MOONGIRL and CORALINE
Herny Selick is one of those directors whose name when mentioned tends to incite a "Who?" response from others. Few have heard of him. Fewer even realise why he is important in the coming months (or years). He was the stop motion animation director many films, most notably those of Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. He was also said to have had some friction in his working relations with Tim Burton, having allegedly felt that he was not consulted enough during the production of Nightmare Before Christmas.

But that's already skipping to the future. Back in 1977, the year I was born, Henry Selick was already working on films such as Pete's Dragon and The Small One under Disney's Character Animation Design Program. Eventually, he took an absence from Disney to work on several personal projects with the backing of the American Film Institute, one of which gained him the beginnings of his critical acclaim: Seepage, a stop motion and watercolor animated story of two people talking while sitting next to a pool. He returned to Disney and was immediately put to work on The Fox and the Hound, but the call for creative freedom and exploration demanded that he leave Disney and set out his sights on his own.

Eventually, he reunites with his CalArts schoolmate, Tim Burton, and collaborates with him to produce The Nightmare Before Christmas (using a Mitchell 35mm camera, the same camera used for the classic movie King Kong).

(For a more in-depth write up on him, check here.)

Going back though, the main reason this article focuses on him is this:
Henry Selick has a coming movie project with Neil Gaiman. He his directing the coming movie-adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline.

Yes.
Read that again.
Coraline has been green-light for production under the man whose artistic style and visual treatment can only be described as PERFECT for the book.

I can't wait!
But since we have to, let me direct you to this site to check out Moongirl, Henry Selick's current ongoing project with Laika productions. This lovely upcoming film is filled with its own surprises and really cool visuals. You're going to love the eyecandy and even more the fact everything in the weird animated logic such worlds exist upon, works.

(lastly, if you play Orpheus, you'd be freaked to know he's also working on a film adaptation of The Fantastic Mr. Fox)



Nikki Alfar
Tobie Abad
Gabby Lee
Andre Mischa Cleofe
Cathy delos Santos