Everybody loves a good ghost story, especially one that not only gives us a fright, but shakes the creative juices and inspires the imagination. The world of ParaNorman should do just that for audiences when the Focus Features stop-motion animated film hits theaters at the end of the summer.
So what exactly is ParaNorman? “The film is very much, intentionally, John Carpenter meets John Hughes,” director Chris Butler suggests. “It's kind of like throwing the kids from The Breakfast Club into the story of The Fog and seeing how things unfold around them.”
ParaNorman focuses primarily on a young horror-film obsessed kid named Norman. Having grown up watching horror cinema at a very young age, he's become obsessed with B-movies, sci-fi and gritty horror films, from zombies to monsters, ghosts, killer dogs – you name it. This is embodied in Norman's own bedroom. It's a place of ghoulish delight, filled with bold, vivid colors, loving homage and surprising realism.
“The biggest influence to ParaNorman is my childhood, quite sadly,” Butler remarks. “When I was a kid, I loved the sorts of movies that I wasn't supposed to watch. And I would rent these movies, probably when I really shouldn't have been allowed, and they exposed me to all kinds of things. Gory horror films, sci-fi pictures, Italian B-movies, Dario Argento or Mario Bava's films – stuff like that. Norman is sort of drawn from those films, using their imagery.”
“We even got to make one of those movies,” co-director Sam Fell adds. “The film actually opens with a snippet from a crappy old zombie movie, circa 1981 – color, with a synthesizer soundtrack. It was great fun to do that.”
But to help paint a more realistic light on what a child's sanctuary is like, directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell and production designer Nelson Lowry traveled to the most logical place they could go – real bedrooms.
“We wanted it to be a very real place, so people from the production company sent us photos of their child's rooms.” said Butler.
“We also asked them not to clean them up for us,” noted Lowry. “We wanted to capture their rooms in their natural state. And we learned that almost all of the rooms were just a mess – crap all over the place – toys, games, clothes, junk. We ended up building on that.”
“I think, even at one point, I took photos of my child's room to help create a sense of realism to Norman's environment.” adds Fell. “Everyone was always moving things around to get it just right. We wanted it to be as real as possible, like live-action.
“While the room was art directed with a focus on real world influence, there was also the sort of garish color you'd see in Italian horror cinema. There's a lot of great fanboy stuff there, too. You've got an illuminating zombie head. We even have this zombie alarm clock where a hand pops out of the grave when the alarm goes off. It's rather wild.”
Fell also noted that virtually everything in Norman's room paid homage to vintage horror cinema. “All the posters and artwork came from us sort of racing through the libraries of vintage posters, with stuff that we loved or used to watch being our influence. We ended up making that the basis for Norman's room, with zombie posters and all kinds of crazy movie posters spread throughout his room.”
But Norman's room isn't the only place of horror cinema inspiration. “At one point,” comments Butler, “we go to a bar and it's called The Bargento. A few people thought it was too obscure, but I refused to change it.”
“There's lots of little bits and homages like that,” remarks Lowry. “We reference dozens of directors and other horror films throughout. There was a fun challenge in figuring out all the pieces and fitting in as much as we could.”
Like Coraline, the previous film from stop-motion production house Laika, ParaNorman was shot in 3D, not only to take advantage of 3D's depth, but also to add some flavor to the zombie mayhem.
“With stop frame animation there's a tactile quality to it,” Butler suggested. "You can see that it's a real object, and you want to reach out and touch it. 3D just adds to that. It gives depth to those hand-made sets or hand stitched costumes and all the craftsmanship that goes into the film. With ParaNorman, the film is a bit of a roller coaster ride. We want to draw you in with lurid colors and depth, but having said that, we would have been remiss if we didn't have zombie hands sticking out of the screen. We are, after all, tipping our hat to all these really in-your-face types of movies, so sometimes we have to go there. But it's always done with a wink. It's always very knowing.”
Obviously, between the ghostly imagery and horror-inspired narrative, ParaNorman isn't your usual watered-down horror film, either. And those behind the lens wouldn't have it any other way.
“Things are pushed,” suggests Lowry, “but not in a very provocative way. We never take the film to any sort of gratuitous place, or anything like that. But it does have an edginess that attracted a lot of people to the project.”
“The best kids’ stories have always been challenging,” adds Butler. "They make children think. They introduce dark things that may present themselves during their lives.I hate the idea that kids literature and entertainment has to be dumbed-down or sanitized. It's not what we're about, and it really shouldn't be what filmmaking is about.”
ParaNorman opens on August 14, 2012 in the U.S., September 22 in the UK, and September 20 in Australia.
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Source : ign[dot]com
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