"ParaNorman" - Laika's next stop-motion animated film

[The 48th Ronin]

I've spent the last thirteen months of my life working on this film, and I gotta say that I haven't been this proud of the work that I've been doing in quite some time.

The teaser trailer went live today:

Yahoo! Movies: ParaNorman (2012)

The trailer can also be seen in select theaters before Puss in Boots starting today, and will also be shown this holiday season before Hugo and The Adventures of Tintin... and apparently it will also be attached to the next Twilight film as well.

 

[Nwerke]

Oh that looks great. Nice!! You have every reason to be proud.

 

[Weequay]

That is beautiful.

Were you an animator?

Weequay

 

[The 48th Ronin]

Model maker - the model shop being a department of the set shop. It was our job to create "the world" that everything takes place in.

 

[Patattack]

Gorgeous! I'm so glad that stop-motion still gets made, in this world of CGI. You and your shop have done an incredible job, by the looks of it.

 

[d_osborn]

that's beautiful work! thanks for posting.

 

[TJackFx]

Coraline and Nightmare are 2 of my all time favorite movies, and specifically because stop motion is so amazing. Great job, I can't wait to see the movie.

 

[The 48th Ronin]

It's taken hundreds of people over a year and a half to get this far, and the animators are still hard at work.

As you might imagine, stop-motion is a rather time-consuming and laborious process, but my god does it look beautiful :love There have been some shots that even *I* have been amazed by. Believe me, I'm right there with you guys in saying "I can't wait to see it!"

 

[The 48th Ronin]

And now the official site is up:

http://paranorman.com

About that Instagram link (the third icon after Facebook and Twitter). It could be just me, but I can find no visible way to navigate to the other photos.

I actually created an Instagram account this morning (using a co-worker's smart phone), and it's also accessible online through Webstagram - I can see all of the pics that way. They have some cool shots up, and I'm guessing they're gonna keep adding pics until the release. So do what you have to do to access that Instagram site - there's neat stuff to be seen.

 

[seven]

I just came across the trailer yesturday and I am very excited to see more. I am a huge fan of Coraline and am excited to see Laika's next stop-motion film. Whish I could stop by Laika and tour the sets and model department to see all the stuff you guys are making for the film.

 

[CB2001]

I have to say I'm impressed with what I've seen thus far. You and your crew definitely created an interesting "world" for this type of story.

 

[The 48th Ronin]

New trailer:

ParaNorman trailer (MSN Exclusive) on MSN Video

 

[darth_myeek]

Great behind the scenes video.

 

[darth_myeek]

D48thRonin, ParaNorman looks fantastic!

Coraline is probably my favorite animation of all time. What would you say were the technical advances Laika made from Coraline to ParaNorman?

Thanks and Congrats,
Mike

 

[nick daring]

Can't wait for this to come out. Such a good buzz is building around this flick.

It's a new golden age for stop motion in my book. Such beautiful high quality work is being done right now.

Nick

 

[The 48th Ronin]

Several behind-the-scenes vids here:

ParaNorman #WeirdWins

D48thRonin, ParaNorman looks fantastic!

Coraline is probably my favorite animation of all time. What would you say were the technical advances Laika made from Coraline to ParaNorman?

Thanks and Congrats,
Mike

Thanks - I'm glad that people are excited about it.

As for technical advances, I'd say that the Rapid Prototyping Department has really pushed the envelope with the 3D printed puppet faces - they're pretty mind-boggling.

 

[Camaro91]

I've always been a fan of stop motion and cannot wait to see this one and how the story pans out. It's cool that you worked on it, looks great from the trailers!

 

[JRedmond3]

I've always been a fan of stop-motion stuff and it's nice to see it's being kept alive, I'm sure it's a lot easier to go the CG route but they can't capture the depth of stop motion.

 

[The 48th Ronin]

Just to be clear, technically it's a blend of traditional stop-motion animation with some CG enhancements. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's probably 85% stop-mo, 15% CG (but that's purely a guess).

I got a copy of the "Art of" book yesterday - it's pretty nice! Unfortunately, the model shop is very much under-represented. There is a two-page spread featuring several props that we created (including a few that I made) but it's only about 2% of the total that we produced - we made a massive amount of stuff.

 

[nick daring]

Those videos are fantastic!

The seam removal on the faces is interesting as is the removal of support systems like in the bicycle sequence. Cool use of modern tech.

I'm a bit torn on what I think about the printed "pre-animated" face replacement system. It's interesting and I'm all for experimenting with new techniques but a process like that almost begs the question "why do it stop motion if you are going plan and sculpt all the performances in the computer beforehand?"

The limitations of what a puppet can achieve have traditionally been an important part of the aesthetic and appeal of stop motion. I love how Wes Anderson imbraced the fur boil in fantastic mr fox. It quirky visual affect that is unique to stop motion puppetry.

It'll be interesting to see how it all comes together.

Nick

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