If you’re there next to them, that’s a safe way for them to experience that emotion. My take is, it’s good sometimes for kids to be scared. SF: With Vincent, I’ve seen as a parent how something scary can be fun, and I see how it can go too far. I think the best movies, the best children’s literature, don’t shy away from real issues. Sparing kids from scares altogether is not good. But when asked about Coraline, Neil Gaiman said something along the lines of, “It is okay to show monsters as long as you show they can be defeated.” It’s what fairy tales are all about. I think you’re right: I think there is a current trend to move away from things that are considered too scary for kids. With Coraline and now ParaNorman, it’s clear where Laika comes down in that debate-but do you ever get any push back to be softer and fluffier?ĬB: That’s definitely something we are always discussing, because we are making a family movie. But there’s a movement today to spare kids from scary things. There’s a long line of films for children with plenty of frightful moments in them, going all the way back to the 1930s with Snow White and The Wizard of Oz. They would bicker and probably not like each other, but that’s the fun of it: They become a very solid little unit. It’s like what would really happen if you did have Fred, Thelma, Daphne and Shaggy in a van together. So I have all these different types-there’s a jock, there’s the cheerleader, there’s the school bully, the fat kid, and there’s Norman-and they’re thrown together on this adventure. But when I was a kid, it didn’t really make sense to me that these kids were friends with each other on Scooby-Doo because they were all so different. What inspired this collection of odd allies?ĬB: A big element of this story is a gang of kids on this supernatural adventure, and that was very much influenced by things I grew up watching like Scooby-Doo and The Goonies, stuff like that. The duo end up fighting zombies with other kids. Norman is initially a little resistant, but it’s hard to resist someone like Neil. Pretty much everything about him screams, “Kick me and steal my money.” But he really puts himself out there. He is also bullied: He’s fat he’s got allergies he has irritable bowl syndrome. Neil is the little fat kid who is kind of the flip side of Norman. He is bullied for being different, but he just keeps his head down and stays away from people. Tell me about the dynamic between the protagonist Norman and his would-be best friend Neil.ĬB: Norman goes through life as a loner. So it’s not Sixth Sense in that he is not haunted by these spirits. Norman is very comfortable seeing dead people in fact, one of his best relationships is with his dead grandma. Since Norman can talk to ghosts, have you already heard endless comparisons to The Sixth Sense ?Ĭhris Butler: When you say you’re writing a movie about a kid who can talk to ghosts, obviously everyone goes, “Oh! He sees dead people.” It was in my mind when I was writing it, although that movie’s pretty old now. He said, “That’s a good idea,” and that swayed me a lot. I thought Vincent would like it he’s a big influence on the things I choose. I read the script, and I liked the idea of doing a zombie movie for kids. Sam Fell: No, I met Chris three years ago, when I came to Laika to consult. We talked to codirectors Chris Butler, 38, who also wrote the original screenplay, and Sam Fell, 46, both recruits from Great Britain. The results will let us know if Laika is likely to become the American version of England’s Aardman studios (the claymation home of Wallace and Gromit). Laika unfurls its sophomore effort in cinemas August 17: ParaNorman, another PG-rated thriller-this time with plenty of extra comedy-concerns an outsider kid who uses his ability to commune with ghosts to save his town from a zombie invasion. But oh, what a debut! In 2009, Coraline combined stop-motion and 3-D tech to tell Newbery-winning author Neil Gaiman’s delightfully macabre story about a rebellious girl who escapes the clutches of evil doppelganger parents. You probably haven’t heard its name yet-prior to this summer, it had produced only one feature film. Hidden away in Hillsboro, Oregon (a Portland suburb), lies Laika, the little animation studio that could.
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