The stop-motion animation flick, ParaNorman, is a classic tale of a boy who can see and speak to dead people. The rollicking adventure story, created by the people behind Coraline, was one of my favorites of the year. If you missed it in theaters—and as the box office scores show, you probably did—you’ll be able to catch ParaNorman on Blu-ray and DVD very soon. The set hits the market on November 27 and if you want a test run with a few of the bonus features, we have a couple of segments for you.
You’ll have to ignore the cheesy background music, but getting the chance to watch a few of the creators chat about what makes stop motion so special and what brings people into the stop motion animation fold is pretty inspiring. A few behind-the-scenes moments with the crew are also in the segment, as well. If you were hoping for a little more of the technical stuff, check out the next clip.
The second clip, “Facial Expressions,” goes a little more into detail about the stop motion animation tactics used within ParaNorman. If you’ve watched any documentary stuff on how stop motion animation is produced, the bit may not be overly enlightening, but it’s still worth a watch to see some of the character figurines and how the different facial reconstructions for the characters come together to produce a second or mere seconds of film. The endeavor is so much work, but the crew gets to play with dolls all day, lucky bastards.
Just a couple of days ago, we posted an exclusive clip that delves a little deeper into the master animators work on ParaNorman and how the animators were able to bring together all of the traditional facets of stop motion animation with other tenets of modern technology to produce a seamless, modern picture. The whole process is pretty exciting, but even if none of these extra clips is really up your alley, the courageous and original animated film is still worth a watch.
