Coraline Script

Well, I think the title of this posting says it all.

If you want to download the script to the film, click here.

Thanks to Mark Mayerson for the tip...

Nerdland Premiere- Help It Succeed

A friend of mine has created a pilot, through Cuppa Coffee Animation.

Cuppa Coffee is Canada's mega stop motion studio.

The show is called Nerdland, and the time has come to support it online. With online support, votes, comments, and so on,the show just might make it into full series production. That's an incredibly difficult thing to achieve.

Please do your part to help! Go here, and watch it. Then comment, and vote.


This is from Ted, the creator:

"... Nerdland, an animated pilot I created and codeveloped with the fine people at Cuppa Coffee Animation is set to premiere on line at http://thedetour.ca/ on Friday the 13th of November.

It will run for the week,and will be open to comments and votes. As far as I know, Nerdland is the only stop motion show against a sea of primarily flash-animated pilots, so we stand out from the crowd right out of the gate, so I hope that adds to our appeal.

Nerdland is the strange adventures of a group of twenty-something nerds (Kevin, Jarhead, Patty and the Beast)trying to survive in a decidedly nerd un-friendly world. The message of the series is that we are all Nerds, each in his/her own way.

Any comments you make or votes you cast would be greatly appreciated. Many talented people worked very hard to make Nerdland, (and the other pilots too for that matter) and developing the show from the ground up with Cuppa's guidance was a lot of challenging fun for me as well. I hope you like it. Given Nerdland will be premiering on the internet, positive comments would be refreshing, since most will just be insults a curses from angry loners.

We could use your support, so write in and let them know what you think! Unless you hate it, then write in and lie like crazy! Seriously, I hope you enjoy it.

Also, if you could pass this email along to friends a coworkers as you see fit, the more comments on each show the better for everybody. The pilot project offers a great opportunity for the public to voice an opinion on what we watch.

Thanks in advance for your help in this

Ted Heeley
Creator/co developer
Nerdland"

Potter Puppet Pals

These clips are all pretty killer. I don't know much about who is making them, and posting them. But I love how they are essentially puppet shows, that use some camera editing to make it a bit more punchy.

They are all darn funny. This one really tickles me.

And I don't really even like Harry Potter.

Where The Wild Things Are- Some Further Thoughts

I was sick over the weekend, and couldn't see it then, as I wanted to.

But I played hooky from school this afternoon, and got to see it. For me, it really delivered. I loved its particular pace, its distinctive and unusual pacing, and how determined the film was to keep the drama down at "kid level". Essentially, much of the drama that unfolds is schoolyard in nature. There are relationships established, then broken, then mended. There are alliances and factions that struggle and pull apart... then collide together again.

When I was a kid, in the course of one school day I would go from being mortal enemies with certain classmates at morning recess, to being on the same team in a game of football at lunch, to happily recounting an episode of Airwolf from the night before during afternoon recess, then back to enemies by home time. Then the same drama, the NEXT day (only different).

This films builds its drama from this perspective. Its the story of kids (albeit most of them monsters), playing and living with each other, and learning (to certain degrees) about themselves and the world, through this interaction.

The drama never goes epic in a typical Hollywood sense, and I found that so refreshing. There's no alien menace. No 80 foot tall hamster... no overt, mindless spectacle. The drama is all about emotional states of being, and feelings.

There's no wise-cracking, no catch phrases. No one gets hit in the crotch, and there's no fart jokes. There's no Cuba Gooding Jr., either. It's a terribly honest, earnest, heartfelt film, thank God.

The complexity to the characters and their relationships is another facet of the film that deeply impressed me.

For example the main monster, Carol, doesn't fit any simple mould. He's not the "tough guy". He's not "the wimpy but smart guy". He's not the "bad guy." He ranges from being an equal of Max (the main character) in terms of intellect, to being a loyal subject of Max a few minutes later. In time, he reveals father-figure aspects, particularly in a wonderful scene when he reveals to Max his "hobby", a miniature world of tiny sticks and mud (shades of any Dad's basement train set).

Carol is also father-like in his physical size and strength, and temper. And so within this one character, we find facet after facet that continues to build his complexity throughout the story.

We later find outright rage and jealousy in Carol, stemming from a refusal to accept that things in life change. Carol behaves like a frustrated child (bringing back to the forefront his childlike nature that we first found him exhibiting), but now it carries with it a truly frightening potential for harm from powerful teeth and claws.

Carol is manic: he is a crying child, he is a raging adult, he is truly a "wild thing"... and he is utterly fascinating as a result.

This character complexity is carried onward to each of the monsters, and it was with deep pleasure that I found myself getting to know them (for better and for worse) over the course of the film.

There's much more I could say about what I loved (since I loved everything). But a few other thoughts, in particular:

- the GUTS this film has, to be so honest, and straightforward, and to NOT pander (to studio expectation and the expectation of a dumbed- down multiplex audience) for SPECTACLE. for BOMBAST. for EXPLOSIONS, AND WISECRACKS AND FLIPPPANT, TOSSAWAY CONTENT (all the caps are very much meant to be obnoxious. blame Hollywood).

-the character design, fabrication, and blending of physical effects and cg. It's hands down the best I've ever seen. It's shocking, terrifying, and wonderful, all at the same time. There's a play with scale in terms of facial features that makes you feel like what a baby must see adults as- all eyes and noses and teeth.

- the character animation. More effective, in terms of drawing an emotional response from the audience, than any similar efforts I've witnessed. I fell in love with each character, and stayed in love, for every scene.

- the devotion to bringing Sendak's world to feature-film richness, as opposed to a "Jonze and Eggers" world. The production did its homework, in terms of knowing larger themes, imagery, and concepts that run throughout Sendak's work (not just WTWTA), concepts such as playful scale, and oral obsessions (eating, being eaten). I bet the Lindbergh baby's even in there somewhere (I'll find it eventually). Would Terry Gilliam have been so respectful? Robert Rodriguez? Or would they have taken the slim original story and inflated it with their own personal imagery/obsessions.

I'm not truly satisfied at the movies very often. Hardly at all, in fact. By "satisfied" I mean that when I hope and hope and hope that a new release will GET me, will really move me, deeply, it almost never delivers.

For me, this film proves that it's OK to still have a little hope that movies still matter.

More on Wild Things

Wow, I hadn't read this before posting what I just posted. It's also from aintitcoolnews.com, and it's actually very funny. It largely points out what this film is NOT (meaning, how Hollywood's slime-dripping machine has been kept at bay). It nails things wonderfully.

Anyway, there's a theme running in what people are saying: the film transports them back to childhood... and that the film is remarkable.