Quotes from Travis Knight

Creativity is messy and inefficient. But corporate governance needs to be tight and organized.

Historically, stop-motion animation has had a jerky-jerky quality, which is a constant reminder to audiences that they're looking at artificial objects. It creates a barrier between the audience having an emotional experience and what they're looking at. We're working hard to get past that.

I loved Tolkien and I loved 'Star Wars,' which was the first memory that I have being in a movie theater. And, of course, that was the defining movie for me as a kid.

In any piece of art, the artist pours themselves into it. It becomes a reflection of who they are and what they believe. That's what it has to be. Otherwise it's just a product.

When 'Buffy' was on the air, I recorded every single episode on my TiVo. I'm pretty sure my DVR thought I was a fourteen year-old girl. Whatever. The show was incredible. It refused to be pigeonholed.

When you allow an animator to focus on a portion of the film and really understand the arc of the scene, what's happening with the characters, they can make choices all along the way that reinforce the main points of the scene. They really get to know what's happening.

Historically, there's been a degree of sameness to animated films.

I was athletic growing up and that was, of course, a big part of my household, but it wasn't something that I was necessarily passionate about.

When your focus is franchises and brands, that limits the kinds of stories you can tell. That kind of thing can be good for the bottom line but they're not particularly good for showcasing the diversity of human experience.

We used to go to movies to see stories about ourselves. It would transport us to new worlds and we'd see aspects of ourselves reflected back.

We use technology in service of the art, as a storytelling tool - and if we want to do something that's never been done we have to invent the technology. 'ParaNorman' represents the realization of stop-motion's potential.

We're not purists about stop-motion. If there's a tool we can use that makes more sense to bring something to life in a better way, we'll use it, whether that's hand-drawn animation or CG or some newfangled technology we're developing.

Ultimately, the goal is to be on an annual cycle - releasing a film every year.

I fully believe that representation and inclusion matters... and that's why on all of our films, we've featured diverse casts, and that actually is true for 'Kubo' as well.

Animation has been ghettoized through the years by giving the impression we only do the same kind of stories.

The executive side of you always wants to find the best, most efficient way to do things. Of course, art is extraordinarily inefficient.

There is an inherent creative restlessness at Laika where we always want to challenge ourselves.

My father has this insane, all-consuming passion for sports.

I spent a lot of time alone when I was a kid, I climbed trees, hopped creek beds, read, watched movies, I'd make stories, make films.

I made friends slowly when I made them at all.

You only have so much time on this planet.

I think the Knight boys have a long history of disappointing their fathers.

I always loved that solitary experience of making things. There's a solitary aspect to animating... It's ultimately the animator and the puppet coaxing a performance out of it.

Just because somebody works in miniature does not diminish or invalidate their contributions to the art form compared to someone who works in live action.