The Spirited Adventure Which Remarkably Haunts Its Creators
A Boy Who Sees Ghosts And Who Is Also A Haunted Crew
ParaNorman, at first glance, seems like a harmless stop motion film about a boy who sees ghosts, with a plot involving saving a town from an ancient curse. Although it may seem like a simple plot, and perhaps, like a child’s movie, they gently delve into complicated issues. The other side to the movie are the extreme experiences of the cast and crew, who immensely suffered from pressure, sudden breakdowns and emotional burnout. All this from a movie that displayed major advancements in mindblowing ambitions and technology.
From the start, Laika Studios wanted to go bold by making ParaNorman, after Coraline, their most ambitious and large scale film with the most complexity and maturity in themes. This was an enormous weight to carry. The burden of the story of the lonely, ostracized boy with a perceived burden of a ‘gift’ no one wants, is a thinly-disguised representation of the animators. They had invested years of their lives and endless frames to a movie that was about to break them.
The Emotional Core: A Story of Loneliness Which Affected the Crew Deeply
Norman Babcock is a lonely, unwanted, ostracized boy, who is burdened with alienation and the weight of a responsibility that is not asked. This emotional arc was the culmination of the deepest, most personal experiences of the crew that they brought into the movie.
There is a certain degree of isolation accompanying the craft of stop-motion animation. Each animator is assigned a small cubicle where they have to repeat the same actions for hours on end, resulting in a phenomenon the industry has coined as “animator’s body.” The combination of long hours and intense pressure leads to periods of time when they cannot socialize with their friends or family for weeks at a time.
One animator said, “I identify with Norman’s scenes where he is being ignored by his classmates and feels all alone.” Having been there, I know how that situation feels, and in a way, I felt invisible to others while in the midst of the intense production schedule. For another, witnessing Norman’s sorrow due to lack of comprehension and support from his family was too much and resurfaced some long-buried trauma.
A particular sadness surrounding Norman was felt by many, and the lines between the character and animator’s emotions became somewhat unstable.
The animation in ParaNorman is fluid, and the characters are very much alive. So much time and effort was put in to make the animation look alive.
Laika pioneered the use of full-color, 3D-printed animated facial expressions, but as with all first-of-their-kind innovations, there were accompanying challenges priced at the cost of time, injuries, and morale:
Animated facial expressions eroded while animating, resulting in cracked and unusable faces,
Animators required wrist and joint use breaks while prints were “in the queue” to be burned and substituted. This caused lag in animation timelines,
Crowd scenes, as well as action scenes, required all hands on deck and all-night sessions in a massive split-timeline continuum as everyone oriented to a late-night working schedule.
One of the scenes that would eventually become iconic from Norman was Norman running through town, shifting and springing about as if to express the bedlam of chaos erupting at the climax of the previously quickandfrantic flooding of town. Weeks of animation tempered rampage, cycling through minute repositioning of shifting armacle and legable joints, into controlling and relocational drama of disposable sets.
This was a better-timed depiction of the “choreographing an earthquake with tweezers” animation drama than many would expect from the 80s, not to mention from a 12-year old. At the time, this quote from the animator of this sequence was strikingly prescient.
Budget fears from the “successful but young” studio activity in a higher framework of expectations.
During production:
Expenses were going up
Facial printing was costly
Delays in set construction resulted in postponed deadlines
More “big moments” were requested by Marketing
There was large amounts of pressure on directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell. While the studio concerned themselves with the emotional focus of the film, the other spectacle were of greater focus. A large set piece that included the witch’s storm was redesigned, on the basis that the studio worried it was too abstract for younger viewers.
While these battles exhausted the team, the identity of the film was refined. Each deal made the directors reevaluate what the story was truly asking for.
The Witch’s Curse: A Sequence That Almost Broke the Film
One of the most striking scenes was Aggie’s emotional meltdown. In stop-motion and VFX the swirling, hostile skies and twisted landscapes were created. The production of this single scene culminated in:
Multiple lighting rig failures
Crashes in the digital compositing pipeline
Reshoots due to the degradation of puppets
Animators working 14 to 18 hour days
Aggie’s puppet was also particularly fragile. During movement, her hair would snap, her dress would tear, and emotional poses would require large amounts of gentle handling. The sequence was described by multiple animators as “physically painful” because of the microscopic, repetitive adjustments that were necessary.
Paralleling the jet fuel, the anger, the heartbreak, and the fear which Aggie displayed was also the emotion the teams shared:being overworked, exhausted, and just trying to make it to the end.
Back the Microphones: The Cast Dealt With Their Own Fights
ParaNorman was an animation. however, it did depend greatly on the animation. The cast recorded during their own adverse personal moments:
Kodi Smit–McPhee (Norman)
As a young actor, he was trying to handle the challenges of school, the demands travel of school, and the demands of growing in the lever in the sphere of Hollywood. During those times, the fatigue in the long stretches of travel was constant. In fact, some of the lines, namely the quiter ones, were lines which were recorded during times in the stretch when long days made his voice go to the point of fatigue and a rasp was the result. It is further argued that this was the very point which made the statement that this idea was a contribution to the meaning of the character at hand, Norman.
Anna Kendrick (Courtney)
Kendrick was on the boards of at least 3 films at the same time and was in a period of jet setting. As a result, Kendrick’s time management, on the boards of all films, was at an all time high. One is to note her character great execution and her comedic timing due to the real life stress in venting which was present in her control.
Tucker Albrizzi (Neil)
Tucker confirmed during the specific time of recording that he was also having an adverse experience in school namely bullying. The actor was in a period, in the his life of great need for acceptance and so Neil’s representation put on an optimistic and cheerful character was a result of having also put in a a lot of emotional depth in this act.
The real challenges in the life of the actors at the time was the sole reason for the quality of performance which was displayed.
The Reactions to LGBTQ+ and the Backlash
One of the moves which was the boldest which was made in Norman was there was a casual way of introducing the fact the jock character, which is Mitch, does have a boyfriend. This was seen to be of great importance in the film which is animated and also mainstream, however, it is seen to have invited some controversy.
Edits were requested by certain marketplaces. Some overseas distributors requested that the line be cut. Laika declined.
This action resulted in digital protest, political dissent, and difficult public relations issues. Because of cultural criticism, crew members were already gradually increasing their workload and had to protect the film from further scrutiny. However, the team’s determination only increased. Fred’s message of acceptance and tolerance served as the team’s defense line.
When The Story Became the Reflection.
By the time the production wrapped up, the overwhelming majority of the crew claimed that they were, in fact, the film’s protagonist, Norman, in the literal sense, as they were fatigued, and indifferently misunderstood, and simply wanted to get the job done.
Behind the scenes, the message driving the film, “your superpower lies in your uniqueness” took on a new, multifaceted, and complex meaning. The outsiders who crafted an outsider narrative had fully and utterly invested their being.
Amid all the exhausting late nights, the emotional breakdowns, the technical failures, the creative disagreements, and the struggles, the film emerged as something one of a kind. ParaNorman. The film was produced by those who engrained themselves in the film’s message just as they devoted themselves to its creation.
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