Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,
Where I help you drift off one fact at a time.
I'm your host,
Benjamin Boster.
And today's episode is about the film Coraline.
Thanks to Hedi for sponsoring today's episode.
Coraline is a 2009 American stop-motion animated dark fantasy film,
Written,
Co-produced,
And directed by Henry Selick,
And based on the 2002 novella by Neil Gaiman.
The first film,
Produced by Leica Studios,
Features the voices of Dakota Fanning,
Terry Hatcher,
Jennifer Saunders,
Don French,
And Ian McShane.
The film tells the story of a young girl discovering an idealized alternate universe behind a secret door in her new home.
As Gaiman was finishing his novella,
He met Selick and invited him to make a film adaptation.
As Gaiman was a fan of Selick's other stop-motion works.
When Selick thought that a direct adaptation would lead to maybe a 47-minute movie,
The story was expanded.
Looking for a design different from that of most animation,
Selick discovered the work of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi and invited him to become the concept artist.
Uesugi's biggest influences were on the color palette,
Which was muted in the real world and more colorful in the alternate universe.
Production of the animation took place at a warehouse in Hillsboro,
Oregon.
Coraline premiered at the Portland International Film Festival on February 5,
2009 and was released theatrically in the United States on February 6 by Focus Features.
The film was met with widespread acclaim from critics and grossed $126 million on its initial release.
Several theatrical re-releases raised its box office total to $186 million,
Making it the third-highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time.
The film won Annie Awards for Best Music,
Best Character Design,
And Best Production Design and was nominated for Best Animated Features at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes.
Director Henry Selick met author Neil Gaiman just as Gaiman was finishing the novel Coraline,
Which was published in 2002.
And as Gaiman was a fan of Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas,
1993,
He invited him to make a film adaptation.
As Selick thought a direct adaptation would lead to maybe a 47-minute movie,
His screenplay had some expansions,
Such as the creation of Wybie,
Who was only mentioned in the novel as the boy who lived in the house before Coraline.
The character was expanded in order to not make it seem like Coraline was talking to herself all the time.
When looking for a design different from that of most animation,
Selick discovered the work of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi and invited him to become the concept artist.
One of Uesugi's biggest influences was on the color palette,
Which was muted in reality and more colorful in the other world,
As in The Wizard of Oz,
1939.
Uesugi said,
At the beginning it was supposed to be a small project over a few weeks to simply create characters.
However,
I ended up working on the project for over a year.
Eventually designing sets and backgrounds,
On top of drawing the basic images for the story to be built upon.
Coraline was staged in a 140,
000 square foot warehouse in Hillsboro,
Oregon.
The stage was divided into 50 lots,
Which played host to nearly 150 sets.
Among the sets were three miniature Victorian mansions,
A 42 foot apple orchard,
And a model of Ashland,
Oregon,
Including tiny details such as banners for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
The amazing garden scene was the most complicated set created for the film.
Hundreds of handmade flowers were created to grow and move accordingly when Coraline entered the garden.
More than 28 animators worked at a time on rehearsing or shooting scenes,
Producing 90 to 100 seconds of finished animation each week.
To capture stereoscopy for the 3D release,
The animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions.
Every object on the screen was made for the film.
The crew used three 3D printing systems from Objet in the development and production of the film.
Thousands of high quality 3D models,
Ranging from facial expressions to doorknobs,
Were printed in 3D using the PolyJet Matrix systems,
Which enable the fast transformation of computer-aided design drawings into high quality 3D models.
The puppets had separate parts for the upper and lower parts of the head that could be exchanged for different facial expressions.
And the characters could exhibit over 208,
000 facial expressions.
In the Hidden Worlds,
The Films of Laika exhibit at Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture,
A sign for replacing faces display said there were 207,
336 possible face combinations for Coraline and 17,
633 for her mother.
Selick wanted to leave the seams in the characters' faces to show the handmade nature of the puppets,
But Laika owner Phil Knight requested that the seams be removed digitally.
There were 28 identical puppets of Coraline.
Each one took 3-4 months to make,
And usually took 10 people to construct each one.
Computer artists composited separately shot elements together,
Or added their elements,
Which had to look handcrafted,
Not computer generated.
For instance,
The flames were done with traditional animation and painted digitally,
And the fog was dry ice.
At its peak,
The film involved the efforts of 450 people,
Including 30-35 animators and digital designers in the digital design group DDG,
Directed by Dan Casey,
And more than 250 technicians and designers.
Principal photography took 18 months.
One crew member,
Althea Krom,
Was hired specifically to knit miniature sweaters and other clothing for the puppet characters,
Sometimes using knitting needles as thin as human hair.
A single garment could take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months to complete.
The clothes also simulated wear using paint and a file.
Coraline pays tribute to Joe and Jerome Ramft.
The late Joe Ramft was a previous collaborator,
And a major inspiration to director Henry Selig.
The Ramft brothers are the models for the Ramft Moving Ink movers at the start of the film.
The soundtrack for Coraline features songs from Bruno Collet,
With one,
Other father's song,
By They Might Be Giants.
The other father's singing voice is provided by John Linnell,
One of the band's singers.
The band was hired to write an entire soundtrack for the film,
But according to John Flansburg,
The production team wanted the music to be more creepy,
And only one song was ultimately used.
Collet's score was performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra,
And features choral pieces sung by the Children's Choir of Nice in a nonsense language.
One of the choir members is coincidentally named Coraline.
Coraline won Collet the 2009 Annie Award for Best Score for an Animated Feature.
According to Paul Dergarbedian,
A film business analyst with Media by Numbers,
For the film to succeed it would need a box office comparable to one in the United States.
This was Wallace and Gromit,
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,
Which it grossed $16 million its opening weekend,
And ended up grossing $125 million worldwide.
Before the film's release,
Dergarbedian thought Laika Studios should be pleased,
As Coraline was to make $10 million in its opening weekend.
In its U.
S.
Opening weekend,
The film grossed $16.
85 million,
Ranking third at the box office.
It made $15 million during its second weekend,
Bringing its U.
S.
Total up to $35.
6 million,
$25.
5 million of which came from 3D presentations.
The film was re-released on August 14,
2023,
Grossing over $7 million over four days.
For its 15th anniversary,
It was re-released the following year in 3D on August 16,
2024,
And made $12.
5 million in four days,
Finishing fifth at the box office.
By August 23,
The 2024 re-release had grossed $29.
2 million worldwide,
Making it the highest grossing re-release in the history of Fathom events.
As of September 24,
2024,
The re-release had grossed $52.
4 million worldwide,
Bringing the film's lifetime total gross to $185.
7 million worldwide.
The 15th anniversary re-release became the second highest-grossing re-release of a film of all time in the UK.
It also earned more than its initial box gross from 2009 release in Mexico.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes,
The film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 279 reviews,
With an average rating of 7.
8 out of 10.
The website's critics' consensus reads,
With its vivid stop-motion animation combined with Neil Gaiman's imaginative story,
Coraline is a film that's both visually stunning and wondrously entertaining.
Metacritic,
Which uses a weighted average,
Assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100 based on reviews from 40 critics,
Indicating generally favorable reviews.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four.
David Edelstein of New York Magazine said the film is a bona fide fairy tale that needed a touch less entrancement and a touch more story.
A.
O.
Scott of the New York Times called the film exquisitely realized,
With a slower pace and a more contemplative tone than the novel.
It is certainly exciting,
But rather than race through ever-noisier set pieces toward a hectic climax in a manner of so much animation aimed at kids,
Coraline lingers in an atmosphere that is creepy,
Wonderfully strange,
And full of feeling.
In 2009,
The American Film Institute named Coraline as part of their Top Ten Movies of the Year list.
The film amassed a cold following.
It has since been regarded as a groundbreaking work in stop-motion animation and one of the greatest animated films of all time.
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on July 21,
2009 by Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
A 3D version comes with four sets of 3D glasses,
Specifically the green magenta anaglyph image.
Coraline was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on October 12,
2009.
A 3D version of the film was also released on a two-disc collector's edition.
The DVD opened to first week sales of $1,
036,
845 and over $19 million in revenue.
Total sales stand at over 2.
6 million units and over $45 million in revenue.
A two-disc Blu-ray 3D set,
Which includes a stereoscopic 3D on the first disc and an anaglyph 3D image,
Was released in 2011.
A new edition from Shout Factory under license from Universal was released on August 31,
2021.
The film was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on December 13,
2022.
The website for Coraline involves an interactive exploration game where the player can scroll through Coraline's world.
It won the 2009 Webby Award for Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics both by The People and the Webby organization.
It was also nominated for the Webby Movie and Film category.
On June 16,
2008,
D3 Publisher announced the release of a video game based on the film.
It was developed by Papaya Studio for the Wii and PlayStation 2 and by Artco for Nintendo DS.
It was released on January 27,
2009,
Close to the film's theatrical release.
The soundtrack was released digitally February 3,
2009,
By E1 Music and in stores on February 24,
2009.
Stop Motion,
Also known as Stop Frame Animation or Object Animation,
Is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back.
Any kind of object can thus be animated,
But puppets with movable joints,
Puppet animation,
Or clay figures,
Claymation,
Are most commonly used.
Puppets,
Models,
Or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation.
Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixelation.
Stop motion of flat materials such as paper,
Fabrics,
Or photographs is usually called cut-out animation.
The term stop motion,
Relating to the animation technique,
Is often spelled with a hyphen as stop-hyphen motion,
Either standalone or as a compound modifier.
Both orthographic variants,
With and without the hyphen,
Are correct,
But the hyphenated one has a second meaning that is unrelated to animation or cinema,
A device for automatically stopping a machine or engine when something has gone wrong.
The use of animated objects in film has been present since the early days of cinema.
Before the advent of chronophotography in 1878,
A small number of photograph series depicted subjects in successive positions.
These can now be regarded as a form of stop motion or pixelation,
Although very few results were meant to be animated.
Until celluloid film base was established in 1888 and set the standard for the moving image,
Animation could only be presented via mechanisms,
Such as a zoetrope.
In 1849,
Joseph Plateau published a note about improvements for his phantoscope.
A new translucent variation had improved picture quality and could be viewed with both eyes by several people at the same time.
Plateau stated that the illusion could be advanced even further with an idea communicated to him by Charles Wheatstone.
A combination of the phantoscope and Wheatstone's stereoscope.
Plateau thought the construction of a sequential set of stereoscopic image pairs would be the more difficult part of the plan than adapting two copies of his improved phantoscope to be fitted with a stereoscope.
Wheatstone had suggested using photographs on paper of a solid object,
For instance a statuette.
Plateau concluded that,
For this purpose,
16 plaster models could be made with 16 regular modifications.
He believed such a project would take much time and careful effort,
But would be quite worth it because of the expected marvellous results.
The plan was never executed,
Possibly because Plateau was almost completely blind by this time.
In 1852,
Jules Dubosc patented a stereoscope-phantoscope-ubioscope,
Or abbreviated as stereophantoscope,
Stroboscopic disc.
The only known extant disc contained stereoscopic photograph pairs of different phases of the motion of a machine.
Due to the long exposure times necessary to capture an image with the photographic emulsions of the period,
The sequence could not be recorded live.
It must have been assembled from separate photographs of the various positions of the machinery.
In 1855,
Johann Nepomuk Czermak published an article about his stereophorescope and other experiments aimed at stereoscopic moving images.
He mentioned a method of sticking needles in a stroboscopic disc so that it looked like one needle was being pushed in and out of the cardboard when animated.
He realized that this method provided basically endless possibilities to make different 3D animations.
He then introduced two methods to animate stereoscopic pairs of images.
One was basically a stereo viewer using two stroboscopic discs,
And the other was more or less similar to the later zoetrope.
Czermak explained how suitable stereoscopic photographs could be made by recording a series of models,
For instance,
To animate a growing pyramid.
On February 27,
1860,
Peter Hubert Devine received British patent No.
537 for 28 monocular and stereoscopic variations of cylindrical stroboscopic devices.
Devine's mimescope received an honorable mention for ingenuity of construction at the 1862 International Exhibition in London.
Devine employed models,
Insects,
And other objects instead of pictures with perfect success.
In 1874,
Jules Janssen made several practice discs for the recording of the passage of Venus with his series Passage de Venus,
With his photographic revolver.
He used a model of the planet and a light source standing in for the sun.
While actual recordings of the passage of Venus have not been located,
Some practice discs survived,
And the images of one were turned into a short animated film decades after the development of cinematography.
It is estimated that 80-90% of all silent films are lost.
Extant contemporary movie catalogues,
Reviews,
And other documentation can provide some details on lost films,
But this kind of written documentation is also incomplete.
And often insufficient to properly date all extant films,
Or even identify them if original titles are missing.
Whether any scene was created with stop-motion techniques often remains unclear in extant descriptions.
The principles of animation and other special effects were mostly kept a secret,
Not only to prevent use of such techniques by competitors,
But also to keep audiences interested in the mystery of the magic tricks.
Stop-motion is closely related to the stop trick,
In which the camera is temporarily stopped during the recording of a scene to create a change before filming is continued,
Or for which the cause of the change is edited out of the film.
In the resulting film,
The change will be sudden,
And the logical cause of the change will be mysteriously absent or replaced with a fake cause that is suggested in the scene.
Stop-motion has very rarely been shot in stereoscopic 3D throughout film history.
The first 3D stop-motion short was In Tune With Tomorrow,
Also known as Motorhythm,
Made in 1939 by John Norling.
The second stereoscopic stop-motion release was Adventures of Sam Space,
In 1955.
The third and latest stop-motion short in stereo 3D was The Incredible Invasion of the 20,
000 Giant Robots from Outer Space in 2000,
By Elmer Kahn and Alexander Lentius.
This is also the first ever 3D stereoscopic stop-motion and CGI short in the history of film.
The first of all stop-motion 3D feature is Coraline,
2009.
Based on Neil Gaiman's best-selling novel,
And directed by Henry Selick.
Another recent example is the Nintendo 3DS video software,
Which comes with the option for stop-motion videos.
This has been released December 8,
2011,
As a 3DS system update.
Also the film Paranorman is in 3D stop-motion.
Another more complicated variation on stop-motion is Go-Motion,
Co-developed by Phil Tippett,
And first used in the films The Empire Strikes Back,
1980,
Dragon Slayer,
1981,
And the Robocop films.
Go-Motion involved programming a computer to move parts of a model slightly during each exposure of each frame of film,
Combined with traditional hand manipulation of the model in between frames,
To produce a more realistic motion blurring effect.
Tippett also used the process extensively in his 1984 short film Prehistoric Beast,
A 10-minute long sequence depicting a herbivore dinosaur being chased by a carnivorous one.
With new footage,
Prehistoric Beast became Dinosaur in 1985,
A full-length dinosaur documentary hosted by Christopher Reeve.
Those Phil Tippett's Go-Motion tests acted as motion models for his first photorealistic use of computers,
To depict dinosaurs in Jurassic Park in 1993.
A low-tech manual version of this blurring technique was originally pioneered by Vladislav Starevich in the silent era,
And was used in his feature film The Tale of the Fox,
1931.
The reason for using stop-motion instead of the more advanced computer-generated imagery,
CGI,
Include the appeal of its distinct look,
And the notion that it accurately displays real-life textures.
While CGI texturing can look more artificial,
And isn't always quite as close to realism.
This is appreciated by a number of animation directors.
Many young people begin their experiments in movie-making with stop-motion,
Thanks to the ease of modern stop-motion software and online video publishing.
Scientists at IBM used a scanning tunneling microscope to single out and move individual atoms,
Which were used to make characters in A Boy and His Atom.
This was the tiniest scale stop-motion video made at the time.
Replicating the distinct tactile look of traditional stop-motion has gained popularity in contemporary media through the use of CGI.
This approach can often provide a more cost-effective and accessible means of achieving the stop-motion aesthetic.
Noteworthy among such endeavors is the work of blunder animation Ian Worthington,
Exemplified by his 2021 short film Captain Yajima.
Another prominent example of this trend includes The Lego Movie,
Which uses CGI to replicate the visual style and imperfections of stop-motion.
