The ordinary world: In Coraline’s ordinary world she is bored and
feels neglected by her parents and hopes for something more exciting. In hopes
to find some adventure she finds a small door in the wall, but unfortunately to
her luck- it is bricked up.
Call to Adventure: Late at night Coraline discovers some of Mr.
Bobinsky’s jumping mice wandering the house, so she decides to follow them in
hopes for some excitement.
Crossing the Threshold: Coraline follows the mice back to the tiny
door, which is no longer bricked up and bares a portal to another world.
Meeting the Mentor: Eventually in this other world, Coraline meets
up with the cat Wybie introduced her to earlier in the film, who warns her that
everything is not what it seems.
Tests, Allies, and Enemies: As the story goes on she gains allies like
the “other Wybie” and her other father who continue to warn her as well. As
time goes on she finds that the “other mother” (the “Beldam”) is actually the
enemy – trying to convince her to sew buttons into her eyes so she can eat her.
As Coraline rejects the Beldams advances she continues to get more and more
frustrated with Coraline and traps her in a mirror.
The Resurrection: The
Other Wybie helps her escape the mirror (where she meets the ghost children)
and she makes a run for it. Once she returns home and thinks all is well she
finds that the Beldam has taken her parents.
Approach the Inmost Cave: Coraline returns to the other
world where she intends to save her parents and the ghost children. The Beldam gives
her a riddle to solve in order to save them so Coraline takes on the task.
The Ordeal: Coraline completes all the takes, to retrieve
the ghost eyes (for saving the ghost children) but struggles to find her
parents. Once she finds them the Beldam still doesn’t intend on letting her go,
so Coraline tricks her and faces a struggle out of the other world and to
safety while still having to defeat a broken off hand of the Beldam by trapping
it in the well.
The Reward: Coraline returns home to find her parents are
safe and sound. Now that she’s home everyone is getting along and Coraline is
no longer bored and has a new found appreciation for everything she has.
So some people might ask, why Coraline? Of all the stories out there, why this particular one? I do also have a great love for all of the animated features put out by Walt Disney's Animation Studios, but I thought I would focus on a story with a character I could relate to. You see, Coraline reminds me of a young me. She loves to play outside in the mud, and most importantly she has a lot of attitude, growing up I always played outside, making up my own adventures, rolling in the mud, and I was always causing problems... Coraline the movie released in 2009 by Henry Selick is where I was first introduced to this amazing character, and I've been in love ever since, all because of the simple fact that I can relate to her.
Neil Gaiman, the author of Coraline, was born in Hampshire, UK in 1960. He grew up with a great and strong love for books. He described himself as a,"feral child who was raised in libraries," and credits the librarians of his youth for "fostering a life-long love of reading." and goes further to say "I wouldn't be who I am without libraries." Later in his life he was married to Mary McGrath, with whom he had 3 kids, Madeleine, Holly, and Michael. The family finally migrated to the United States in 1992. Gaiman had created Coraline and had the children's novel published ten years later in 2002. He's created many best-sellers over the years like Stardust, The Graveyard Book, American Gods, and many more. He has also been awarded a great deal of rewards and honors from Newbery to Hugos throughout the years. To learn more about Neil Gaiman and his own story, his website is a great source for this information.
Coraline is a stop motion film, which means that the puppets and movements you see in the movie were actually just the objects being manipulated by the animators frame by frame. According to these animators there were 24 frames per second of the movie, so considering the film is 100 minutes long, that's 144,000 frames to be shot to create this movie. It was also mentioned that it took an animator a week to complete 7 seconds of the film, so if one animator were to complete the film all on their own it would take approximately 16.5 years (and that's not counting all the time put into creating the sets and puppets!)
In the creation of Coraline the movie, every single tiny detail was hand crafted by someone on the team. From every blade of grass, to every strand of hair on the puppet's heads. Nothing was computer generated, Henry Selick did not want anything computer generated. Even the flame that burns up the doll of her parents in the fire place was created by John Allan Armstrong. It took him about 3-4 weeks and 1,200 drawings to create the illusion of fire in that short scene. The same goes for the fog throughout the movie, Selick hired a team to focus on creating fog with the help of using air guns and cutting and pasting clips of manipulated dry ice.
One way they portrayed evidence of their location was through the stage performers outside the Mulch shop and the signs over town when they drop off Charlie, Coraline's dad, right before they go school clothes shopping. This refers to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that is held in Ashland.
