Once it was settled that Coraline would be stop-motion animation (“It was always in the back of my mind,” Selick says) the animator put his seasoned skills to good use. “What you see in Coraline is 95% real stuff, with everything adjusted by hand,” Selick remarks. Computer animation was used only where needed – for duplicating mice in the jumping mouse circus scene, the Van Gough starry night sky, and character mouth shapes.

 

With regard to the 3D element of Coraline, Selick comments that he used 3D in a rock video 20 years ago for the Viewmaster Corporation. The problem was, there was no way to show it! Over the years that followed, he kept in constant contact with Lenny Lipton, recognized as the father of the electronic stereoscopic display industry.

Once today’s technology caught up to the vision, 3D could be brought to Coraline, which pleased Selick greatly. “We used the 3D like the black-and-white segments vs. the color segments in The Wizard of Oz,” Selick says. “Coraline moves from a more oppressive world with less dimension to an amazing, breathtaking world.”

As for the future, Selick plans to work again with Neil Gaiman, with two projects already in discussion.

Carving a Niche
Only at OIAF can you catch a shuttle from the Arts Court to the Festival’s famous Animators’ Picnic – held this year at Strathcona Park – and sit down and chat with Jamie Gallant, the lead animator at Ottawa’s Fuel Industries, where he works on on-line games and “branded entertainment” for such companies as EA, McDonald’s and 20^th Century Fox Interactive.

Only at OIAF can you see talented animators consume vast quantities of shepherd’s pie, pasta and beer, and then display their artistic skills by carving original and outrageous pumpkins at the Animators’ Picnic.

Only at OIAF can you catch a shuttle back to the Arts Court and end up talking to Clive Harrison, a music composer from Australia, who is working with Toronto’s Nelvana Studios on the animated TV series Pearlie (Network 10 Australia), about a bubbly fairy in charge of Jubilee Park.

Only at OIAF – a typically magical day.

Janet Hetherington is a writer and cartoonist who shares a studio on Ottawa with artist Ronn Sutton and a ginger cat, Heidi.