Coraline

Coraline opens this Friday. In 3D too! I'm excited. Coraline is a stop-motion animated film directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) based on a story by Neil Gaiman (Stardust, The Sandman). Here's the trailer. I bet if I watched this movie as a kid, I'd get nightmares. Have you ever wondered if there is another world beyond a mirror? A parallel universe that looks eerily similar, but is slightly twisted? I have. Or how about if you're the one trapped in someone else's mirror. This movie reminds me of such thoughts.

Over the weekend I went to the Cartoon Art Museum in SF to check out the Coraline exhibit. It was small, but pretty cool. They had one of the Coraline puppets/armature (articulated metal skeleton) that they used to make the movie. It was quite interesting. The face is composed of two parts: from the eye level and up and the eye level and below. Decomposing the face into parts allows them to mix and match different eyebrow expressions and nose and mouth expressions. Imagine how time consuming it would be just to swap out the parts to make the characters talk. The clothing was also quite amazing, because it was made on such a small scale. They had to use needles that were roughly the thickness of a human hair.



If you get the chance, I recommend taking a look. The Totoro Forest Project is also on display but ends this weekend. The Totoro Forest Project Charity Auction is a series of paintings/illustrations inspired by Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, done by various artists. The pieces were auctioned off to raise money for Japan's Sayama Forest.