I have chosen to study American director and stop motion animator Henry Selick, specifically his 1993 film ‘‘The Nightmare before Christmas’ and 2009, ‘Coraline’. Both films share a similar style with a dark atmosphere, characters with long lines and a blue colour palette.
The stop motion animation film ‘Coraline’ based on Neil Gaiman’s novella was a major success, winning many awards including the BAFTA children’s award for best feature film. Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi designed the characters and most of the sets, drawing inspiration from 1950-60’s graphic design style. Coraline’s character has dark blue hair and wears a contrasting yellow raincoat and boots and has a dragonfly hairpin representing her youth. There is something disjointing about the proportions of the characters, it is very subtle but creates an air of unease about them. The villainous characters have sharp angular features with long gangly limbs making them appear sinister. I love the create attention to detail when designing the evil mother, there is a seen after she has transformed where we can see that her hands are made of sewing needles, relating to the plot where she stitches buttons in the place of eyes, this makes her a lot scarier by dehumanising her.
The Nightmare before Christmas was produced by Tim Burton, though he was unable to direct the film his influence in the character and world design is evident. The characters and film are inspired by a poem written by Burton about the time leading up to the holidays and how it makes him feel. There are a myriad of characters in this film each with unique designs and backstories. Jack Skellington the protagonist appears very tall with long legs and arms and deep black eye sockets, he wears a black and white striped suit with a bat as a bowtie this gives a creepy atmosphere to him but when paired with the personality captured, he does not seem like a sinister character. Other examples of characters would be Oogie Boogie, shaped like a sack with a slit and stitched mouth, this character has a crooked, smug personality captured in the facial expressions and how the sack moves.
Monsters inc is a 2001 animation that was directed by American animator and chief creative officer at Pixar, Pete Doctor.
The protagonists Sully and Mike are monsters, however with their bright colours and personalities they don’t appear to be menacing. My favourite thing about them is how they are opposites, where Mike is a short sphere with small limbs and tiny horns on his head, Scully is very tall with rectangular features and long arms and legs and bigger horns. Like their physical features their personalities oppose as well, Mike walks with a spring n his step, he enjoys his life and job, this contrasts with Scully who is going through a slump and walks with hunched shoulders. The antagonists highly contrast, Randall and Waternoose are purple, this colour is often used for villainous characters such as Maleficent and relates to power, wealth, and cruelty. Randall is a reptile who has sneeky eyes, scales, 8 limns and is a chameleon, often changing to suit his surroundings and going invisible, all suggesting he is an untrustworthy character. Waternoose plays on children’s and adults fear of spiders, he is an arachnid crab like monster with many legs that appear strong, come to a menacing point and give him added height, he walks like he is stalking prey. Like a spider he also has numerous eyes, a grumpy expression is created by his jaw which seems to jut forwards and frown that help exaggerate his anger. He wears a red suit and bow tie; this outfit shows his role as the company boss and how he will do anything for the business and profit.
