing­ful sto­ries which they tell us. The dis­tinc­tive role of paper in the orig­i­nal film encour­aged me to reduce colours to shades of white and use sim­pli­fy paper look like forms. On one hand, I thought that might be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to try some­thing new for me, on the oth­er hand, I just felt that it’s sim­ply bet­ter to not com­pete or mim­ic Laika’s style.”

“The lev­el of care and atten­tion Lai­ka bring to their craft is intense. Explor­ing their stu­dio and wit­ness­ing the cre­ativ­i­ty, dis­ci­pline and ambi­tion on dis­play was exhaust­ing! Every­thing they do is amaz­ing. So then the ques­tion became, with such high stan­dards how are we, tea&cheese, ever going to make some­thing wor­thy of Kubo and Lai­ka? For­get about things like craft, atten­tion to detail and qual­i­ty and just make a crude­ly ani­mat­ed rock music video instead!”

Kubo and the Two Strings is in cin­e­mas from 9 September.