Mysteries!

sometime last week i started noticing some strange things popping up around on the net. if you are reading this blog i'm sure you have realized by now that i am watching the evolution of coraline's marketing campaign pretty closely. in one of my standard coraline searches i came up with this link. over the next couple of days more boxes were showing up elsewhere, and there seems to be a steady stream of them showing up every day or two now. it goes like this: random internet guy gets an email from "the coraline team" asking for a mailing address. if internet guy complies he gets a mysterious parcel a few days later. he opens up the box to discover a varied assortment of detritus from the movie: stills printed on aged paper, props, bits of puppets, or costumes, a personalized letter, henry selick's autograph, and a key with a password to unlock hidden content on coraline.com. they are each numbered in an edition of 50, so there are still potentially lots of cool bits yet to be delivered. i knew something like this was in the works, but i am quite impressed by the execution of this campaign, not to mention pretty damn envious of the people who are designing and assembling these packages.

since i've been digging around looking for more of these packages online i figured i'd just keep a list of them here for you lot. hopefully all 50 will surface before all is said and done. maybe i'll copy this list to the section on the right for better access in the future. have fun looking at this stuff, it's pretty cool.

::1::2::3::4::5::6::7::8::9::10::
:::11::12::13::14::15::16::17:::
:::18::19::20::21::22::23::24:::
:::25::26::27::28::29::30::31:::
:::32::33::34::35::36::37::38:::
:::39::40::41::42::43::44::45:::
:::46::47::48::49::50:::::::::::::

as for the passwords to coraline.com, these are the ones that are known at this time. i'm pretty sure there are at least a couple more that have yet to surface. most of the content you will see was shot during the last few weeks of shooting. the crew that was hired to shoot these spots did an amazing job. not only did they document what is already inherently cool, (stop motion, duh!) they added a whole other dimension of coolness with how they photographed and edited the footage. i got to help them out with props, and build some little rigs and stuff for some of the shots and it was a real pleasure to help out. my hands are in there somewhere.

stopmotion
an overview of "stuff". the point is its a "handmade" film.
buttoneyes
an introduction to the cast of the film. that's my sketchbook in the beginning!
puppetlove
henry talks about what a puppet's inner life might be like. includes a great piece of animation/pixilation/time lapse by, and featuring phil beglan.
armpithair
suzanne moultin talks about hair. she and jess were miracle workers. mad props!
moustachio
bo henry was the set construction supervisor. i guess people think his mustache is funny. we wired it up. there's an interesting story that goes with this one.
sweaterxxs
this lady knitted some crazy tiny sweaters for coraline, working from her home. its a shame there is no mention of deborah, margaret, paloma, elodie, heidi, fiona, or any of the other foxy costume gals working with us at the studio.

JETLAGGED!

i just got back from england last night and i am so out of it. my pay-as-you-go cell phone's alarm just went off... i should be getting up now, but i'm just about to go to bed... i'm OUT of it.

but it has been a busy and exhilarating week or so, and i'll go into it in greater detail on my trip here very soon. a lot of coraline related stuff happened during the time i was gone, but i'll just mention the trailer for now. you can go here for high res and downloadable versions, or just watch it below. they pretty much show you the 2 minute version of the first two acts, which is kind of spoiler-ish if you ask me, but hey, nobody did. i hope you enjoy it. tons of awesome people lost their minds so you could see this!

Meanwhile...

i just found the new international poster for coraline. i guess you kinda have to expect goofy looking stuff like this to come out, but considering how decent the previous poster looked this is kind of a shocker. i DID say this was going to be interesting.



okay, i was going to just leave it at posting the image, but i couldn't walk away. i'm reverting back into my 3 hour critique school days. i can't just say "that looks goofy", and move on. let's get in there! i think what bothers me the most is how she's just plopped down in the foreground giving you that look. what is that look all about? the image is all about saying "hey, look at this crazy world we've got in store for you!", but she's not really reinforcing that. obviously the two sides are depicting the two worlds in the story; the real world and the other world. it's too bad she doesn't appear to exist in either one of them. there are some things wrong here that i won't go into, but i think it would bother me less if she were more integrated. possibly further back on the sidewalk, looking around or something? you know, exploring. Something as simple as having here stepping toward the "dark" side of the poster would speak volumes. there's my 2 minute hack critique.

STOKED!

thanks america!