Stop motion animation studio LAIKA – the studio that gave us Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls – has chosen the web-based visual story development tool FLIX to use in the pre-production of its new movies.

FLIX was developed at Sony Pictures before it was acquired by The Foundry and has been used for previous animation projects such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and Hotel Transylvania. FLIX is described on The Foundry’s website as a tool that “producers, directors and story artists [can use to] collaborate with art, editorial and production in one easy to access place, delivering faster story turnarounds and achieving shared involvement in the development of a film or project, earlier in the process.”

By using FLIX, LAIKA can speed up the studio’s workflow to allow for easier collaboration and efficiency with the story team. As Jeff Stringer, director of Production Technology at LAIKA, explains, “the work across sequences is more visible to the team, and collaboration on a sequence is easier to manage. The head of story has better access to everyone’s work and a good toolset for making updates and managing the flow of boards to editorial. The director and producers have easier access to the latest work, and iterations are moving faster.”

FLIX is also being used for LAIKA’s Kubo and the Two Strings, which is currently in pre-production. The film is described as a swashbuckling stop motion 3D and CG hybrid set in ancient Japan. Kubo and the Two Strings is set to be released August 19, 2016.

Check out FLIX’s promotion video below:

What do you think of FLIX? Are you looking forward to LAIKA’s ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’?

Edited by: Hannah Wilkes