Coraline-Blog 13
April 27, 2010 
Having watched Coraline in class for the second time made me realize how incredibly different certain textures such as skin were in this animation compared to other animations we have seen in class. The outfits and hair on the characters were very realistic as well. I wondered if this had to do with the fact that this movie was made in stop motion. I decided to find some videos on You tube to see how stop motion works, and how specifically the characters were created in Coraline.
The video on the top showed how detailed and painstaking the process was of creating miniature puppets, props, and sets for this stop motion animation. Stop motion brings across acting and performance by the animator, along with adding, in the words of Neil Gaiman a “stylized reality” to the animation.
The video below specifically looks at the way the facial expressions were made for the characters, especially Coraline. Just the process of changing Coraline’s facial expressions is tedious in stop motion. There are not only different facial expressions on the computer, but each expression is also hand made to fit the lower half of the puppet’s face to go in accordance with the dialogue, which is recorded first.
The video below explains how exactly they shot one frame at a time for stop motion in Coraline. The walls of the house opened and closed so the animator could move the figure (in this case the other dad playing the piano.) The animator showed how he had to move the dad by a little increment, close up the whole set again, take the shot, and then repeat this same step a couple hundred times just to get that one scene. No wonder this movie took 4 years to make!
Finally, the video below shows how much work and time went into creating the props by hand for the movie. This video is in regards to the character’s costumes. In the video one can see how Coraline’s sweater was created thoroughly by hand, with pattern and all. It goes to show how much the details are worked on for stop motion animations. According to the lady making the sweater (Althea Crome,) very small needles are used that are almost the “same dimension as a human hair” to knit the sweaters. The time span for the sweater can be from six weeks to six months.
Overall, I enjoyed watching Coraline again in class. The animators obviously worked very hard to bring this movie to life and did an excellent job!
**I commented on John Lyver (#27) and Jessica Martin (#30)
Yeah some of these animated or partially computer animated features take incredible amounts of time and effort to complete. I remember watching clips on how animators made Final Fantasy the Spirits within and some other animated features like Shrek. They had to even create programs sometimes to run and create these animations. They even had saved all the different facile changes for a character saying certain syllables. It was a lot of work but in the end it pays off with a beautiful product.
I definitely think the hard word paid off. I like the film so much I watched it again this weekend. I love how they used different materials such as fabric and yarn to make the animation more textured and visually stimulating.
[...] I commented on Sarah and Corey Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment [...]
Never having seen this Tim Burton movie, but several others, I was delighed at the chance. I am amazed not just with how tedious this work is, but the level of patience is out of this world. I agree with how detailed the facial expressions and how fascinating it was to link the expression to words being spoken.