Henry Selick's new 3D stop-motion animation film Coraline is adapted from a story by Neil Gaiman, who's perhaps best known for his groundbreaking graphic novel series The Sandman. Gaiman began writing the story in the early '90s at the request of his daughter Holly, who desired a narrative about a little girl whose mother gets kidnapped by evil witches resembling her mother. Happy to oblige, Gaiman created an inquisitive girl named Coraline who finds trouble behind a forgotten doorway in her drafty old house that leads into a seemingly better version of her current, dreary home.
Though the plot device owes a debt to the Narnia books (as well as Hansel and Gretel), the resemblance quickly fades once Coraline is greeted by her ostensibly kinder "Other Mother," and "Other Father." Something delightfully sinister lurks behind their button eyes, and the lavish film adaptation, shot in stereoscopic 3D, loses none of Gaiman's signature creepiness. Director Henry Selick's insistence on hand-made detail is refreshing in this era of CGI, and the result is an avalanche of extraordinary eye candy that takes Selick's previous work on Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach to another level of wonder. The movie opens February 6th (until then, the website is quite impressive).
How long did you spend working on this, from the beginning up to now? You can’t really put it into those terms because it was a very long time since I met Neil and read the pages and wrote the first couple of drafts. I couldn’t get the film going then, so I went off and did other things. It’s really been the last four years that I’ve been most dedicated, with nearly two years of that spent shooting the film.
How do you stay balanced during such a long, detailed process? Well some would say that I don’t stay balanced! [Laughs] But I do yoga; actually we have people come in and lead a lunch time yoga session two times a week. And I sort of make it a point to develop my abilities, to zoom in to minutia and zoom back out. I think that’s where people can get lost making a film like this. Minutia can be overwhelming and you think you’re making a movie but really all you’re doing is paying attention to detail. I was pretty strict about trying to step back, showing things to trusted friends pretty regularly to get feedback. You know, find some balance there.
So is Coraline the first 3D stop-motion film? It’s the first one shot that way. They actually did a post-production process about two years ago on The Nightmare Before Christmas which was pretty effective. That wasn’t shot in 3D but they did this treatment that's not as immersive as what we did. Coraline's the first stop-motion shot in 3D.
Why has there been so little development in making a 3D stop-motion, when they’ve made all these other advances with digital technology. Basically CG [computer generated animation] came along and derailed 2D and stop-motion pretty much for feature films until more recently. You know, Toy Story came along and was astonishing; the technology and the story was shiny and new. Stop-motion, like hand-drawn animation, is old tech; it’s not sexy. But after this many years of CG it seems the audience likes a variety of things on their menu.
When you were trying to get this project off the ground, did you have to overcome any pressure to do it just as a CG film? We went through many iterations. In fact, when the deal was first set up it wasn’t allowed to be animation, it was planned as a live action. But all along I was sort of writing it as an animated film. It’s had a long life to get to where it is but it got to the best possible place: stop-motion shot in 3D.
I also feel really strongly about puppetry and stop motion animation and even hand-drawn animation over CG. Star Wars wasn’t stop-motion, but I prefer the puppetry in the original films over the prequels, which George Lucas made with CGI. I like the old Yoda better than the one that can flip and do moves in the air when he’s fighting. I don’t know; I like animated things, I like the sense of an artist’s hand actually on screen in the painting. For me it’s a much more pleasurable way to make a film. I’ve done one CG short and I worked with very talented people, but with stop motion you’ve got stages, lights; you’re performing through puppets. And that world of cutting things out of wood and molding things in plastic and machining things in metal... I’m just very attracted to that.
And when you see it on the screen, it’s imperfect, it’s always going to be less than perfect. I don’t think perfection and smoothness is very important. It certainly seems that once we get to that point in CG, then everything will be fine. It’s like when they invented the morph. I forget which film it was, but I think it was ILM wanting something to transform to something else in live action. In one year they were using it to update car models and ads and it was commonplace.
I think there’s a timeless quality and an inherent charm [to stop-motion]. You know these things are real, you don’t know how big they are or how they are being moved. But they are real things. And you have to work a little; you have to participate in making the magic happen. Not very much; we’re not trying to make it very difficult but you’re not just sitting back and having it poured over your head like warm honey. You have to use your imagination just a little bit more when it’s hand-drawn and puppet animation or practical effects.
What advances does Coraline make, even in terms of advances from your previous stop-motion films? Some of it was simply paying even more attention to detail. I wanted to go in for close-ups where you’d still believe in the character, so that required very meticulous work in the hair and the finish on the faces and on the costumes. We have miniature sweaters and clothes.
I understand this was the first stop-motion film that uses something like actual hair, instead of something that was painted on or attached. Yeah, I mean we’ve used things in the past that were more like hair but this was a more refined technique, with a wig maker that works in miniature. And of course the hair has to animate, so you have to hide little bits of wire in it, or a little flat foil underneath strands. We also shot digitally and in 3D and were able to take shots that you could watch them right away. They could be sent to the edit room almost immediately. There was more of a give and take and back and forth in the making of the film, whereas not too long ago you’d shoot the shot and it would go to the lab, and you’d have to wait for everybody's dailies.
Now, we did use CG to help plan the mice circus, to help create some of the in-between forms, and to help create some of the in-between face forms for Coraline. We used the stuff where we could, but in the end you’re still moving the puppets under real light on real set.
What were the biggest challenges you faced during production? [SPOILER ALERT] Everything is challenging, but what we love to do is solve problems. The final battle with the Other Mother was very challenging; when Coraline faces the Other Mother in her final form, where she’s like a spider lady and the floorboards of the living room fly up and this huge spiral web is revealed that drops down to a void. That was very challenging; that web fully extended was 20 feet long, we had to do five different versions of it. We had to find a way to suspend it, lay it, have it move so it had a sense of weight and springiness to it and then have the animators be able to move the chargers on it as Coraline tries to escape the Other Mother. That was very, very challenging.
The fantastic garden, the garden is grown into a portrait of Coraline, that was a challenge to not make it look trite; we used CG in a couple of blue flowers to help them grow, they are composites. But most of those flowers and plants are actually transforming. One of our rigors, Olly, did experiments to find ways to get that using toys, like a dog toy.
Yeah, I saw that on the web site. How many flowers would you say there are in that shot? There are probably fifteen different types that are transforming, changing shape. And then a total of 350 special ones that are shape changers, and 500 just background.
I keep thinking about that scene when she goes up in that weird praying mantis helicopter; that overheard shot really stuck with me. Amazing. When you watch that are you satisfied or do you have the kind of personality where you notice details that you wish you could change? With that particular scene, I’m very satisfied. It was very difficult; it was one of those things we kept putting off. We didn’t know how to do it but eventually it worked out. In watching the film now there are plenty of moments where I’m not exactly satisfied. It’ll probably take about five years before all that fades away.
You had a great cast with Ian McShane, John Hodgman and a bunch of talented people. Did you personally work much with the actors? I directed all the voice recordings, that’s the normal task of a director in an animated film.
So what was that process like? It’s fun but it’s challenging. It’s a fluid thing, you can’t ever figure out all your lines in the beginning, you record some version of everything and then you go back. The film changes and you have to go back, in Dakota’s case, seven times, in Terry Hatcher’s case, five times over the course of a couple years. You have to help them refocus, get back into character. You show them some new footage and it’s one of those very draining experiences because you’re helping them believe; they don’t have costumes, they don’t have other actors to work off of, they’re not on a set. It’s very challenging work for them. A lot of them who have never done it before are kind of astonished; they can’t phone it in. But it’s fun, you’d be surprised which actors can actually improvise.
Was it fun working with John Hodgman? He was great. He’s a very good writer himself and he came up with a few variations. I mean I’d get stuff I couldn’t use in the film because he went on too long but he was very, very funny.
I’m a huge They Might Be Giants fan and I was surprised and delighted to hear them in the movie. How did they become involved in the project? Just happenstance. Someone I worked with, Courtney Booker, who did a little of the early color work on Coraline, did a rock video for them, for the song "Bastard Wants to Hit Me." And so I told her I was a big fan and we managed to get together. They actually did some other demo songs that are brilliant, they are beautiful, but the film just kind of changed; it wasn’t going to become a musical. I was very happy to work with them and I'd love to work with them on another show where they have like ten songs in it. I’m wondering whether to convince them to write all new songs for their, like, Yellow Submarine, or to just work with them and pick the ten best songs and see if I can find a way to string them together for a story.
That would be awesome. What about your children? I’m wondering if they’ve seen the film. Yeah my oldest song has grown up fast; he’s 17 and the younger one is ten. They’ve been involved; I’ve shown them stuff for years as it's developed and the younger one actually does the voice of the ghost child. And the older one does the voice of one of the friends in the photos who speak to Coraline.
So they’ve seen the finished product? Yeah, they’ve seen it and I’d regularly bring stuff home and show them character designs and voices. They carry more weight than I would ever let them know.
Is there one particular way that they’ve influenced you that you can recall? I think pushing me to be bolder actually, pushing me to be scarier, even when George was, in the beginning, six years old. The main way they pushed is that I wanted to make sure there was stuff for boys in the movie. It’s called Coraline and there’s that tradition wherein Hollywood thinks boys won’t go to a girls film. But after Twilight and Juno I think things have changed.
What’s the general reaction you’ve gotten from kids so far? I’m technically a grown-up and I can’t wait to see it again, so it obviously works on many levels. But I’m wondering how kids react. We think it’s for brave children of all ages. Under eight, you have to know your kid; it could be intense for someone who’s so little. But so far, so good. I’m especially pleased that the boys have liked it as much as the girls.
And what was Neil Gaiman’s reaction when he finally saw the finished product? I personally flew out there two weeks ago to present it to him and his friends and family—some people very protective of Coraline—and everyone was very happy. As far as I could tell, Neil was pleased with the finished product.
