Coraline: An Animator's Review

I just saw Coraline at the Berkeley 7 with my younger sister. I'm not going to bother to review the plot (at least right now), but I'm going to review the animation.

Good:

The cat's tail was great. It bounced (not realistically) but it didn't just bounce, it flowed. I'm still wondering how they did it, because working in Creative Art last year, I was unable to make creatures with tails using clay because the clay would weigh down the wire and destroy the whole creature, however, in this movie, the tail was nice, long, and furry, but it wasn't just limp. It was gorgeous.

The lighting was nice. It wasn't over the top, and the lighting effects really made the difference in mood between different kinds of scenes. The lighting always fit the attitude, and they didn't go over the top by making lights super-bright or a pure color.

The use of fabric was great. It gave the movie a texture and stopped it from feeling too plasticy. I especially liked how it was used as a lawn.

I liked the integration of digital effects to the claymation itself, such as when the world fades/collapses (not going to give many spoilers) and how subtle it was. It was very simple, especially in the last scene with the 3 angels.

Not-so-good:

In the beginning, the cat's fur moves even when he's sitting still. However, he had a fabric coating (some sort of velvet, I think), so whenever he was shifted, fingers adjusted the fur. It would have been extremely difficult to make the fur move realistically because they were working with physical materials, however, I think the texturers in digital effects could have fixed it with a simple clone tool. The cat's face could have also been less primitive, but it wasn't terrible.

The buttons could have been more varied, rather than the same-old black buttons for virtually every character.

The metals weren't very shiny, but then again, most metals aren't, except in the the movies. However, they weren't grungy, they just looked rubbery.