From Print to Clay

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From Print to Clay

zach dyer interviews neil gamon

By Zach Dyer and Carla Vass

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In the past five years, Neil Gaiman has written, in some form, four different movies, including Beowulf, Stardust, and most recently, Coraline—a chilling children’s book turned stop-motion phenomenon. He has written 25 different books, the latest of which, The Graveyard Book, won him the 2009 Newbery Medal. He is also a celebrated comic writer who won the Comic-Con Icon Award in 2007. Gaimon discusses the process of turning a book into a movie in an increasingly high-tech filmmaking world.

When you were writing Coraline, did you ever imagine that it would turn into what it has—this incredible movie?

No, I really didn’t. If I had any idea that it would turn into the magical multimedia circus that it’s become I probably wouldn’t have taken 10 years to write it! It wouldn’t have been this weird little project I was doing in my own time to amuse my daughters. It would have been right front and center... having said that, when I finished it, the first thing I did was give it to my agent and said please give this to Henry Selick, because I had seen a film called Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and I’d noticed who made it. I definitely didn’t imagine it or dream it but I am thrilled by it.

What was it like turning a children’s book that you had written into a movie? How was the process of turning it over into other creative minds?

I think if you are going to let it go to other people, you have to be willing to let it go. So it comes down to who you choose to do it. ... For this one, I always imagined Coraline as a stop-motion film and it seemed to me that Henry is the master.

How much input did you get in the writing of the screenplay, casting, and directing? You seem much more involved than most authors in the filmmaking process.

I got lots of input but all of it very odd and very specific. For example, I got [Dawn] French and [Jennifer] Saunders to be cast in it at my suggestion. Henry didn’t really even know who they were, but that was just one where I said “well, you have to cast French and Saunders if it all possible,” and he did—he took my word for it and did an amazing job, and they were wonderful. I had one big suggestion right at the beginning, when I read Henry’s first-draft script and said “this is too faithful, you have to open it out and make it your own.” And he did, and I loved that. Apart from that, it was mostly just small things... The truth is that it really isn’t my movie, it’s Henry’s and his enormous and wonderful team. You know, there were four or five hundred people who made that film and there were 30 animators. This is the biggest stop-motion film anyone has ever made. I feel my part in it is mostly parental- it is much like being a father. I got to have my fun, and they got to work for three and a half years on logistics.

Was Dakota Fanning anything like who you imagined Coraline to be when writing that character?

I tend to forget Dakota Fanning because she is so good—she is Coraline. I forget that there is anybody acting, which is a terrible thing to say, but I think it is because she is so good.

This is the second film you’ve been involved in to be featured in 3D—is this just a coincidence, or something you actually thought about doing?

It’s a coincidence. I wish I could say yes, but I am being paid by RealD. I am part of the great 3D conspiracy and it’s a really interesting one. Beowulf took 3D to one level, but Coraline takes it to a whole different level. Coraline is not kind of like 3D, it is like sitting there with a View-Master reel and having real depth in front of you, there are moments where you watch things recede from you. And it really is one of those things where you want to tell people “no, you should probably see it in 3D because you will definitely end up with a better film experience.” You have never seen 3D this good.

For Beowulf, you adapted a screenplay—how does it feel to have that turned on you, now that a screenplay is adapted from your work? Do you think it made things easier for you, having been in that position before?

It definitely helps me decide what I do and don’t want to adapt in my work. You can only be willing to adapt the stuff where you are willing to do damage to it... Last night, my test subjects were the little girls who came up to me. Seven-, eight-, nine-, 10-, 11-, 12- year-old girls would come up to get autographs at the end of the film and I’d ask them what they thought because I knew they weren’t going to be polite—if there were things in the books that they loved that were missing, they were going to tell me. And they loved it.

How do you think technology is changing the way we look at film as an art form?

Before, if you liked a film, you were going to have to remember that thing. And if you liked it and you wanted to see it again, you were going to have to find out the next time that it was going to play somewhere and go see it- you’d have to hope to find an art house where they replayed old films or put it into distribution again. There were films that were legendary, that you would read about, but knew you would probably never see. And then the world of video tape changed that. The world of DVD changed that. And now the world of YouTube—the immediate access to information is changing that... One of the things I loved about comics was that it was the ultimate democratic media. If you had a paper and pencil, you could make comics. You couldn’t make a movie because you needed hundreds of thousands... you needed millions! We are now in a world in which you could make a movie, and have it up on YouTube, and it would cost you nothing. You probably have the equivalent of a video camera, you can put a soundtrack on, you can do titles, you can edit it, you can do all of that shit, and it won’t cost you a thing. And I think in the long term, in the long run, that is the thing that is going to change everything.

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In the film Coraline, stop-motion animation is used instead of the increasingly popular CGI. Below, the lowdown on each technique:

CGI stands for Computer Generated Imagery, and is a technique used in film to create special effects.

Stop-motion is an animation technique used to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved by small amounts between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames are played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used, as they are easily repositioned.

CGI has been used in films as far back as the 1970s, when Peter Foldes created Metadata, an experimental 2D animated short, and used the world’s first key frame animation software.

The first instance of the stop-motion technique can be credited to Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton for Humpty Dumpty Circus (1898), in which a toy circus of acrobats and animals comes to life.

CGI is used for visual effects such as large crowds because it allows the creation of images that would not be feasible using any other technology.

CGI did not win over the motion picture industry until 1989, when The Abyss won the Academy Award for Visual Effects.

In 1995, the first fully computer-generated feature film, Pixar’s Toy Story, was a resounding commercial success.

Art Clokey’s Gumby series dominated children’s TV stop-motion programming for three decades and spawned a feature film, Gumby I, in 1995.

In the early 2000s, Computer Generated Imagery became the dominant form of special effects. The technology progressed to the point that it became possible to include virtual stunt doubles.

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5 February 2009
vol. 6, issue 2

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