Brian McLean majored in the classical art of sculpture at BU. But he’s made his name as a pioneer in cutting-edge movie animation. Director of rapid prototype at LAIKA Films, a stop-motion animation studio in Oregon, McLean (CFA’99) was nominated for an Oscar—best achievement in visual effects—along with three collaborators, for their work on last year’s Kubo and the Two Strings.

That fantasy about a Japanese boy and his mother who are hiding from some mysterious threat showcases McLean’s talent as the film’s director of rapid prototyping—“one of the strangest job titles in the film industry,” he acknowledges. The technology bestows on animated film puppets an astounding range of facial expressions. Kubo, McLean says, was capable of 48 million expressions. This ain’t your childhood Saturday morning cartoon marathon.

The New York Times calls the movie (voiced by Charlize Theron and Matthew McConaughey, among others) “gorgeously fluid, the idiosyncratic 3-D visual conceits…startling.” The film lost out to The Jungle Book at the 89th Academy Awards ceremony February 26. Winning would have notched McLean’s second Oscar; last year, he shared a scientific and engineering award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for use of rapid prototype technology.

Bostonia interviewed McLean about his work. At LAIKA, he says, “it takes a huge team of over 450 artists, technicians, and animators to produce one of our films.”

Bostonia: Could you explain what rapid prototyping is?

My department is responsible for creating facial performances for our stop-motion animated puppets. The way we achieve this is through replacement animation, where one facial expression is photographed on a puppet and then replaced with a slightly different expression. Over a decade ago, on LAIKA’s first film, Coraline, we had an idea of taking this age-old technique of replacement animation and fusing it with 21st-century 3-D printing, or rapid prototyping technology. Essentially what we are doing is designing, modeling, and animating facial expressions in the computer, and then sending the computer face geometry to a 3-D printer, which then creates a physical three-dimensional object you can hold in your hand.

For Kubo and the Two Strings, we gave Kubo, one of our main characters, over 48 million possible facial expressions. We are also designing, engineering, and printing out custom components that go into a puppet’s head, like eyeball and eyelid mechanisms that give the stop-motion animator the ability to pose eyelids and eyeballs.

For Kubo and the Two Strings, McLean and his colleagues created 48 million possible expressions for the title character. Photo courtesy of Focus Films

What does this technology allow in animation that wasn’t possible before?

Prior to the technique, there was no way for a stop-motion animator to achieve both subtle and broad facial performances. By harnessing the power of the computer and combining it with the century-old technique of replacement animation, there is no longer a limit to the emotional range or acting performance we can achieve in our stop-motion animated characters.

How widely used is rapid prototyping?

Our process has been used in countless student films, independent projects, music videos, and commercials, as well as six films nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar, including LAIKA’s four films—Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo—as well as other studio films like Anomalisa and Pirates: Band of Misfits.

Did your BU education help you to acquire the skills you now use in your film career?

Unfortunately, when I went to art school, there was very little emphasis on technology. In fact, when I graduated, I was extremely intimidated by computers and barely knew how to write an email. Armed with my traditional portfolio, mainly of drawings, paintings, and sculptures of the human form, I started looking for sculpting work out West.

At a time when most of the film industry was moving away from practical effects in favor of computer-generated imagery, my skill set was at a slight disadvantage. I landed a freelance job in San Francisco, sculpting and model-making for TV ads and toy prototypes. Many old-school practical model makers from Industrial Light and Magic, founded by George Lucas, who had worked on the original Star Wars films, among others, were also looking for work, and I ended up working alongside them. I was able to learn from some of the best in the business and make connections.

Soon thereafter, practical work dried up, and I started teaching model-making at a design school in San Francisco. I was introduced to a 3-D printer and realized that this technology was going to change practical model-making; it was the bridge from the digital world to the physical world. I immediately contacted Martin Meunier, who I had met years before as a sculptor. Martin knew about LAIKA and had the idea of using the 3-D printer for replacement animation. We embarked on trying this new technique on LAIKA’s first film, Coraline.

After being recognized by the Academy last year for technological innovation, was this year’s nomination for Best Visual Effects as big a thrill?

The Academy is broken up into two parts: science and art. Last year’s sci-tech Oscar was recognizing the science part of what I do—this year’s nomination for Best Visual Effects was in recognition of the art. I could not be more honored and humbled. I feel extremely fortunate to get to represent the over 70 talented and hardworking crew members that make up the rapid prototyping department.