Portland State Magazine Winter 2013

WINTER 2013 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 11 nature, imparts more humanity in its characters than any computer ever could. That’s why he loves it and why Laika is widely admired. “Laika is helping to build Portland as the stop-motion animation capital of the world,” says Vince Porter, executive director of the Oregon Governor’s Office of Film and Televi- sion. “Clearly they stand up against anyone in the industry.” Laika is also bolstering the local economy, says Porter, who knows of former Laika employees who have created spin-off businesses to support the animation industry. Vendors sup- plying parts and services to Laika are also growing in tandem with the company’s success. Portland’s Cambridge Precision Machining experienced a 20 percent increase in revenue when it manufactured the tiny puppet skeletons for ParaNorman . It now gets referred business from as far away as Great Britain. KNIGHT , son of Nike founder Phil Knight, grew up watching classic stop-motion movies and TV shows such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the works of stop-motion pioneer Ray Harryhausen. The latter combined stop-motion with live action photography in movies such as Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and One Million Years B.C. (1966). As a boy, Travis Knight loved to sketch and make things, and tried his hand at stop-motion, even through there were barely any books on how to do it. “My story is the same as every other animator of my genera- tion. We were just kids who loved the art form and went into our parents’ basement or garage and figured out how to do it on our own,” he says. After college, he got a job as a production assistant at Port- land’s Will Vinton Studios, which made it big in the 1980s with its claymation California Raisins ad campaign. Knight worked there in the 1990s, when Will Vinton was making the TV show The PJs . His job entailed doing a hundred different things, from helping build sets to scheduling shoots, but it did not include the one thing he really wanted to do: animate. He got his chance one day when the studio was shorthanded. “I was terrified, but I did a fine job,” he says. From then on, animation was added to his job description. Vinton suffered a devastating financial downturn after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The studio was heavily dependent on ad work, and the attacks led to an advertising recession in the United States, says Knight. Phil Knight was a majority shareholder in the company, and acquired it outright in 2002. He and Travis talked about how to salvage the company in a way that focused on its best qualities. “It ultimately came down to people,” the younger Knight says. “When we rebuilt the company, we wanted it to be about this community of artists.” Mike Smith, an artist who still works with Knight, came up with the name Laika, which was the dog the Soviets sent into orbit in 1957. “There was something about it we liked—this aspirational quality—a mutt from humble origins that touched the stars,” Knight says. I Laika studio’s stop-motion movie, ParaNorman , was released in August and is the story of a young boy who can see the dead and must use this gift to lift a curse that threatens his small town. Alumnus Travis Knight (right) is president and CEO of Laika. Photo by Reed Harkness.