Saturday, 10 October 2015

Telling Stories - StoryBoards - Coraline

I absolutely love the animated film Coraline. The character design, set design, story and incredible colour of it whisks you away into a magical world. Anyway, we are here to analyse storyboards, so here we go. Here are a few storyboards from the production of Coraline.

The one below is a storyboard by Julian Narino.


In the upper right hand corner, Coraline reaches for the cat. Here is why I'm in love with this shot: The focus is on the cat but the hand is held up as if it was being examined. So we can assume that Coraline lifted her hand to look at it, and then noticed the cat sitting at the bay window. Our attention is also drawn to the cat because everything in the room pulls into the right hand corner of the shot where the cat is sitting. Notice that even the shadow of the cat extends down past the glove.


The following two storyboard extracts are by Graham Annable.

In this shot, the 'other-mother' enthusiastically opens her mouth to consume a cockroach. We know that this action is pretty disgusting but it is emphasised by the extreme close up to her face. At the same time, our reaction to what is happening is mirrored by Coraline in the distance. We get the feeling that we, as the audience are standing really close to the other-mother because her face and hand are darker than the background in which Coraline exists.


Finally, this shot is a zoom from a medium close shot to an extreme close up. Each panel gets closer and closer to the other-mothers face until we can only see her unsettling button eye. Very impactful. 


Nagy Péter (Animator). Living Lines Library, Coraline (2009) - Storyboards and others, [Online] Available at:  http://livlily.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/coraline-2009-storyboards.html. (Accessed 10/10/2015).


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