2009 is dead

but what a year, huh!? i'm not really big on new year's resolutions and things of that nature, but it is always good to take a moment and reflect on where you are, what you are doing, how you got there, and where you want to be. seems like the start of a new year (or decade) is as good a time as any. so in taking an existential inventory of things, i have to say it has been a weird one for sure. although i was mostly unemployed last year, i had many amazing opportunities to meet and work for some great new friends from all around the country, nay, WORLD. in doing so i have learned many important lessons about myself, my craft, and my "industry". i have also had the good fortune to put together a small studio with some good friends and collaborators. this has given us a much needed boost to our collective productivity as we scramble to complete our various personal projects before the "next big job" comes along. and yes, i have been doing a great deal of scrambling lately.

so, due to the combined facts that it has been AGES since i made a real post here, and a new year is upon us, i am going to format this post as sort of a wrap-up. i hope you enjoy it.

something i completely forgot to mention in my post back in october was the film mary and max. the portland chapter of ASIFA had just hosted a screening and Q&A with director adam elliot. the film was outstanding, and adam elliot was both congenial and forthcoming at the Q&A following the screening. i love the distinct visual sensibility of elliot's body of work, and it was nice to see his world expanded a bit for a feature film. the subject matter could be considered somewhat dark, but i thought the movie was remarkably humorous and quite poignant, if a bit melodramatic at times. i usually could not care less about voice casting of celebrities, but i thought phillip seymour hoffman's performance as the voice of max was amazing. i believe you can currently see this on IFC on demand, and i highly recommend that you do!

since i've already started talking about movies, i'll move on to wes anderson's the fantastic mr fox. at the end of 2008 i took a trip to england and took the chance to visit some of the studios over there. the first stop was 3 mills where they were a little over halfway finished shooting "fox". although i had just been awake for the majority of a 30+ hour journey, my memory of the studio tour is quite vivid. i was immediately struck by the complexity of some of the bigger setups for long panning shots. while i was not shown any footage at the time, i saw a lot that made me very excited. later in the trip i visited mackinnon and saunders, the puppet making studio that continues to set the standard for high quality stop motion puppets. it was there that the full sized hero characters, with their sophisticated head mechanics, were created. most of the puppets that were made there had already been shipped to the studio in london, but there were still enough odds and ends on hand to make my excitement for this project grow even more. wes anderson had made a point to mention on many occasions that ladislas starevitch's the tale of the fox was a major influence on his wanting to do a stop motion film, and particularly one with animals. after seeing the animal puppets for this film, the influence was unmistakable. i was won over by the look, but was curious to see how they were going to look when the came to life on screen.
as many of you are probably aware, during the weeks preceding the film's release there had been some minor controversy in regard to anderson's method of directing the film. pairing this flurry of bad press with a somewhat flat trailer, i admit that i was feeling very tentative going into this one. but... I LOVED IT. so much for bored journalists building up negative hype! i thought this was one of the very best films of the year. it was everything that a movie for kids should be. (in a related side note, while in NYC last week i made a trip over to the waldrof goodman men's store to take a look at the window displays that are currently featuring puppets and sets from this movie. during the 15 or so minutes that i was in the vicinity there were several children who became super excited as soon as they recognized the contents of the windows, and made their parents stop to let them look at the displays) i've read on various websites where some parents have been displeased with the somewhat vague moral of the story... WHAT EVER. you can be that way if you want. i guess i'm not a traditionalist, and i feel like most children's entertainment is so disgustingly nerfed that i was happy to see the protagonists reverting to their animal instincts in order to assure their survival. how about this for a moral: be yourself. anyway, i was filled with pure joy the entire time i was watching this one. i don't know what happened at the box office, but i absolutely feel like this movie will become a classic in the truest sense. congratulations to everyone involved!

p.s. if anyone knows who animated the shot of bean ransacking his trailer, go find him and buy him a drink on me. i'll pay you back.

and of course with all of these stop-mo films being released this year there is bound to be some friendly competition. while i don't generally place much value on awards one way or another, i have to admit that it has been nice to see coraline, (as well as fox, mary & max, and others) on various nominee and year-end lists. i just noticed a couple of days ago that focus has released a new featurette on the making of coraline in order to drum up renewed interest in the film for the coming award season. while there isn't really any new content in this video, it was good to see a lot of familiar faces during the crew montage segments. if you watch closely you might even see a guy that looks kind of like me.

beyond all that big-budget movie magic, i've been keeping my head down at the studio working on 3 or 4 smaller projects. one is nearing completion, one is halfway finished, and another is just about to take off in earnest. i should be able to share pictures from one of these projects as soon as i finish, so that should give you something to look forward to beyond all of this jibber-jabber. i know i don't post enough pics on here. i'm aware of the problem and i aim to do better.

i can sort of show you guys some stuff from one of the projects that i mentioned in a previous post. my studio-mate shea bordo has been developing this project for about the last year, but it has really gained momentum in the past 6 months or so since we got back from our stint at buddy system. it isn't really MY project, so i'm not going to go into too much detail, but i did want to show a little character test from the puppet i helped build. our other studio-mate rachel larsen, who will be animating the film, has been doing some animation tests using a quick casting that we did in order to find out if the armature was going to perform well enough. unfortunately, i didn't take any pics of the armature before we cast it up for testing. i'll make sure to take some photos of it after any changes i make before we cast the actual puppet. for now, i hope you enjoy this little animation test.



man, i feel like i'm just scraping the surface of what i wanted to post here, but this is getting ridiculously long, and i think i want to stop for now.

dang it, one more thing. i've been following ethan marak's website since well before i knew him personally, and he has been working on a his chemical kid/super battle project for many years. he literally just announced this website showcasing a brand new trailer and lots of great behind the scenes photos. this stuff looks awesome! the keener eyes out there (read: nerds) might notice various armature work by lionel orozco, tom brierton, and wuchan kim.

pandering

well, i feel a little awkward mentioning this here, as it feels a little too much like tooting my own horn... but some of you may be interested. marc spess of animateclay.com recently included an interview with me in the 3rd edition of his "secrets revealed" e-book on stop motion. hopefully i don't come across like TOO much of a jackass. the publication is a great overall resource. marc covers pretty much every aspect of making a stop motion film and includes insight you can use both in your garage and on a big budget feature. the new edition also includes interviews with anthony scott, kathi zung, justin rasch, and brad schiff.

you can buy it here

while on the topic of telling you how you should spend your money, i highly recommend you go see the new film moon.

Georgia on my mind

hi ladies and gents... well, okay... hi gents. i send you greetings from my ancestral homeland. i'm here for a couple of weeks visiting family and friends. it is nice to be back for a bit. i wasn't able to come home for the holidays, so this is my first trip home since the production break last july. it has been refreshing.

it is also shaping up to be a busy month after my fun and games vacation. shortly before leaving for this trip i secured a studio space with a couple of friends from coraline. i'm really looking forward to getting back home to get the studio set up and functional. we are going to have dedicated space for all of my metal working tools, a soldering station, moldmaking, casting, (with ventilation!) personal, and shared work space for everyone, and an entire corner blocked off for a shooting stage. it is going to be a fair amount of work to get everything just right, but it should be well worth the trouble. the problem is, i'm booked on a job in LA less than a week after i arrive back in portand (not really a problem, of course) so i'll probably get just close enough to having the space set up that it is frustrating to leave it unfinished for three weeks. i really can't wait to get in there and get down to business. i'm also really pleased to get all of my shop equipment out of the kitchen!

in other news, i was pleasantly surprised to see that coraline is returning to 3D screens this weekend. wait, what day is it? i guess that technically happened yesterday... what do you want from me, i'm on vacation? at any rate, jonas brothers = epic fail.

strong opening

i'd say congratulations are in order for all the crew who worked on coraline. blood, sweat and tears were literally shed to make this movie happen. many people made huge sacrifices in their personal lives so this film could be what it is. i was very fortunate to play a small role in the creation of this film, but there were about 300 other amazing individuals who worked just as hard and if you know any of them, smack 'em on the back and say thanks!


(i got bored an ripped off shepard fairey last night)

and while it may not be immediately apparent, we performed really well last weekend. why? here's why. the final tally for the weekend B.O has been reported to be $16.8 million. most trackers had us coming in closer to half that. we opened on about 2,300 screens, which is about 1,000 less than most "wide releases", and still managed to come in 3rd for the weekend. interestingly, about 60% of the gross from opening weekend came from 3D theaters. (if you haven't yet, go see it in 3D before the jonas brothers run it out of the 3D theaters in 2 weeks) we beat out pink panther 2, which everyone predicted would bury us. the film "taken" came in second, but our per screen average was higher, so you could make an argument that we came in 2nd. maybe not technically, but... as for the number one spot, you can't really put coraline up against a movie like "she's just not that into you" and expect reason to prevail. funny thing is, a lot of people seem to be pretty "meh" about that one after having seen it, and the word of mouth of coraline has been terrific, so hopefully in the long weekend coming up (valentine's day too!) we will continue to see good things for coraline.

i was heartened by this picture my mom sent me a couple of days ago. she still lives in the town where i grew up, newnan, georgia, which is a suburb of atlanta, about 40 miles southwest of the city. not exactly ground central for film promotion, but someone lovingly painted this mural in the window for opening weekend!



in a couple of days i will post some pics from the premier and a DIY crew screening from opening night.

SWEET

i can not seem to get rid of all this congestion in my head. it will not go away.

i'm not going to ramble on here today, i just wanted to re-post the new coraline trailer. in all honesty, it is totally badass. the last trailer was kind of... i dunno. i felt like it showed too much of the film's content (in sequence!) and the film comes across looking like it is meant for very young kids. at least that was my opinion. even neil gaiman is saying this is his favorite trailer thus far. it is a work of art in its own right. i think the pacing is great, and the music, especially toward the beginning, really makes you feel... cautious. i like it a lot. thanks again, W+K! now if only they had released this trailer first!

for now all i have is a youtube link. if i can find a high quality download i'll post that later.



a couple of new boxes have shown up too. check out the matrix to the right.

Pretty Good Week

it feels better already, doesn't it? yay for us! the 20th was also my two year anniversary with a very special young lady, so that made the day even that much sweeter. the down side is that i've had a crazy cold for about a week now, and while i feel somewhat better, i am super congested. i'll get over it.

one of the projects that i took on a few weeks ago was to build a book for the "art of coraline" show at the cartoon art museum in san francisco. i kept process journals for all of my armature designs and doodles throughout the production, and someone thought it might be a good idea to put some of that work in the show. of course, instead of just scanning some pages and saying "here you go", i volunteered to make a replica of the whole dang book. the problem was, there were 2+ moleskine journals worth of crap to go through, so i wound up including only(?) 48 pages in the recreation. i'm not sure if they are having a fancy opening or closing reception, or if henry is going to make an appearance or anything, but regardless of fanfare the show is definitely worth a look. i've seen the selection of art and puppets that are going to be on display, and i think it will be a worthwhile trip for anyone who is interested in that sort of thing. there was so much beautiful artwork done for this film. really great work. seriously. and as an added bonus, if you visit the gallery before the 8th of february you can still see the current totoro forest project show, which is amazing. a few coraline artists have work in that exhibit as well. any of you fine folks who manage to check the show out should let me know if my book has been tagged or vandalized as of the date you see it! except for the stress of trying to get the thing finished on time it was a lot of fun to make the book. it has been a long time since i have done any book binding, and this little project reminded me how rewarding it can be to make your own journals. perhaps i shall make more.

how about a sneak preview?

ghost town

dang.

i'm tired.

out of the blue i got called back to work for a few weeks to get puppets ready for some publicity appearances. there is an exhibit at the cartoon art museum in san francisco that we are preparing stuff for, and there is a whole bunch of other crap that needs to be done for the premiere. its a madhouse. i hadn't really expected to be back at work any time soon, so i guess i'm going to be a little light on free time at least up until around the time the movie comes out. it is nice, but kind of weird to be back in that giant building which is now a ghost town. i think we had somewhere up around 60 people working in character fabrication at the height of production, and now there are about 5 of us working. needless to say it feels a little different. its good to spend a little time with coraline though. i kinda missed her.

(i just realized this is going to be a pretty coraline-centric post... sorry about that. i DO have a life.)

in other related news, boxes 21, and 28 have surfaced. there have also been several button boxes showing up at different places. i can't really tell if all of these (admittedly cool) word of mouth marketing schemes are resulting in much mainstream awareness. i don't have TV so i don't really know how much presence there is on air right now, but i know they are cranking things up starting this week. i also don't live in a huge metropolitan market, so we don't have massive billboards or plastered storefronts. at least not yet. i've had a couple of relatives send me emails saying they've seen TV promos and stuff. pretty cool.

it seems like people who are into sneakers are liking these coraline dunks. i've actually seen these in person and they are pretty nice. the sole glows in the dark. (just let your soul glow!) you guys probably already know about the contest for winning these.

speaking of coraline swag, there are some strange goings on over at ebay lately. most notably, there have been a ton of black coraline keys popping up and selling for up to 70 bucks a pop. that's a lot! i think those keys are pretty badass, but i don't think they're worth 70 dollars, especially when you know they are just being picked up off the ground by the people who are selling them. whatever. one guy has a listing that states that the keys were given to VIPs and people on the crew. RIGHT. and what's this scavenger hunt business all of the auctions are claiming. i think it is obvious that the scavenger hunt is to find the frigging keys. anyway, i think they're cool, even if people are getting ripped off. if you have one of these keys and want to part ways with it, send it to me and i'll make it worth your while.

interesting times

i'm guessing that many of you have already read the news that laika has pulled the plug on their proposed CG film "jack and ben", leading to the layoffs of 65 employees. weird timing, right? obviously this totally sucks for those 65 people. i don't think i personally know any of those directly affected by the layoffs, but i can relate since i was recently "rolled off" from the company myself. there is a huge difference, though. we got to finish a movie, and they didn't even get theirs off the ground. i can't imagine how bad it must feel to invest yourself in a project only to see it come to a grinding halt and have nothing to show for it. i think this decision really surprised everyone, so there is an inevitable negative emotional component to the parting of ways. i sympathize.

HOWEVER,

i can only see this as a good thing for the future of laika. according to this article in animation magazine, "jack and ben's animated adventure" was announced in july of 2005. (that article is so old that coraline is then referred to as a hybrid CG/stop motion film.) when i started work on coraline in 2006 "jack and ben" was well into the development process. the 2005 article linked above states that:

"jack and ben will reportedly tackle the ever-popular talking animal formula as it follows the adventures of two brothers from a yet-undisclosed sector of the animal kingdom."

a more recent synopsis was a little more specific:

"A young bird, desperate to fly solo, and his little brother, determined to tag along, risk their tail-feathers when they skip migration to compete in a cross-continental race."

maybe they didn't feel like it had the right tone for a follow up to comparatively edgy film like coraline. another article published in the oregonian a couple of months ago left me with some questions along those lines. in brief, the piece is about how laika is going against the grain on coraline by using an unconventional animation technique (stop motion), telling an unconventional type of contemporary children's story (scary), and doing it in an unconventional town (portland). (its still too early to use the word maverick isn't it?) i remember trying to reconcile that philosophy with the rather typical sounding "talking animal movie" and it just never made much sense to me. in some ways i'm relieved that they pulled the plug on it, because it is an indication that they are trying to refine the direction they want to take things in the future. hopefully the NEAR future. if coraline does well, i think laika is going to be in a good position to make good on those claims of creating a niche for itself with films that are a bit more distinctive than all that other CG mung out there, and that can only be good, right?

ultimately, we all know it just comes down to 3 things. yeah, STORY, STORY, STORY! if you start with an interesting, solid, tight story and then manage to tell that story in a compelling way by using the technique that best suits it, then you are really doing all you can. if you can tell great stories and still manage to stylistically stand apart from the crowd, then you've really accomplished something rare. if laika wants to tell some of these stories with CG, that's great. i hope they're awesome. if laika wants to tell some of these stories with stop motion, that's even better. i hope they kick ass too, and i hope i get to work on some of them. according to the article reporting the layoffs laika will have more announcements after the first of the year. let's hope those announcements lead to more work for all of us.

............................................................................................
reading back over this... jeez, what a boring post... i'm really trying to come across as some kind of a know-it-all, huh? blah blah blah. at least we still have this "jack and ben" to look forward to next year, even though i really never look forward to jack...



EXTRA!
i don't really know what the heck this is, but it looks crazy. if you live in NYC go down to 57th and 3rd and tell me what the heck is going on.

GO TIME!

it looks like the big push for coraline has officially begun. most notably, the coraline movie website is finally completely open. no more passwords. for now. first and foremost, it looks great. it can be kind of a pain to explore, but that's all part of the fun, i guess. i think kids will dig that aspect more than most of us old farts. poking around coraline's house pays off though. there is a lot of hidden content in the different rooms. i don't want to give too much away. i will say that the design work these guys are doing is pretty amazing. you don't often see film promotion that, you know... looks good. if you can find the desktop wallpapers on the site (look in the foyer) you'll see what i mean. very tasteful, and just NICE. they're not beating you over the head with logos or huge characters' faces and all that ugly stuff you normally see. speaking of exploration, make sure you find "the well" on the site. there are a bunch of cool production stills that show various crew members at work. sadly, i'm not is any of these, but it is just as rewarding to see so many of my pals getting some coverage. if you are especially attentive, you can see some pretty cool things in these shots that probably won't make into trailers, at least until after the film is released. i'll also mention that the music on the site is pretty cool. i'll admit that i was never a huge fan of the temp score that was being used during production (sorry, dudes!) but the final mixes, which i'll assume are what we are hearing, are well above and beyond my expectations. so a round of applause for composer bruno coulais for some amazing music. hopefully it will work even better in the film. another fun thing you can do on the site is visit the other mother's workshop, where you can upload your picture and sew buttons into your eyes. yeah, sounds kinda goofy but it is strangely satisfying.



i also found what may be the very first full review of coraline. i'm not sure where it would have been screened, but it certainly seems like this guy saw it. he liked it, and that's what matters.

finally, in conjunction with the full launch of the website, a bunch of exclusive alphabet "cards" were sent to different online media recourses. yeah 26 in all, good guess. cool idea, (maybe?) but the images are pretty underwhelming in contrast to the beautiful boxes that have been going out, and nice look we've now seen on the website. hmmmm. these alphabet cards look more along the lines of that international poster i posted a while back. whatever, it is what it is. the alphabet stuff is linked below.

if you follow one of the links and it doesn't work, copy and paste the address. i was able to view all of the images that way. i found this list over at x-realms. thanks to admin "sith happens" for doing the hard part!

A: AICN (720x1067)
B: Bullz Eye (400x550)
C: Collider (719x1067)
D: Dread Central (525x779)
E: Eclipse Magazine (690x1024)
F: Fearnet (469x694)
G: Geeks of Doom (721x1067)
H: Happy News (325x480)
I: IGN (486x720)
J: JoBlo (719x1067)
K: KOL (600x889)
L: Latino Review (540x801)
M: MTV (600x889)
N: Neil Gaiman (719x1967)
O: Obsessed with Film (337x500)
P: Premiere (300x445)
Q: Quick Stop Entertainment (720x1067)
R: Rotten Tomatoes (439x652)
S: Sci-fi (400x594)
T: Twitch Film (500x740)
U: UGO (520x770)
V: VFXWorld (337x500)
W: Worst Previews (719x1067)
X: X-Realms (720x1067)
Y: Yahoo! Movies (446x660)
Z: Zap2It (720x1067)

Another update.

there's not really a whole heck of a lot going on this week. i've been getting my "work bench" set up, although i have not actually gotten any word DONE. mostly i've been laying the ground work. i got the apartment pretty much as clean as it has ever been, which is a good thing since i'm stuck in this place most of the time now. i did get out today for lunch with my friend margaret. i really miss all of the old gang from work, and i really enjoy being able to see people when i can. i've found that between a couple of lunch dates a week and the weekly poker game i host i've been able to stay in touch with a lot of people, even if all we do is complain about the lack of another project to move on to, and how completely unavoidable that could have been... but i digress. i've been getting my gym time in, although i'm still hating it. but the gears are starting to turn and i can see myself beginning to be a bit more productive. i've got 2 projects that i am going to be focusing on thru the end of the year. one should be a breeze, the other a big pain in the arse, but hopefully well worth it.

i'm trying to talk myself in/out of buying the sherline mill with a DRO that i have been wanting to get for about 3 years. it would certainly be a lifesaver for doing side work, but i really don't know how much of that i'll be doing over the next few months. i am tending to think that if the answer to that question is "some" than it will save me a lot of heartache and pain to go ahead and bite the bullet and get the thing. i've been using a sherline lathe base and attaching the headstock to a vertical milling column that essentially converts your lathe into a mill. it works fine, but the lathe base is not ideal for milling operations, AND it is a pain to go back and forth between modes. not to mention, the DRO would really make repeatable operations a lot more reliable. if only i had a bunch of money sitting around. think i need to ebay some stuff.

in coraline news, a few more boxes showed up last week. check out the matrix to the right. still less than half of the 50 boxes have been discovered. on that note, the coraline website has gone into a new phase, so to speak. instead of having to enter a bunch of different passwords to see the video content you can now just enter the password: OTHERWORLD and get access to all of the previous videos as well as a few more. i like these new ones a lot. you get to talk with my old supervisor jeannie about chopping up cats. they talk to brad schiff about breaking puppets (we make 'em, you break 'em!). they talk to ollie jones about rigging, and the places they look for inspiration. finally trey thomas talks about why he loves animating women. he is definitely amazing at it. for you NMBC fans, trey animated the bulk of the sally shots in that film. i hope you enjoy the new clips.

p.s. i finished the wire last weekend, and i gotta say: A+

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.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

the first official one sheet for coraline was released on neil gaiman's website today. the artwork is based on the illustrated poster that was given away at san diego comic con back in 2007. this time with puppets! it is exciting to see promotional machine starting to kick into gear.

focus features recently launched their website to promote the film. a quick look around tells you there's going to be a lot more content eventually, but is kind of empty at the moment. still, there is enough to explore to make it worth a visit now. meanwhile, at the official coraline website things are a lot... darker. i look forward to seeing how all of this develops.