My retinas are dancing with delight!

Great, now I won’t be able to get any work done because I’ll be watching this at least 20 times in a row.

The trailer is spoilerish . :( But otherwise, the little children may be more prepared to be scared. Seriously! The eye buttons? Freaky.

Other than that small trailer crit, this is perfect. Nothing else I can say. Awesome.

It’s just really unfortunate there isn’t a less laborious way to produce this kind of stop-motion film quicker.

I do agree that this is the exact variety of trailer that I don’t necessarily like to see; I don’t understand why trailer editors feel like they have to tell so much of the story in one’s first glimpse of a film.

C. Edwards; to be fair, every mainstream puppet stop-motion feature in the past two decades, including this one, has been made by Tim Burton, Henry Selick, or both.

I smell a big hit.

I find it a bit odd the trailer makes absolutely no mention of Neil Gaiman and the tone seems to be that it all sprang from Selick’s mind.

Phew! My brain hurts at the shear time and devotion needed for stop motion. This looks incredible even on a tiny media player, I can only imagine how fantstic it will look in glorious 3D. Awesome!

Rules of the Cartoon Universe:
#153: Stop-motion cats must always be black, skinny and just a bit haggard-looking.

A Henry Selick film is always a treat. I’m looking forward to this one!

Mmmm, that’s some good stop motion!

LOOKS visually pleasing. Story seems….complicated?

I loved getting creeped out by stuff like this as a kid! It made me feel so grown up to be able to deal with it. The Disney movies with the scariest villains were great practice for this. Can’t wait for this movie!

So excited!

A lot of this looks like it was animated on ones, which either means this is just incredibly well done animation or Henry Selick is clinically insane.

CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE! All kinds of fun stuff is already up on coraline.com!

http://drawn.ca/2008/11/20/coraline-site-up/

Drawn posted some codes for some vignettes!

buttoneyes
stopmotion
moustachio
puppetlove
armpithair
sweaterxxs

Monkeybone-you are forgiven!

Ken – I’m aware of the Aardman productions, but I consider claymation separately from puppet animation. And I wouldn’t call the other two films mainstream.

My point is that the reason almost everyone associates puppet animation with a certain creepiness is because chances are the only puppet movies they’ve seen are Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, or Corpse Bride. The only other puppet animation I can think of that reaches that level of ubiquity is the Rankin/Bass holiday specials.

Before the film images lodge in your mind too much, nip off and read the book. It’s very very much darker than this visualisation ( at least it was the way it played in my head! ) and serious scary in ways it doesn’t look like this is going to be.

I understand why they left Gaiman out of the trailer. You have to think like a marketing person. Sure, the literary nerds are going to know who Gaiman is, but the average person isn’t. They’re very likely, however, to know THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Hence, the focus on Selick. That’s why you often see blurbs in the trailers that say, “From the people who brought you BIG BLOCKBUSTER OF LAST YEAR” even though that may only refer to an Executive Producer. It’s all about association with an already-known commodity.

That looks totally awesome and it looks like something that would have scared the living tar out of me as a child. :)

Oh my gosh… I am mad at Focus Feature. The trailer spoiled a lot of stuff in the movie. Why did they do that!? Don’t they know how to advertise a film without spoiling the best parts!? I thought they were going to show the ending and the climax of the film as well, that would’ve really punch Laika in the stomach. Argh! What is wrong with Focus Feature!?

I love the movements, they are less perfect and more organic than those in Corpse Bride. That looked too much like a 3d movie, this one feels more stop-motion, which I think it has its own special charm that shouldn’t be hiden by the perfected techniques.

Would anyone who’s read it recommend one reads the original novel or the graphic novel adaptation?

Hm, Henry Selick directs a dark and whimsical animated feature conceived by a popular visionary about a character who’s bored and frustrated with their life and one day accidentally discovers a door to a magical parallel world which they immediately fall in love with, but it proves to have its price.

Sound familiar?

This trailer isn’t the worst I’ve seen of a good film, but I still cringed watching this. I’m under the impression that the same studio edits at least 90% of American films (especially animated)…and it shows, because they all sound the same. Same tag lines. Same narration that’s far too expository. Same nonsensical cuts. Revealing too much. Same out of context dialogue with the visuals…and a fart/raspberry gag??? I’d be embarrassed if a film I made got a trailer that looked like this.

The actual film still looks amazing, however.

It looks great, it look’s like something I’ll enjoy, but I fear the essential soccer-mom-and-kids audience will opt to pass on this. The give-the-story-away trailer is a play for their attention because they only make safe purchases.

I think the hand-crafted look of stop-mo is too much art for the mainstream audience to digest. It’s too challenging to their notions of what things look like. I don’t think there hasn’t been a real stop-mo box office hit since “Nightmare” and that was a rather modest hit.

What?! No mention of the “voice talent”? I might just go to the theater for this one based on that alone! Well done Laika.

>dan says:
>That looks totally awesome and it looks like something that would >have scared the living tar out of me as a child. :)

Hmm. When were you born, around 1992, I would say?
I was born in ’78 and there were shorts on Sesame Street that I found scary (and loved); this, however, is more reminiscent to me of Bob the Builder. Were you scared of Bob the Builder, son? I’m with uh-oh oh no Annie and all the people who found the book to be more enchanting.

I spotted Monkeybone as the other Dad´s slippers!!!

…and “uh-oh oh no Annie” nor the ghost are 2-D nor there were only three trees in “nightmare before christmas” nor the female characters are boring or generic at all

Wow….Uh-Oh oh no Annie….talk about sour grapes. Let’s see what you can do.

I’m usually not a big stop-motion fan, but THIS I gotta see!

I flew out to Oregon to see the film about a month ago (crew screening) and was absolutely blown away! I think it will be a new experience for a lot of people who are used to seeing the same thing over and over again.

I think there are going to be a lot of people who are going to think certain things were done in CG.

Matt, those BG’s aren’t CG. In fact I don’t think there are any CG sets in the film. They were all handmade in a giant warehouse in Hillsboro, OR by an amazing crew. Henry was really adamant about retaining the handmade quality unique to stop motion.

Annie, the puppet fabrication crew was headed up by a woman, the amazingly talented Georgina Hayns. In fact, there were quite a few extremely talented women who worked on the crew.

Wait until you see the film before you pass judgement on the character. I think you’ll be presently surprised.

So often, when I make comments on this site, it’s to groan about the generic, cliche-ridden, boring puff I see in most animated movie trailers.

It’s so nice to be able to feel excited about a movie, which from all indications, seems to be dripping with imagination and fun. Great production and character design — and the premise for the film seems like a lot of fun!

I’ll gladly wait in line to see this one!

Maybe a solid artistic triumph will silence the many Laika naysayers. It’s what Laika, and the industry, need right now. A commercial hit would also be nice, though the animated feautre teacup is getting crowded for an economic recession.

Ahhhh, so excited.

Reader,

There were plenty of sour grapes in Annie’s post. She’s written the character off as boring and unappealing based on the trailer.

And, no one ever suggested that a puppet fabricator was a story artist. Annie questioned whether any ladies were involved in creating Coraline and I simply answered the question.

Also, ST, trust me, the film is plenty scary. There are plenty more surprises to be had:)

Of course nothing, especially on the internet, exists in a vacuum, but I really wish that people would wait for the film to come before passing judgement.

As we all know, a trailer is not the film. I think the trailer for Pearl Harbor was one of the best ever, but I sat through the film rolling my eyes for nearly 3 hrs. In the past, I’ve hated some of the Pixar trailers, (Nemo comes to mind) but have generally had my socks knocked off when I finally saw the film.

Again, having seen the film, I really think that people are going to be pleasantly surprised.

“Annie questioned whether any ladies were involved in creating Coraline and I simply answered the question.”

I’m sure Annie meant and you understood that she was referring to having an impact on how the character behaves and thinks and moves when she used the work “create”. Not referring to a puppet builder or fabricator who with all due respect is not involved in how a character behaves or even impacts the design.
Not to worry about fair judgement. I said I was still looking forward to it, and likely “Annie” and most of the commenters here will wait to see the movie to see how we really like it or don’t like it. Hardly a huge thumbs down, merely an impression which is all this post was provided for.

with all due respect, does “A Reader” really believe that someone building a stop motion puppet wouldn’t have any influence on its design and function? really?

“I’m sure Annie meant and you understood that she was referring to having an impact on how the character behaves and thinks and moves when she used the work “create”. Not referring to a puppet builder or fabricator who with all due respect is not involved in how a character behaves or even impacts the design.”

WHAT?!?! Obviously, you’ve never worked in stop motion before. A fabricator has quite a bit to do with the design of the character’s movement and does in fact impact the design.

The fabrication supervisor is involved from the very beginning. They suggest what kinds of material can be used for armatures, skin and costume. They help decide how and even if the character designs can be achieved in 3 dimensions. Even with the most highly rendered character drawings, there is only so much you can do in 2 dimensions.

On Coraline, Georgina (puppet fab supervisor) was in EVERY character design meeting. She would make suggestions on how we might resolve certain design problems when we reached the 3d form. These solutions not only effected the designs, but also influenced movement. Since stop motion is truly a 3 dimensional form the materials used to create a puppet have a big impact on how a character moves.

I’d also like to point out that Georgina didn’t just provide technical suggestions. she also gave her input as a woman, when she thought we weren’t hitting the mark with the female characters. She brought her own experiences as a little girl into the meetings and had a lot to do with how we dressed Coraline.

I’m not trying to be inflammatory, and I’m glad that you are excited to see the film. However, you are completely misinformed to suggest that puppet fab has nothing to do with the design or behavior of a character.

The acting in this film is phenomenal. And Coraline’s actions & movements, along with her little quirks as a young girl are spot-on (nice to have a daughter for observation on this subject matter, of course).

This argument is silly. Moot, really. No, you cannot base an entire film just by the few scenes in a trailer chosen by an outside PR firm, especially when the main character is in just about every single scene. Just wait until the film comes out.

Of course I’ll see it! (as soon as I can for free!!)

Great attitude there, Annie. The animation industry needs more misinformed freeloaders, after all.

Thanks Shannon for defending the work of the crew. It is a shame that people make judgments based on trailers, but you know what they say, opinions are like … everyone has one. And they are allowed to share.

And as a mother of a little girl, and a crew member from Coraline, I can say with confidence that people will connect with her. She isn’t generic, and she has so much character brought to life by animators, and that’s what this is about … animation.

Hang tight nah-sayers, you are in for a good time.