Laika went small for its latest film — the short “ParaNorman: The Thrifting.”
Directed by Laika’s lead character designer Thibault Leclercq and written by Chris Butler, the CG short (a first!) will be shown with the rerelease of the studio’s 2012 classic stop-motion animated feature “ParaNorman.” They both hit theaters Oct. 25 in partnership with Fathom Entertainment.
“The Thrifting” sees Norman (voiced by Brayden Gleave) and his sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick, reprising her role from “ParaNorman”) and his best buddy Neil (TKTKT) enter a spooky thrift shop, where Courtney flirts with the edgy, cute clerk (Finn Wolfhard) while Norman encounters a mischievous young spirit looking to make a whole lot of trouble. It’s colorful, propulsive story that’s full of horror movie Easter eggs.
Butler, who wrote and co-directed “ParaNorman,” says that while converting the 3D characters of the original film to 2D was a “gargantuan undertaking,” doing the short in CG was “an easy choice.”
“And even though I think Laika is first and foremost a stop-motion studio, I think we’ve always had an interest in animation in general. And, certainly for me, I came from a 2D background, so when I first started imagining ‘ParaNorman’ — probably like last century, in fact — in my head, it was a 2D thing, the first sketches. Because that’s just how I think of things,” Butler says. “But also, we did already dip our toe into 2D with the credit sequence in the original movie, which was in the style of horror movie posters, really kind of gaudy primary colors, the big, dripping letters, and we had a lot of fun doing that. It was a really painterly aesthetic. And so it seemed like that was our starting point. It was like, let’s have some fun with this.”
It was important for Leclercq to preserve the hand-made and graphic look of “ParaNorman” in the short.
“No matter what the technique is going to be, I knew that we’re going to have this kind of 2D organic, handmade feel that’s going to reconnect to the original stop motion,” he says. “And then there was the idea that ‘ParaNorman’ is a very cinematic, a very immersive world that they’ve built in stop motion — the lighting, the camera approach to it feels extremely real. And I wanted to make sure that we’re going to preserve that even though we’re not going to be stop motion, we’re not going to have a real camera, real light. I think the medium” that was the closest to capturing that stop-motion look is “CG to help me build things that feel dimensional and immersive.”
Butler says that doing a seven-minute- and-some-change short was challenging, but drilling down on certain characters and telling a short story – not a gag-filled reel – helped distill narrative choices. Setting it in one building also set off ah-ha moments. “I thought, OK, this is a potentially really cool location to set a short in, because it’s finite, but it’s also full of cool stuff. It’s basically like the cellar in the ‘Conjuring’ movies. It’s a building full of potentially haunted, creepy objects. So, you know, plenty of fun to be had there,” Butler says.
Leclercq knew he was responsible for a continuation of the “ParaNorman” world, and that was important stylistically. “We didn’t want it to step on the movie, story wise, but also, in terms of style and look, I wanted to make sure this is more of an homage to the original feature,” he says, adding that “the film, at its core, is a love letter to horror movies.”
Leclercq adds that they also went back to look at original horror movie posters and create a stylistic connection. The result is a “bold, painterly style,” he says, with the artists leaning into a singular direction “that feels connected to the original, but doesn’t step on what the film is, and live on its own.”
variety.com
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