Coraline! Coraline!

Last Friday, Feb 6th, I had gone to see Coraline in 3D with my beaux. It was AMAZING! A few weeks ago I had seen a trailer bit on the Nucleus gallery's website and the animation was so seamless that I thought it was CG. But no! It is entirely done in stop-motion animation! Absolutely incredible. The artists and production team at Laika have been doing this kind of stuff for a long time and it was truly a treat to view such fine craftsmanship on the big screen. The script was adapted from a children's tale by Neil Gaiman, an incredible graphic novelist. And true to form the dialogue between the characters reflect the very essence of Gaiman's work - crisp and unashamidly candid. I highly recommend seeing this movie - but leave the kids at home. This is more of an "adult swim" quality and might scare the little ones. Then again, that's what they said about Nightmare Before Christmas.

The next day, Feb 7th, I got to visit with the character designers, environment/production artists and key-art designer from the production of Coraline. The gathering was held at the Nucleus gallery in downtown Alhambra, and boy was the place packed! People practically oozing out into the street. The artists showed concept art and storyboards and other beautiful works that all helped guide (or rather, was guided by) the film director. Amazing quality, and the look and feel was developed by none other than Dan Krall. Very Suess like and reminicent of the older Disney films, pre 1970. It was interesting the learn that the original story had had to be re-writen as production went along (several times), in order for filming to correlate with the overall theme and just to make sense in real time. Characters were invented, as well as designed after several relatives and friends of the director. (Guess we all do that - makes creation a little easier to follow a model.) They were careful enough though not to show too much for those that had not yet seen the film, but I was glad to be a part of such a special event.