Was Coraline made entirely by hand with puppets, or with both puppetry and CGI?
We use a lot of modern technology to support, to supplement, to glue together things, to repair — but about 90 per cent of any shot you see was done by hand. All the animation, every character, every creature, is brought to life in the exact same way as the original King Kong. How long did the process take? The shooting, the actual production — not including pre-production and post — was about 20 months. You know, it was very focused work, with a large crew, and I know from the outside it seems like an insanely long amount of time, and you wonder how people can have the patience, but it’s actually a very exciting process for a director, because you’re working with the most talented artists and technicians in the world. And you’re in constant motion, going from set to set to set. We had about 30 animators working on different miniature stages. Do you still work with the puppets yourself, get a hand in, or are you the foreman now? [Sighs] I used to, and at the most we have copies of the
