SCI FI Wire was invited up to the offices of Laika Entertainment in Portland, Ore., last July, where production was underway on the upcoming stop-motion 3-D animated film Coraline.
Before we get into the tour, however, here's a quick pop-culture quiz: Who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas? If you answered Tim Burton, you'd be wrong, but you're not alone in that assumption. While Burton produced the film (and inserted his name above the title), it was actually directed by the lesser-known Henry Selick. But the soft-spoken Selick doesn't mind Burton's receiving the glory. He's content to continue working as a relative known in the far-from-glamorous world of stop-motion animation.
Coraline is Selick's next project, and he's making it the old-fashioned way. Beyond the unassuming storefront that houses Laika's studios, a massive team of animators moves puppets around on dozens of one-sixth-scale sets, snapping one painstaking frame of film at a time. Rather than trying to compete with the technological wizards at the computer-animation giants such as Pixar, Selick believes in maintaining the handmade quality of the process, complete with noticeable flaws.
"What CG can do so well, we really shouldn't attempt," Selick said in an interview on the set. "CG can do anything. It can do ultra-realism. What can stop-motion do? So we're always trying to hold on to that. And a lot of times it means I do buy shots that have flaws and mistakes and pops, but there are times when just the acting's not right. The point of the shot's confusing. So, yeah, we do a cutback, and we can just pick it up. This part of the shot's good, so we'll just cut back and try to line up the puppet as best we can and place that part of it."
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On the set of Coraline, assistant cameraman Mike Gerzevitz sets up a shot. (Galvin Collins for Focus Features)
The film Coraline, based on the book by acclaimed author Neil Gaiman, centers around a young girl named Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) who discovers that a doorway in her old house leads to an alternate universe. Everything seems better there, even her unusually attentive parents, who have black buttons instead of eyes. But things take a sinister turn when she learns that her Other Mother wants to keep here there permanently.
SCI FI Wire toured the Coraline workshop where the puppets were being fabricated from scratch, starting with metal skeletal structures, and finished off with real hair and detailed, hand-sewn costumes. We also got a look at the department where the elaborate sets and props were under construction. Some of the locations being built included two versions of Coraline's house and garden. The real-world sets were designed to look rather dull and lifeless, in contrast to the spectacular colors and fanciful shapes of the fantasy world.
We also got a chance to see some of the 3-D footage for Coraline. The scenes included a musical number performed on screen by Coraline's Other Father (whose non-singing voice is provided by John Hodgeman) and sung by pop duo They Might Be Giants. Another sequence featured the otherworldly mouse circus and acrobatic performances by alternate versions of Coraline's spinster neighbors, Miss Forcible and Miss Spink (voiced by British comedy team Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French).
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Animator Chris Tootell readies Coraline to cross a snowy forest. (Galvin Collins for Focus Features)
Producer Claire Jennings, who previously produced the stop-motion film Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was also on hand to supervise the production. She echoed Selick's appreciation of the form.
"I enjoy stop-motion rather than CGI because it's so physical," Jennings said. "Because the actual production itself is a very physical thing. And, as you've seen, if you've had your tour around the studio, it's much more like a live-action sort of setup. And it just means, for me, personally, as a producer, you're really interacting with people and physical objects. And it's much more creatively satisfying [a] medium to work in for me as a producer than CGI, where you're basically not anywhere near as much in contact with the creative side of the production. And for myself, I really enjoy that."
Coraline is scheduled for release in February of 2009.
--Cindy White
