ScreenCrave.com » Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Comic The Sandman Being Adapted for TV

Krystal Clark — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:35:56 +0000

Neil Gaiman’s comic book property The Sandman is headed to the small screen. A feature film version has been in development for years, but it doesn’t look like its happening. According to THR, Warner Bros. TV is in the middle of acquiring the story rights from sister company DC Entertainment to turn the comic into a live action series.

If you’re not familiar with the premise of The Sandman here’s the rundown:

It centers on the tale of Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, a deity who personifies dreams. The book began in the horror realm but quickly made its mark in fantasy and mythology as Gaiman introduced the Endless, a group of powerful brothers and sisters named Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium (as well as Dream).

The Sandman is one of the titles that firmly established DC’s Vertigo label when it debuted in the ’90s. Ever since it’s inception, Hollywood has been trying to produce a theatrical adaptation of the story to no avail. The project has gone through many hands including Roger Avery and most recently James Mangold who was interested in taking on the adaptation for HBO.

Gaiman hasn’t been heavily involved in the development talks even though his approval would be key. “Supernatural” creator Eric Kripke is rumored to be interested in working on The Sandman but he’s intimidated by its dedicated fanbase. He knows a thing or two about crazy fans, have you seen the people obsessed with the Winchester brothers?

Who do you think should take on The Sandman? Do you think they can make it into a series?

Bill Nighy and Amanda Palmer Are Silent in Statuesque

Laura Aguirre — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:05:09 +0000

Award winning British actor Bill Nighy is taking a leap into the silent era of filmmaking. According to /Film, He will star in Neil Gaiman‘s upcoming short Statuesque, which will also feature the director’s girlfriend Amanda Palmer. Palmer is best known for her work as the lead vocalist of the punk band The Dresden Dolls.

This eight minute film is part of a special series commissioned by Rupert Murdoch‘s UK based Sky TV. Each short will mark one of the twelve days of Christmas, during the upcoming holiday season.

Statuesque is described as a love triangle between two living statues and an admirer who observes his object of affection every day among the Christmas shoppers, unaware that he too is being watched.”

Silent film? Statues? There couldn’t be a more perfect place for Palmer and her Dresden Doll tendencies. The musician even has a song entitled “Perfect Fit,” based on her past experiences as a statue in Boston. Perhaps she is the inspiration behind the entire film? Nighy’s early days in the theater and his comedic background will also add a lot of personality to this silent feature.

If you want to stop by and check out the filming of Statuesque, Gaiman was nice enough to post the location on his official blog.

We’ll be at Charter Place in Watford High Street (WD17 2BJ for the curious) and will be shooting on Sunday the 6th from around 11 until 6.00pm.

Can any of you make it?

What do you think of Gaiman’s shot at the past?

Review of Henry Selicks Coraline

Mali Elfman — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:00:54 +0000

Whatever you do, don’t go into this movie thinking “this better just like Nightmare Before Christmas.” Yes it’s stop frame animation. Yes it’s the same Director, Henry Selick. But no, it’s not Nightmare Before Christmas and it shouldn’t be. Nightmare has been done and Selick is not foolish enough to try and redo what many people agree is a masterpiece. This is a whole new film and as such, it’s amazing.

To begin with, the visuals in Coraline are more than anyone could ever ask for. From the minut stitching’s on Coraline’s sweater that you literally feel like you can touch to the wide shots of the gardens filled with flowers and lights. This film is definitely a feast for the eyes. The way that Selick chose to use 3-D is artistic as opposed to gimmicky. Instead of using it to scare you or jump out at you (although there are a couple of moments where that happens) he uses it to give the film more depth. It feels as if you are actually on the set, able to touch the the characters walking around. It helps to add a whole new dimension (literally).

The story of Coraline, originally written in a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, is about a girl (Dakota Fanning) who is fed up with hum-drum life finds a doorway to her “other” life, an alternate possibly better version of the life she already has. She’s in her same home but better, her “other” mother (Teri Hatcher) is no longer busy with work, but busy with cooking cupcakes. In the “other” world animals can talk, flowers bloom by you being near them, and everything you could ever want appears in an instant. You can just imagine how much fun these scenes are to watch in 3-D.

Yet there’s something off, something not right about the new world. When her “other” mother asks her to stay in the world, she’s tempted, until she finds out what she’s going to have to do to stay. She’s going to have to sew buttons over her eyes. Her adventure turns dangerous and while Other Mother tries to keep her forever, Coraline has to find a way to get back home and save her family.

The best way that I can describe this film is to say that it’s a horror film for children that has depths that will frighten parents and make children laugh. It’s really a wonderful treat. I agree with Selick who said that children under the age of eight probably will have trouble with it and it’s up the the parents to decide that one.

The film is in theaters January 6th (today!) so don’t miss out. It’s really a fun ride.

Interview with Dakota Fanning for Coraline

Mali Elfman — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Dakota Fanning has quite the weekend coming up. Two of her films Coraline and Push will both opening this weekend. Both are fantasy films, but aside from that, they’ve got about nothing in common.

Fanning has been attached to Director Henry Selick‘s film, Coraline for 5 years now. She was the first voice to be brought on to the movie and it’s almost as if her and Coraline grew up together.

Both are feisty young girls always looking for an adventure. Check out the interview below with Fanning talks about working on Coraline, her (likely) role in New Moon, and much more…

Did you love doing this?

I did. It was very fun to get to be a part of this. I’ve been working on it for like five years. Between like every movie, I’d do a session so I was doing like two or three sessions a year.

Didn’t your voice change a lot?

Yeah, I think it did. I had to change it a little bit. Henry would say, “Oh, I think your voice is a little deeper.” And I went okay, I would fix it.

Do you get to work with any other actors while recording your voice?

[Shakes head] No.

What do you work off of?

I was by myself with Henry every time except one time they did bring in an actress to read the other lines, like one time so we could see how it sounded, and then we’d do it back to individually again by myself.

Was that hard?

I mean, the only thing I didn’t like about it was I would love to work with the other actors. They’re so talented but I think I’m just, the other voice-over movies I’d done, I’ve been by myself so I just kind of expected that.

Do you enjoy live-action better?

Well, I’ve certainly done more live action more than I have voice-over but I think it’s good to every once in a while get to work on a voice-over film because it’s very different and it’s a different kind of challenge than live-action.

What does this process do for your craft?

Well, I mean, you only have your voice to work with. You have to convey everything through your voice which is really difficult if you think about it. Of course, that’s what you kind of sign on to do when you decide to do a voice-over movie so that’s a challenge that I was willing to take on. It was great. I think you get used to it after a while and it’s really fun.

How did you feel when you saw the finished product?

I really liked it a lot. Of course it’s something I’ve never seen before, a kind of animation that I’ve never seen. I don’t think anybody has ever really seen it before and it’s just so cool because you really feel like you’re a part of it. You really feel like you’re in it and I love that about this film.

Did you know the book?

Yeah, well, I guess it would have to be over five years ago but I think I just read it because I wanted to read it, not because of a script or a movie or anything. And then I originally met with Henry about the live-action version that would be of the film and I was going to do that and then they decided to make it animated a little while later, and here I am as the voice.

Coraline is a very brave character. Do you think of yourself as brave?

I do. I mean, I think that when you’re doing a movie and when you’re putting yourself out there, you have to have a certain amount of bravery because even when you’re on the set filming it, you’re in front of everybody and you’re doing scenes and you’re kind of showing yourself to lots of different people and especially when they’re watching you, I think that that can be intimidating sometimes so I feel like I am brave. Maybe not in the way that Coraline is because she’s fighting for her family and everything but I think I would do the same thing as she did.

Do you think that kids instinctively want to find another place no matter how their parents treat them?

I think that we all kind of want what we can’t have or want what we don’t have . I think that’s just kind of the way the world is, always kind of wanting a perfect world or perfect life. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody has differences and things that may not be as perfect as something else, so I think this movie kind of helps people, or children, or anyone understand that message which I really like. But yeah, I know, when you first meet her and her parents are kind of harsh towards her, I think you have to kind of get that point across to see why she would be tempted to stay in the other world.

How do you see your career developing?

Well, I mean, I hope that it continues forever. It’s what I want to do. I can’t imagine doing anything else and it’s just really what I want to keep doing and keep having in my life for forever so I hope that it continues.

How is growing up affecting what you choose?

I mean, I think it affects it a lot. I can’t really play the roles that I played when I was younger and I can’t play the roles that hopefully I will play in the future. So you have to find that good balance in what’s right for the time and I think that’s really important but I don’t try to think about it too much because I think that what you’re drawn to will kind of reflect the age that you are.

Is there anything you’re looking to try in films?

I don’t know if there’s anything in particular. I really love working on dramas. I really think that they are really great. Like I love character pieces where I get to have relationships with a lot of different people. I’ve been lucky to do those in the past and I’m really drawn to those a lot.

Are you ever drawn to comedy?

Yeah, sometimes. I mean, I think that, I’ve done a few comedies in the past. I think that it just depends on what’s right for the time, what I’ve done. So maybe one day, one day soon I’ll do a comedy.

Has there been any movement on your role in New Moon?

Well, it’s not 100% for sure yet that I will be doing it but it’s definitely not like a rumor or anything. It’s definitely a possibility and something that I’m excited about.

Have you read all the books?

I haven’t read all four yet. I’m working on it. Getting there.

Is there anything from the book you would really look forward to playing?

I don’t know. I just think the character is what I would be excited about. It’s kind of evil, something I’ve never done before, and it’s a vampire. You know, it’s really cool so I really hope that it works out.

There was backlash against Vanessa Hudgens in Twilight, but everyone supports you.

That’s really nice.

Does that make you feel good?

It does. I mean, I know that Twilight is so sacred to some people and I know that when people cast certain people, people have their opinions and that’s their right. That’s very flattering that they think I’d be right for the part and I hope it works out.

You have two films coming out in one weekend, Coraline and Push, what’s that like? Do you think there’s room at the box office for both?

I’m sure there is. I’m sure there will be. It’s so crazy that I have two coming out on the same day because I’ve been working on this one for so long as opposed to Push which I just filmed a year ago. That they would fall on the exact same day is so ironic but yeah, I hope people enjoy both of them.

It would be quite a double feature.

Yeah, I mean, they’re both kind of fantasy but obviously very different.

Is it difficult to stay out of the paparazzi nonsense?

I mean, I don’t. I guess they’re just not interested in me, the paparazzi but yeah, I mean, I’ve had some experiences with that but it hasn’t been too bad. I just live my life, I do what I do and if they catch me at the store, great. If they don’t, great. I can’t really do anything about it, I guess, and I don’t think that anyone really can. People don’t ask for that.

Are you concerned about expectations for Coraline?

I don’t know. Because I’ve been working on it for so long, it’s like I feel like I’ve been bringing it to life for five years so I don’t know what people thought when I first was signed on to do it but I hope that they like it. I hope that I brought it to life the way they pictured and I know people are such big fans of the book and are very excited for the movie to come out, so I’m excited for them to see it. I can’t wait. I waited so long to see it and it was like oh, when is it ever going to come out. I thought when Coraline comes out I’m going to be so old and now that it’s here…

Coraline is in theaters February 6th 2009.

For further reading:

Interview with Henry Selick for Coraline

Mali Elfman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:00:43 +0000

Henry Selick‘s new 3-D stop-motion masterpiece, Coraline, is coming to theaters this Friday, February 6th. For those of you who don’t know, Henry Selick was the Director for Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. Many people think that Burton directed the film and although he started the idea and oversaw the entire project, it was actually Selick’s expertise that helped to make the cult classic.

Selick is now back with another stop frame animation adapted from Neil Gaiman‘s book “Coraline” and starring Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher. ScreenCrave was lucky enough to sit down and talk to Selick about his creative process, some of the issues that come up when making horror film from kids, and of course his much needed patience and dedication.

Check out the interview below…

One thing I’ve always wondered about with the style of stop motion animation is that what do yo do when the character is supposed to be in mid air, like if they’re jumping. I remember when Jack Skellington jumps through they air and now you have characters in this do it. In between frames, how do you do that?

Henry: Back then we used this stuff called spider wire, which was like the thinnest possible wire and it didn’t really photograph but now it’s simpler. We just use something that’s in the air, we use a little metal arm thats animatible itself, just called a rig it might be any number of things. We attach them to that and then it goes away and then it posts painted out. I want to do a midnight screening where all those rigs and all those face scenes in Coraline, cause we animated her upper face separate from her lower, where all that stuff is there cause it’s actually really cool to see.

Well, that can be on the DVD as an alternate version…

Henry: Yeah, they wouldn’t go for it on the first DVD release but maybe down the road.

I know you shoot a very small amount of material a day, what happens is someone suddenly accidentally bumps the set or you show up the next day and things are out of place, what do you do?

Henry: Usually the problem is that you don’t notice something shifted. The worst thing of all is sometimes these shots aren’t done in a day, there’s certain shots that take like a week even two weeks for a really long take and over the night there are things that contract and expand and so often, it’s almost subliminal things are all kind of shifting around. A certain amount of that I actually kind of like. It just sort of shows off the animating process. If it something as obvious as Coraline’s running and her ankle breaks, which happens, now that we’re shooting digital, we have the stored images, she goes back into the fabrication hospital and is given and ankle, comes back out and we can sort of flick between the stored image and live to running up again. Things go wrong everyday, all the time.

Does any new technology help in the process or are you still using all the same techniques as you always did?

Henry: Really at the heart, at the center of it, it’s actually exactly the same. It’s an animator whose a really fine actor and they’re a sculptor. They sort of re-sculpt, reshape the character in every frame. At the heart of it, it’s the exact same that has existed for over 80 years. But yes, things are easier cause in the old days, you’re shooting film, there was no digital capture, nobody got any sleep. “How does the shot look!?” Now that you capture digitally, your watching the shot as it grows and if you making a terrible mistake, you can play it back.

This looks like an amazing critical experience this film. Was there ever a point at which something really horrible happens and you thought you couldn’t make it work?

Henry: People ask, what was the hardest thing to do in the film. The biggest challenge was to get people to believe in making it. And every aspect of once we’re in production, nothing’s easy but it’s what we love to do. It’s myself and a lot of veterans I’ve worked with since before, Nightmare Before Christmas, sort of an international group as well, we just know there’s always a way to solve a problem. You get out on the set, you’ve planned a sequence, and you story board it, you’ve recorded the voices, sometimes you start to shoot the shots and it just doesn’t play, and that messes up your schedule a little bit. You find a way to recover or edit it. You know it’s very hard but it’s like going to art school and film school all the time. People come to visit our sets, when we make these movies. They’re amazed, they want to come work for us.

Was there any attempt made to make the story a little less dark than the source material?

Henry: We sort of rebalanced what’s in the book. In the book I think it goes to a dark place pretty quickly. It’s kind of ominous right from the start. Suddenly Other Mother’s teeth seemed to grow a tiny bit longer, her eyes looked hungry. You know that reads well, and it’s beautiful but I decided, and our producer Bill Mechanic, and there’s two other producers I worked with, MarySandell and Claire Jennings, let’s do more of a gradual seduction, make it warmer and friendlier at first. Except for the button eyes it couldn’t be better, but then when we do go dark, we go very dark. What I tried to do with the film, you know you get your attention, and then it’s very slow build and then once it starts to go to the scary place you know it really pushes. In total darkness it’s about the same, it’s just how we get there.

And nobody ever thought, this might be a little too dark for kids?

Oh, no. Constantly. I just nod in my head and ignore them. It’s not for kids under eight we think, eight and up is the best age we think, and even then it is parental guidance and you know, I’m more concerned about the parent’s being scared but the eight yearolds can hold their mom’s hand.

Was there ever any issue with the nudity? When Miss Forcible shows her…

Treasure chest.

Yeah! Was that ever an issue?

Henry: You know, some of the executives were little concerned, I said well let’s just see what the ratings board has to say. You know they are reenacting famous paintings, she’s supposed to beBottecelli’s Birth of Venus who is actually totally nude, but Miss Forcible’s is just enough outfit, and the ratings board loved it. They didn’t have any trouble with it. It is the biggest laugh in the movie. And the kids scream, “ahhhhh,” and then they laugh. Didn’t you ever catch your grandma almost naked?

Oh lord, I’ve seen a lot of things, just being a mother I know my son would be fascinated

Henry: It’s not gonna unhinge him or get him into any trouble.

It’s the day and age of MTV, I’m sure he’s seen worse…

Henry: Oh yeah man, look at the average music video

When did 3D come into play and it’s used rather sparingly in the traditional way than we expected. Was there an effort to kind of avoid the cliches that are commonly seen with 3-D?

Henry: I actually did a 3-D rock video 20 years ago for Veiwmaster corporation, those people that make those little wheels with pictures that you put in and I still love those Viewmasters. And the guy that I met, Lenny Whitman, whose equipment it was, he is the guys that’s gone on to develop what’s in the cinemas now, the RealD, digital 3-D system. So I was exposed to 3D early and I would keep up with Lenny like what’s his latest experiment he’s really a genius. Then when we did Nightmare Before Christmas, there was a couple people who would shoot 3-D still frames just sort of as a hobby. And you’d look through the viewer and have this ache like people aren’t really seeing the movie we got here we just can’t get his to them so, there’s an exposure early on, there’s a desire to share the experience more and all the time it took to get this film together, the 3-D was finally getting out into the theaters.

The story itself, it called for something magical. I thought “yeah, it’s 3-D.” It captures stop-motion and then it’s a way to expand the other world, draw people into the screen. It was just sort of, if I was ever lost about how much 3-D to use, I would look to the story and very much of what’s coming off the screen. Once you start to go there a lot, it really makes it difficult. It’s hard to edit, it hurts your eyes if you don’t do it right and you just sort of serve the story better to just have a couple of moments, you know, a needle in your eye, a trapeze, a few things, but mainly try to get people to come into the world with Coraline.

What was the characters hair made and clothes made of? The details looked extraordinary.

Henry: We found a woman, Suzanna Molten, who came into our puppet fabrication. I was really pushing for us to be able to go on close ups of our characters and still believe that they’re real. The hair is – you know sometimes you look at a dolls head and you see that there’s these plugs of hair? Every strand of hair is hand placed and there’s these almost invisible wires mixed in so that it can be animated and moved around and that particular shot happens to have been animated by one of our lead animators, Eric Leighton, who’s a genius, so it’s a combination of things.

We had a woman who nits miniature sweaters, so Coraline’s starry sweater is all hand nit, her gloves are hand nit. And it took her about as long to nit a miniature sweater as it does a real one cause it’s got just as many stitches. We want to go in there and [have it so] you feel like if you could rub your finger you could feel the texture of it.

Can you talk about your relationship with Neil Gaiman, and how you went about adapting his work and deciding what to add into the story and what to leave out?

Henry: Neil’s a very cool guys I couldn’t ask for a better collaborator. Early on, I was too faithful to the book. My first draft, it was a horrible screenplay. It was sort of diagrammatic and not, it was sort of screenplay by the numbers, let me try to keep every single word, every single element. And he was right he said, “well obviously, you’ve got to go out on your own and not talk to me” and that’s a rare thing. That’s when I went off and started to find my own voice and I’m a super visual person, I always had pictures in my mind of where I wanted to go.

I stayed in the US, simply because I wasn’t as comfortable writing British English versus American English, I introduced this other character Wybie to give Coraline someone her own size to sort of go up against, directly interact against in the real world. Sort of changed the pacing of the story. In the book she sort of goes to this other world and it’s a very, very long time. It’s all sort of this continuing thing and real from the start. I made it more like a dream and it’s also more pleasant, except for the button eyes, it was sort of warmer and friendlier.

There’s lot’s of things in that draft and in subsequent drafts that are changed. But believe me, I love the book and I was always trying to hold on to the essence of the characters in the story and it was that screenplay I did away from Neil that he loved and people responded to. Ultimately, over the course of making this I’ve learned go off, do a lot of work, like all the character designs and the storyboards for the whole first act and then show it to Neil, to get his input. You know he’s been nothing but encouraging and we’d always have a couple of important, small, do-able, notes…it’s been like a dream.

Teri Hatcher had said that she thought she was playing three character but you actually thought that she was playing four. I was just wondering when the fourth came in?

Henry: You know she’s real mom who’s kind of preoccupied with work and keeping the family together and kinda grouchy, which was actually the hardest for her to play, in my opinion, cause she would never want to be that mother to her daughter Emerson, who actually has a little part in the film too. She’s other mother 1, warm, loving, generous, witty, makes the food the miracles, who changes costumes but is one type, and then other mother 2, when Coraline says “you’re not my mother,” she won’t apologize she grows and reveals this much taller and gaunt, all most fashion model insect, thats Other Mother 2, throws her in the loset, and then finally other mother 3, when Coraline has found the third ghost guy and comes back in, and it’s like this creature, it’s a witch. It’s no longer even anything like… SO by my account it’s like one real and three others.

Coraline is out in theaters this Friday, February 6th, 2009.

Interview with Neil Gaiman for Coraline

Mali Elfman — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:40:29 +0000

Chances are you are either obsessed with Neil Gammon or have never heard of him before. You may know him from his graphic novel Coraline which was turned into a film by Henry Selick and will hit theaters this week, or you may know him as the man who recently finished the final book in the Batman graphic novel series. Not too shabby. You will have to read to the end to find out more about that one.

The best way to describe Coraline is to say that it’s a horror film for children that has depths that will frighten parents and make children laugh. Gaiman is known for his dark and dreamy style of writing, which captures readers of all ages. He has the ability to transport you into another world and take you along for the ride. Perfect for a film, no?

He was by far one of the interesting and well spoken people I have ever had the pleasure of interviewing. ScreenCrave was lucky enough to talk with Gaiman about Coraline, winning the Newberry Medal, and of course, Batman’s death…

Coraline was such an amazing mixture of brilliant, beautiful and scary.

Neil: Thank you! Yeah, I hope so. It’s so much fun to have made something with content. We did an industry screening and afterwards, at the end of the thing, I suddenly got a glimpse of what it must be to be the Jonas Brothers, as I was surrounded by 11-year-old girls, wanting autographs, with their eyes shining. They were all fans of the book, and now fans of the movie. And, there was definitely this really cool feeling of having given them something with a heroine — somebody who doesn’t get saved by boys and doesn’t tag along. She’s kick-ass. That, in itself, was a joy.

Do you think that entertainment for kids should be a little bit scary?

Neil: Not all entertainment for kids should be a little bit scary. I remember the sheer joy, as a kid, of watching things like Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, for example. That had moments in it that are still engraved on the back of my head. The witch becoming the old cackling hag, and getting struck by lightening and stuff. I was hiding behind the chairs in the cinema, watching The Wizard of Oz on re-release in the U.K., as a boy, at the age of 5. The witch would come on and I would be underneath the chair, listening. For some reason, the monkeys didn’t do it. It was just the witch that I was terrified of. For most people, it’s the monkeys. [Laughs]

I think that a little bit of fear is a wonderful thing, but it’s what you’re using it for. In Coraline, what you’re telling them is, “Here’s something big and it’s something scary, and it’s something that’s worth being in a story.” She’s a smart kid and she doesn’t have magic powers. She’s not the chosen one. There’s nothing cool and magical going on. She’s just like you, and she’s going to fight this thing and she’s going to win. That, for me, is the important thing. And, for most kids, but not necessarily most parents, they read “Coraline” as an adventure. It’s somebody their height, who goes up against something nasty, and you read it kind of like James Bond. Of course, you need somebody evil to go up against, otherwise you don’t have a story.

For adults, it tends to be much scarier. You’ve got a number of things going on, one of which is that you have a completely different genre of story. Adults are experiencing a story about a child in danger. We are hard-wired to worry about that. For an adult, a story about a child in danger is big and scary and dangerous. That grabs your heart and worries you, whether you want to or not. And, also, adults get to watch it, and all sorts of long forgotten and long buried, repressed and abandoned childhood memories start coming to the fore and worrying them. And, children don’t have that. They don’t have repressed childhood memories ‘cause that’s where they live and that’s what they’re doing.

It seems like Other Mother would have had Coraline, if she just hadn’t insisted on sewing buttons on her eyes. Why didn’t she just let that one go?

Neil: You would have to ask her. [Laughs] That’s definitely part of it. Coraline has to say yes. When I was writing it, I liked the idea that Coraline was going to have to give into this thing. There’s a point where you give in. Either you give in because you are attracted by all of the beauty, or you give in because you’re terrified. In neither case does Coraline give in. She’s smart and she keeps fighting.

You sent Henry Selick your manuscript before the novel was published. Why him and why this book? And, how did you see them working together?

Neil: In 1993, when only a portion of Coraline existed and I still hadn’t written the rest, I went and saw Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Being the kind of person who sticks around and sees credits, I noticed that it was actually directed by a man named Henry Selick. And, I really liked it and I really liked the sensibility, and I was fascinated by what he did with stop-motion. Back in England, my favorite filmmaker had been Jan Švankmajer, the Czech stop-motion guy, who I just think is amazing. With Henry, you have that kind of sensibility, but much, much more mainstream, and he had a willingness to go dark when dark was necessary and knew that this stuff was fun and cool. It’s that joy of a ghost train. You plunge into the dark and you know you’re going to come out okay, and it’s going to be fun and maybe funny and cool. I just loved that sensibility, which mean that when I saw that he directed James and the Giant Peach, which was not a film I would have gone to, I went to see it, just because I really liked Henry Selick stuff. When I finished Coraline, I gave it to my agent, Jon Levin, and I said, “Get it to Henry Selick.”

How do you decide to do a graphic novel or an illustrated novel?

Neil: The truth is, that’s a much bigger question because it’s, “How do you decide if something’s going to be a graphic novel, a short story, a poem, a radio play, a novel, a film, a TV episode?” And, the answer is that I don’t really know. Normally, it’s what I see it as in my head, when I start. If it feels like it should be prose, then I try it in prose. If it feels like it’s probably a film, I’ll try writing a film script. It’s whatever feels right, but sometimes I’m wrong. I originally thought Anansi Boys, which was my last adult novel, was going to be a movie, and I tried writing the movie for years and it never really went anywhere. And, one day, I was sitting over lunch with my book editor at William Morrow (a division of Harper Collins) in New York, and she said, “What kind of stuff have you got going on?,” and I started telling her about Anansi Boys. She picked up her fork and started waving it me, saying, “It’s a novel. That’s a novel. You’re telling me a novel.” I said, “Really?,” and she said, “Yes!” And, she was the one holding the fork, so I went and wrote the book. That one was forked.

How do you feel about Neil Jordan taking on The Graveyard Book, and why was he the right person?

Neil: The Graveyard Book was snatched up before it was published. We had a lot of film companies circling it like sharks, all offering very different things. And, the one that I went with, in the end, was Framestore, who were an English animation and special effects house that just started getting into production, but I really liked what they were saying and I liked what they seemed to be responding to, in The Graveyard Book.

The first lunch that I had with the guys from Framestore was in London. We settled down for a lunch, and it was really just to talk. We weren’t having the lunch to pick a director. We were just having the lunch to chat. And, we got to the point where we realized that we’d spent the last 25 or 30 minutes just trying to have the kind of conversation that establishes that we do all have the same kind of film in our heads. There is nothing worse, in any kind of collaboration or partnership, when one person thinks you’re making a wacky action movie, and another person thinks it’s a buddy movie. I’ve been in those situations, where everybody’s hearing what they want to hear and then somebody hands in a treatment or a script, and you’re going, “Oh, my God, it’s now off the rails.”

What was interesting was that the three of us at the table kept going back to The Company of Wolves, in terms of what we were talking about. It really was that that wound up jerking us over into, “Well, let’s talk about Neil Jordan. He’s a writer and director. He’s a really good writer. He’s a novelist as well.” He is one of those people who just makes movies, and sometimes they’re hits and sometimes they aren’t, but they are a tremendous body of work, when you look at it. He’s comfortable with special effects, he’s really good with actors, and all of his films have a wonderful texture and look to them. If you want somebody to direct a film that is all set in a little graveyard on a hill, and that covers 16 years, how are you going to do it? So, we sent the book to Neil and, the next thing I knew, I was having lunch with Neil Jordan, and he was saying, “Okay, I want to do it. I’ve read it and I want to make this film.” And, I said, “Oh, okay.” So, that was incredibly easy.

Henry spoke about how he tried to stay very true to the book with his first draft of the screenplay, but that it didn’t work and it wasn’t what he wanted, and that you were the one that told him he had to let it go and use his imagination to set it free. How were you able to have that freedom with your work?

Neil: I was really, really lucky, when I was a very young man. My first graphic novel was a thing called “Violent Cases.” It had no sooner come out as a graphic novel than I was approached by a theater company who said, “We want to put this on stage,” and I said, “Great!” They said, “We’re going to be completely faithful to the graphic novel. Not a word is going to change. Nothing is going to change. It’s going to be completely faithful.” And, I said, “Great!” And, I sat there in the audience, on the first night, able to talk along with the actors because they hadn’t moved a comma, and it was terrible. It was really awful. Moments that were huge and powerful in the book became nothing on the stage. Moments that were meant to be tiny little nothings in the book, by virtue of now being on stage, became huge and important moments of stage magic. And, it was the biggest lesson I could ever have learned.

You don’t transliterate from one medium to another, you translate. Simply by virtue of being in a different medium, everything has changed anyway. So, when I read Henry’s first draft script, which was incredibly faithful, I was the one on the phone to Henry saying, “It doesn’t work. It’s really, really faithful Henry. Now, go make a movie. Go open it up and put yourself in.” The thing in my head is not intrinsically a film. It’s a book. It’s meant to be a book. What it exists as is a book.

For example, Coraline has no conversations in the book, in the real world, with any adult who actually listens to her and answers anything that she has said. None of the adults actually pay enough attention to what she’s saying to actually hear her. Mostly, they get her name wrong. That’s great in a book because you are down there, at her point of view, and you’re going along with her. In a film, you’re kinda screwed because you’re now in a world in which you just want her to be able to talk to somebody. So, Henry created Wybie, the kid next door. People got very upset. They were saying, “Why did you let Henry put a boy in it? Does he come in and save her?” No, he really doesn’t. Don’t worry. He’s the irritating kid next door, but he’s there and she can talk to him, and it’s great.

Where did the idea for Coraline and this Other World come from?

Neil: A lot of it was putting different things together. For example, the door was just something I stole from my childhood. My family had a house that was divided neatly into two. We lived in the servants quarters, but we had one good room that had been the family room. Another family had the posh half of the house, but we had the good front room. But, the good front room had two doors, one of which had gone to the good half of the house and one of which went to the servants’ quarters. The good half of the house door was bricked up, and I would walk over to it sometimes and open it, and it would always be bricked up. And, I was always sure that, if I just crept up on it right, and opened it in the right way, it wouldn’t be a brick wall, it would be something else.

Most of the rest of it just came from things in my life. I set it in the house that we lived in, at the time. It was written for my daughter. I wanted a story that was about bravery. I wanted a story that said, “Look, there are monsters out there, but you can beat them.” When I was a kid, I had not understood bravery. When I was a kid, I thought being brave meant not being scared. Whenever I was scared, I’d think, “I’m such a coward.” When I was in my late 20′s, early 30′s, I thought, “Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. Being not scared is something that anybody can do. It’s something that most people do, most of the time. Being brave is when you’re scared and you do it anyway. You do the right thing, even though you’re scared. That’s being brave.”

What was your reaction to the finished film?

Neil: I think it’s awesome. It’s the most advanced, ambitious, exciting stop-motion film that anybody’s ever made. The use of 3-D is astounding. I’m very used to 3-D films in which people use the 3-D to throw things at you. You’re in the audience and things are coming towards you. What I love about what Henry does is that he uses 3-D to proceed things from you. Suddenly, things have depth. It’s using 3-D to define space, in a way that I think is completely original and actually makes me feel like this really isn’t a novelty thing. It really is something that people can use, in the years to come.

Is it at all how you envisioned it?

Neil: No, it’s Henry’s vision, and that’s fine. If I’d wanted it to be mine, I would have made the film. It’s much more fun for me to find somebody whose work I love and who I trust.

With as long and successful a career as you’ve had now, how does it feel to still receive recognition, like with the Newberry Medal (for The Graveyard Book)?

Neil: The Newberry Medal is, as my daughter Maddy would say, “made of awesome.” Some years ago, I got an inquiry from the Pulitzer committee, and I had to explain that, “No, I was not American,” and they went away. And, when “Coraline” came out, we got an inquiry from the National Book Award people, and I had to explain that, “No, I was not American,” and they went away. The Newberry is the only major award which is open to Americans and residents. I can’t get a Pulitzer, and I can’t get a National Book Award, but I can get a Newberry. [Laughs]

In addition to which, this is the 88th Newberry ever to go out, and most of the people who have gotten them are dead. So, I’m part of this incredibly cool, incredibly small group of people who’ve got Newberrys. When I was a kid, I remember picking up “A Wrinkle in Time,” by Madeleine L’Engle, and it had the words “Newberry Medal” on the back, and I had no idea what that meant. All I knew was that I had just read one of the coolest books I had ever read, at the age of 8, and I was going to keep looking for this thing. When I saw Mrs. Frisby and the “Rats of Nimh”, and when I saw “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” or Susan Cooper’s books, or Lloyd Alexander’s High King books, they had “Newberry Medal winner” on them, and I bought them. The idea that my book has gotten to join that elite, it’s awesome. It’s magic. It’s wonderful.

How is Batman going?

Neil: Batman is going very well. My work is done, which is a wonderful feeling. And, it’s now up to the amazing Andy Kubert, who is drawing as fast as he can. It was an honor. The point where somebody can say to you, “Would you like to write the last Batman story, that will be the last issue of Batman and the last issue of Detective?,” it’s like, “Yeah!” You don’t get to do that very often. In fact, it’s probably the only time that it’s ever going to happen. So, I was thrilled that I got to do it. And, killing Batman, of course, is always fun. [Laughs] Everybody should do it.

It never takes, though, does it?

Neil: It might, this time. [Laughs]

Do you have any plans to revisit Sandman, at any point?

Neil: I wanted to do it for Sandman’s 20th anniversary, and DC Comics were of the opinion that, I should do it under the same royalty and financial terms of which I wrote Sandman in 1987. And, my opinion, honestly, was that I thought things should be a bit better, so I never did it. I would have loved to have done it.

Thank you for your time!

Coraline is out in theaters this Friday, February 6th, 2009.

Pictures of Selick’s New Animation Coraline

Mali Elfman — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:30:06 +0000

Coraline is a new animated film by the Director of Nightmare Before Christmas (no not Tim Burton) Henry Selick. The film is based off Neil Gaiman’s best selling novel about a youn girl who finds a secret door and discovers and alternate universe. The film is wildly imaginative and just like Nightmare, the puppets, sets, and animation is stunning. The film was made to be seen in 3-D as well just to add a another level to how far the eye and mind can go.

Just released are photos of many of the characters (one of which is above) of the film in their glass cases (if only all actors were content with that kind of treatment).

Check out more photos, the trailer, and synopsis below the jump!

Synposis: On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life and the people in it – only much better. But when this seemingly perfect world turns dangerous, and her other parents (including her Other Mother voiced by Teri Hatcher) try to trap her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination and bravery to escape this increasingly perilous world – and save her family.

Full Photo Gallery at LatinoReview.com

Trailer:

ScreenCrave.com » Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Comic The Sandman Being Adapted for TV

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