Siggraph

Just ran into Dan Philips, VP and head of production at Portland animation studio LEIKA–the entity formerly known as Will Vinton Studios and now owned by Nike entrepreneur Phil Knight. I caught up with Dan several years after I penned a story about Dan’s work (in a former life) at an earlier iteration of DreamWorks Animation. (Dan, ironically, was carrying the clip of my old story around in his notebook, I’m extremely happy to report.)

Dan threw out a nice tidbit of information on the LAIKA (it’s a Russian word for “little barker” that Phil Knight fell in love with, reportedly because he has a particular affinity for the letter ‘K’) plan to move into animated feature filmmaking after spending the last few years bulking up the company’s commercial and short film division. The Henry Selick directed stop-motion feature, “Coraline,” based on Neil Gaiman’s scary children’s novel, will be, Philips says, the world’s very first stop-motion feature film shot in stereoscopic 3D. It’s currently in production for a 2008 release, so look for more coverage in Millimeter in the not too distant future.

–Michael Goldman