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Selick Slams State of Animation by Karl Cohen
Animation master Henry Selick speaking at the SIGGRAPH conference in July. photo: courtesy H. Selick
HENRY SELICK, WHO DIRECTED THE
highly-acclaimed “Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993) and “Coraline” (2009), is concerned about the current state of animation—very concerned. All is not well regarding the future of theatrical animation, he has said publicly.
Indeed, he spoke out on this subject both as a panel member at SIGGRAPH, the computer graphics industry’s annual conference, and in a press conference. Standing for Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques, the conference transpired in July at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Even though the animation industry in the US is experiencing the most successful period in its history, Selick believes it could be in trouble. The enormous budgets of animated features result in producers playing it safe, he says.
Selick, who lives in Marin County, also brought us the iconic Pillsbury Doughboy, while a commercial freelancer, and Roald Dahl's "James and the Giant Peach" (1996). A classic Selick story, it involves a young boy, New York City, dying parents and a bag of magic crocodile tongues. Nominated for an Academy Award, "James" would probably have trouble finding financing today.
Indeed, Selick feels there is an unhealthy pressure on directors to make every animated feature a blockbuster and, conversely, a sickening fear of catastrophic losses, if it doesn't do that well at the box office. Hence, the studios end up making endless sequels, to keep a product line popular, or repeating what has worked before, to ensure success, rather than risk new ideas.
Henry knows firsthand how conservative Disney can be. His last project for them, “The Shadow King” was terminated in August of 2012 after Disney had invested about $50 million. The sets and stop motion puppets had been built and some of the animation was already underway.
Scene from 'James and the Giant Peach' Selick's 1996 film. photo: courtesy H. Selick
Written and about-to-be-directed by Selick, “The Shadow King” was another wild tale about nine-year-old New Yorker named Hap who has weird hands. He hides them to avoid the approbation of a cruel world until a shadow girl shows him how to make his hand shadows come to life and do battle against a crazed monster out to murder his brother and much of New York.
Henry had a crew of about 150 people, many of them masters of their craft—DP Peter Sorg ("Frankenweenie" 2012, "Coraline"), Animation Director Eric Leighton ("Legend Of The Guardians", 2010) and Production Designer Lou Romano—working on the project for over a year when it was killed.
"It just wasn't coming together in a manner that pleased the studio," according to a Disney press release. Rumors suggest that studio heads, including John Lasseter, decided the film might be too dark or mature for young kids and gave it the axe despite $50 mill in losses.
Certainly Disney knew what they were getting into given that Selick, following completion of that film, was set to direct for them an adaptation of “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman who also wrote "Coraline".
“The Graveyard Book” concerns a toddler who crawls out of his house to visit a graveyard while his entire family is being murdered—no less. Nevertheless, it was an award-winner and bestseller both in England and the US, suggesting children's tastes may not be as saccharine as some insist.
Henry questions the belief that in order to make a profit in animation today producers have to create overly expensive products aimed only at kids. He thinks that business model has resulted in films that are “too homogenous."
"It’s way too much the same. The films aren’t really that different one from the other. 'Despicable Me' could have been made at Pixar or by DreamWorks. It’s not a great time for feature animation if you want to do something even moderately outside the formula.”
Due to intense economic pressures, a successful producer avoids taking risks on new creative ideas, according to Henry. Oddly this contrasts to leaner times when ambitious producers bet the farm on an artist's vision.
Scene from 'Coraline', about a girl who enters a parallel reality, Selick's most recent feature. photo: courtesy H. Selick
He also discussed his thoughts on where new creative forms of animation might develop. He believes the most likely place is with producers like Amazon, Netflix and Google who are beginning to produce films for non-theatrical outlets including cable TV and the Internet.
“There’s way more creativity in television, and risk taking, but especially in new media,” Selick says. He believes not everything has to have an enormous budget and “not everything needs to be on a big screen.” He sees animation’s future is with new forms of media.
Selick mentioned briefly the types of projects he would like to develop. His sensibilities lean towards “comedic horror films” like “Coraline” and “Nightmare Before Christmas,” not slasher movies.
He thinks his films in the future might include social satire. He also imagines that instead of working in the feature format he might develop products that could be delivered in shorter chapters such as his making something as “a limited 10-part series.”