Coraline the Movie

Coraline has always been a Halloween season movie for me. I watch it every year around October because it has enough “horror” in my spooky season. It's not a scary movie, it's more of a creepy feeling movie which is what the screenwriting was meant to do. I definitely give this movie a 10 out 10 spooky ghosts (👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻) because it is truly a great film.

Summary

A little summary to get you started on the right path of this movie. It's about Coraline who moves to Ashland, Oregon from Pontica, Michigan and while she is struggling to adapt she becomes a target for Beldam. Beldam is a spider witch that lives in another universe behind a tiny door in the pink house. This is the part of the pink house that Coraline and her parents are living in. Coraline is given a doll from Wybis that was made from Beldam and has buttons for eyes.

Coraline falls for Beldam tricks because she is unhappy with her life because her parents are workaholics and pretty much ignores her or tells her to leave them alone throughout the film. However, when it came time to pick between Coraline’s boring parents or Beldam. Coraline chose her boring parents. This makes Beldam mad and tried to kidnap Coraline. When Coraline got free she is advised by the cat to play Beldam games.

The game that Coraline and Beldam play is Coraline has to find the ghost children eyes (3 of them) and find her boring parents. Coraline wins and goes home to her boring parents who don’t remember being stuck in the other universe.

Information about the film

This film is a stop-motion animated fantasy and horror film. Directed and screenwriting by Henry Selick. Produced by Laika Studios and is based on Neil Gaiman’s novella called “Coraline”. This film had a budget of $60 million and brought in $124.6 million only through the theaters which is really good for this film. It was nominated 21 times and won 9 awards. Here are those awards are:

San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards -> Best Animated Feature

EDA Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards -> Best Animated Female (the character of Coraline)

Cinema Audio Society Awards -> Lifetime Achievement (for Henry Selick)

Cinema Audio Society Awards -> Career Achievement (sound designer/re-recording mixer) (for Randy Thom)

BAFTA Children’s Award -> Best Feature Film

Annie Award -> Best Production Design in an Animated Feature Production (For Christopher Appelhans and Tadahiro Uesugi)

Annie Award -> Best Character Design in an Animated Feature Production (For Shane Prigmore and Shannon Tindle)

Annie Award -> Best Music in Animated Feature Production (For Bruno Coulais)

The Music Production

There wasn’t a lot of information I found on the score or soundtrack of Caroline. However, I find that “Other Father Song” was written by They Might Be Giants (An American Alt. Rock Band). Then sung by John Linnell. The score was written by Bruno Coulais and performers by the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra and Children’s Choir of Nice,

Production information

When time and passion is put into a movie you know it is going to be a great film. The amount of dedication to making this film from Selick, the artists, and the editors is truly amazing because in 2022 we are not seeing this anymore in movies. So take a look at these few facts on how Coraline was created:

#1. There is a part of the film that will have heavy fog. That fog is created by dry ice.

#2. Gaiman wanted Selick to be the director of Coraline because he liked Selick’s work in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

#3. Everything on screen like the characters, house, and a few details were made from 3D printers using polyist matrix systems and they had 3 of them.

#4. Coraline has 208,000 facial expressions created for the film

#5. The house in the film was built to be 42ft tall.

#6. There were 28 animators working on this film.

#7. Tadahiro Uesugis is a Japanese illustrator that inspired Selick to want to create Coraline in Uesugis style.

#8. Uesugis thought this would be a few weeks project, but ended up working on it for over a year.

#9. Wybie is not in the book. He was created by Selick so that Coraline wasn’t talking to herself during the whole film.

#10. Filmed in Hillsboro, Oregon in a warehouse of about 140k square feet. It was divided up into 50 lots that hosted about 150 sets.

#11. There are 28 identical puppets and it took 10 artists and 4 months to build.

I enjoy watching or reading about the production parts of movies. You learn so much. Let me know down below or on my social media pages which fact about Coraline stood out to you.

The Cast Members

So we already went over Henry Selick being the director and screenplay writer. However, we haven’t gone over the other cast member roles so here we go!

First up we have Dakota Fanning who plays Coraline. She is always known for her roles in The Cat in the Hat, Charlotte’s Web, The Secret Life of Bees, Hounddog, and Ocean’s 8.

Second, we have Teri Hatcher who is Melanie Jones and Beldam. Melanie Jones is Coraline’s mother. Beldam is the evil spider witch trying to kidnap Coraline. She is known for her roles in Spy Kids and Supergirl.

Third is Jennifer Saunders who is April Spink. April Spink is the short old lady that lives below the Jones. She is known for her roles in Sing 2, Death on the Nile, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Muppet Treasure Island, and Isn’t it Romantic.

Forth is Dawn French who is Miriam Forcible. Miriam Forcible is the tall old lady that lives below the Jones. She is known her roles in Death on the Nile and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Fifth is Keith David who is the cat. He is known for his roles in Princess and the Frog, Nope, Princess Mononoke, DC Superpets, and Gargoyles

Sixth is Ian McShane who is Bobinski. He is known for his roles in Kung Fu Panda, John Wick 1,2,3,4; Hot Rod, and Snow White and the Huntsmen

Seventh is John Hodgman who is Charlie Jones. Charlie is Coraline’s father. John is known for his roles in Ducktales, Baby Mama, and Pitch Perfect 2.

Eighth is Robert Bailey Jr. who is Wyborne aka Wybis Lovat. Wybis is the kid that hangs around Coraline. He is known for his roles in Notes from Dad, Emergence, Dragonfly, and Little John.

For the Cinematography, we have Pete Kozachik and Jace Disla. I found some info on Pete Kozachik like him being Director of photography for Coraline, Corpus Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Brother Bear (the first one). He was also the supervisor of visual effects for Corpus Bride.

There was not any information on Jace Disla but he did have a part in creating Coraline.

Coraline is one of those films I can truly appreciate watching because of the amount of time it took to create this film. The dedication, motivation, and willpower of artists coming together to create such an amazing film. If only the video game was done the same way would it have been a top seller. Well, that is everything I learned about the film Coraline.

Check out some of my other work and I’ll be sharing soon on another movie.