Be careful what you wish for
I saw Coraline last night, the stop-motion animation movie from Henry Selick, the director of the great Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). The great aspect of stop-motion technique is that everything is real, but its a stylised reality: the mixture between real contemporary elements, like the computer and the Beetle car, and creations of the minds of the animators is perfectly balanced not to make you feel at ease. The music is great to listen and, most of all, fitting: it collaborates in achieving the subtle feel of spookiness that is there since the opening title sequence. Coraline is just as good looking as any of Selik’s past works, if not more so, and the animation has got better and crisper, but the movie would have been good even without the 3D, as the plot and the characters (and the music!) are top level.
I am always fascinated by the visual creativity of the animators and the attention to details. I think it’s worth seeing it two times, one to enjoy the story, the other to appreciate all the objects in the background. If you want to see more there is a YouTube channel full of videos, trailers and featured content. Check Chris Turnam blog and Drawn!’s post about the movie for more information and huge collection of pictures of the making of.
UPDATE: Another series of stunning illustrations can be found on Jon Klassen’s website, he worked on the visual development and drawings for sets and props. «The style of this stuff is little different than work I do on my own [which is great, by the way], mostly because it’s done as a step in the process rather than just to make a picture.»
It’s a pity I couldn’t find any picture of the scenes where Coraline walks between the two worlds: as the Other world vanishes slowly the trees become less and less defined and the forest is transformed into something resembling an electric circuit. The visual effect is amasing.
We wrote about Coraline in Italian a few months ago here.
Marta