Bringing Some Life Back to Animation

Although I love the work of Pixar and the pre-21st century Disney stuff, I have a special place in my heart for stop-action animation (usually claymation). You know, the stuff in The Nightmare Before Christmas and the Wallace and Gromit movies. It actually takes a lot of time and effort to put together a full feature-length film using stop-action animation, so you don't get to see a lot of these films anymore, especially with all the wonders of computer animation.

But this year Coraline is taking us back to that old-school of animation. The creators are using whatever they can get their hands on to make a visually fantastic experiece:

"A quarter-million pieces of popcorn are transformed into cherry blossoms, superglue and baking soda are whipped into snow, and black fishing line becomes creepy chest hair.

In all, the crew hand-built 150 sets and 250 jointed puppets, as well as plants and toys with countless moving parts."

That's dedication to your film. I'm really excited to see how it all turns out. And since it has director Henry Selick, who did The Nightmare Before Christmas and the charming James and the Giant Peach, I'm hopeful.

Check out what the art team did to make Coraline's world come to life.