Mike Wellins, a director at LAIKA/house in Portland helmed these three stop-motion spots for Hormel Foods canned precooked meat product Spam. The agency leading the effort was BBDO Minneapolis.

Classroom

Boredroom

Date

Coraline opened in theaters this past weekend to better-than-expected results, netting nearly $17 million from only 2,300 theaters. This surprise is in no small part due to Wieden+Kennedy, who have masterminded a fantastic promotional effort for Focus Features and LAIKA, the studio behind the stop-motion film. Check out the boxes they sent out to 50 select bloggers, and then watch this banner ad starring Bobinsky, Coraline’s colorful Russian neighbor.

Then lay your eyes on some of the W+K photos from the Portland premiere. If you haven’t had enough, go read the Lineboil review of the film.

Director: Henry Selick
Runtime: 100 minutes
Rated: PG
Distribution: Focus Features
Review by Aaron Simpson

Coraline, nearly 4 years in the making, is a new stop-motion animated feature from first-timer LAIKA and Focus Features, and it debuts in theaters (900 of them in 3D) this Friday, February 6th. The story of a young girl who moves to Ashland, Oregon only to discover that her house is full of magical secrets was adapted from Neil Gaiman’s (The Sandman) book of the same name. While the locations have changed (the book was set in the UK), Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) went to great lengths to preserve Gaiman’s original intent. The results are his efforts are uneven, and unlikely to capture the type of box office rapture that a film like WALL·E enjoyed, but this highly imaginative adventure is most certainly worth the price of admission.

PERSISTENCE OF VISIONARIES

Since the 1970s, there have only been 6 widely-released stop-motion feature films: The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Corpse Bride and now Coraline. These hand-made worlds are a rare treat, crafted by a small, nomadic club of patient animators. The directors behind these films are members of an even smaller club. In fact, all six of these aforementioned films were directed by either Nick Park (a co-director), Tim Burton or Selick.
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I think Henry Selick has spent one too many hours under those hot studio lights. In this promo clip below, the director of Coraline talks about his stop-motion puppets as if they’ve got brains inside their little, plastic heads. Well, I suppose it adds to the overall creepiness of this magical world he’s crafted around Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name. The film, produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features, hits US theaters on February 6th.

February 6 is the release date for Coraline, the animated stop-motion horror fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman’s novella of the same name. Directed by Henry Selick, the film looks like it has a chance to surpass the awesome boundaries of super-coolness set by Nightmare and Corpse Bride, so don’t miss it!

Coraline, the new stop-motion feature from LAIKA, is almost upon us. The film bows in the US on February 6th, and I recently saw some billboards around town and this :30 second TV trailer below. The film is directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas), and it’s being distributed by Focus Features.

While we await the February 9, 2009 release of LAIKA’s first feature film, Coraline, which was apdapted from Neil Gaiman‘s novella, enjoy this video sneak peek. Henry Selik, the director of Nightmare Before Christmas, helms this tale of a young girl who unlocks an alternate reality in her home, and this stop-motion feature film has been shot in 3D. I’ve heard from insiders that the film is in post-production. This clip was produced by Wired.com.

Gaiman’s perspective on his work mutating into other medium’s seems really lucid and realistic:

I’m not telling any of them what to do. I just stand there and go “This is really cool. People are making art and its inspired by something really weird that I did.”

Also check out an interview Ain’t It Cool News snagged with Selick after seeing 20-minutes of the film.