Main Idea
Generally, this article briefly describes several aspects of the creation of the movie 'Kubo and the Two Strings', such as making the puppets their clothing.
Author's Feelings
You can already tell how Giardina, the author, feels about the process just by reading the first paragraph. It's very obvious that she believes the process to be—and it is—extremely difficult, especially when she compares moving a single finger to preparations for a lunar launch. She doesn't seem to have any negative feelings towards it—she seems absolutely fascinated.
But Does She Actually Support This...?
YES. She does support this. Heavily. Giardina doesn't necessarily cite any particular documents/videos/etc., but she does describe many of the efforts it took to create the movie, such as carefully designing clothes for 9-inch tall figurines, printing thousands of different faces for multiple characters, and doing a seemingly endless amount of research to get the feel of the movie just right.
Strengths/Weaknesses
According to the Visual Effects Society, Carolyn Giardina has been writing articles for topics like this for over 15 years, which explains why I think she does such a good job of thoroughly explaining what all went in to this film. However, the ending of the article didn't really seem like much of a conclusion; it just kind of stopped. I wish she would have ended it in a better fashion.
Giardina's Conclusion (If It Was One)
As said in the last paragraph, she didn't really give a conclusion. The article just ended with her talking about the individual pieces of material that made the clothing for the Sisters. So...it wasn't that great (imo).
Significance of the Main Points
Most of what the writer talked about seemed like they're pretty significant, excluding little side stories, even though they were informative. Her main claim was that the set of this movie was much more "advanced" than previous stop-motion films, and easily supported that with multiple references to the small portions that made up the whole of the movie.
But Does Her Argument Support the Main Points...?
Please read the surrounding paragraphs.
Convincing Evidence
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yesssssss! She uses more than enough evidence! She convinced me in the second paragraph!! I don't think I have to say any more!!!!! ❤
Being in (and doing this for) animation, this makes me realize that even if it takes a really, really long time to work on something, and it's super frustrating, I need to keep working on it for the final product. The people at Laika worked on 'Kubo' for about two years, and it ended up being one of my favorite movies. It can basically be summed up by the VFX (visual effects) supervisor of the movie, Steve Emerson, when he said, "Making this movie wore me out. I can't wait to do another."
Here's What I Didn't Understand...
There were a few words I didn't know the meaning of in the article (i.e. "verbose"), but I was able sort of figure out what was being said using context clues and knowledge of what happens within the movie.
That wasn't such a big deal for me, but I wish she would say a little more about this "Shannon Tindle" that she mentioned, who apparently came up with the concept of 'Kubo'.
To Finish Things Off,
I could not agree more with this lady!! Not only do the creators of this film say it was extremely difficult to make, but 'Kubo' just looks so well made that it's almost impossible to disagree.
- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ
"Carolyn Giardina." Visual Effects Society. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2017.
Giardina, Carolyn. "How 'Kubo and the Two Strings' Merged Stop-Motion Animation and 3D Printing (Plus a 400-Pound Puppet)." The Hollywood Reporter. N.p., 15 Dec. 2016. Web. 09 Jan. 2017.
I feel like I'm being really repetitive with this, but believe it or not, my favorite thing that I got out of this article was that *gasp* logos and symbols aren't the same thing!!!!! No way!!!!!!! I already explained why it was valuable!!!!!!!!!!
