Coraline


After months-years, of anticipation Portland and the world finally have seen the premier of Coraline. The stop-motion film directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Monkeybone, )and produced by Laika, teh Portland Oregon based animation company. Based on the young adult novel by best selling author Neil Gaiman the film is simultaneously faithful to Gaiman's weird and wonderful nightmare inducing tale while adding quirky elements (and a spare character) that make the film fresh and adventurous in it's own right. Having seen the film in the preferred manner (the brilliantly crispy digital 3D) all I can say is this film is one of the first true cinematic masterpieces of the year and is without a doubt an instant classic cementing Gaiman and Selick both as superior story tellers. In an age with a superfluous abundance of CGI animation the "dying" art of "object" Animation (now called Stop-Motion) is increasingly rare. Dating back to the master animator Ladislaw Starewicz the art of hand manipulation puppets to give the appearance of life on film a frame at a time has produced some of the most enduring works of art in cinema . Keep this in mind as you watch the trailer below. For every second of film there are 24 frames, which means the puppets and sets must be hand manipulated for each frame. 24 times to create 1 second of film. after seeing Coraline today i can assure the tireless team of animators their hard work was well worth the effort.




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