Mars Attacks! was "originally intended to be stop-motion and it ended up becoming a CG movie"

During our time at San Diego Comic Con Malaga recently, we had the luxury to chat with all manner of folk from all over the entertainment sector. One such example was Ian MacKinnon, known for being the co-founder of MacKinnon & Saunders, a Manchester-based animation studio who has helped create some of the most iconic and wonderful films and shows in recent memory.

From Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, to Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox and Bob the Builder, MacKinnon & Saunders even helped make the iconic Mars Attacks! Speaking about that famous film, MacKinnon even mentioned that the CG-based end product was not always the plan, as the animation studio created all manner of stop-motion puppets for the film before a different creative direction was taken.

"We worked on Mars Attacks! originally with Tim Burton, I know that was 30 years ago, and that was originally intended to be stop-motion and it ended up becoming a CG movie," explained MacKinnon. "But we designed it as stop-motion and we created the puppets for it."

MacKinnon continued, "But, you know, 30 years ago people thought that stop motion would disappear and I think that as years have gone by, people now appreciate, well, 2D animation is still really important, hand-drawn animation is so important, and 3D CGI and stop motion can all live happily together. A lot of the projects we do now are mixed with live-action and animation together. So we just choose the right medium for the right project."

In the full interview with MacKinnon that you can see below, he also discussed how important it is to keep the handcrafted feel for stop-motion projects, and how each set is tailored to the director that is at the helm.