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LAIKA Shares “ParaNorman” Trailer

A treat from the local animation house, just in time for Halloween!

Posted by: Aaron Scott and Anne Adams on Oct 29, 2011 at 08:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

The makers of Coraline and partial credit claimants of Nightmare Before Christmas will continue their spooky streak in August 2012 with ParaNorman, a zombie flick penned by Coraline ’s lead storyboard artist Chris Butler.

Full disclosure: Culturephile’s Anne Adams was on staff at LAIKA during the making of Coraline and gives Mr. Butler an excellent (pardon the pun) character reference. Noteworthy both for his irreverent good humor and his diligent inclusion of delightful little details in every frame he penned, Butler was a crew favorite long before he was the man in charge. As long as zombie tale ParaNorman sticks close to the wit and craft of its creator, it should be a must-see. In the meantime, check out this trailer!

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Tags: LAIKA

phile under: quality time-frittering

Local Music Videos

Eye and ear candy, to placate your Monday stupor.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Aug 16, 2010 at 12:00PM Speech Bubble 4 Comments

Happy Monday. How much coffee have you had? Enough to track the tricks of this impressive local yo-yo-thrower? Set to the equally dexterous and energetic Hoop + Wire by Portland’s own Boy Eats Drum Machine, Clifton B. proves he’s “just swift enough.”

I know what you’re saying. Those were some radical yo-yo moves, man, but where is the actual wire that the song title implies? Oddly enough, it’s wound its way around Little Beirut’s “Last Light,” which features intricately detailed stop-motion-animated sequences, conceived by band-members who daylight as LAIKA talent.

Culturephile can’t help but wish they’d stuck with the stop-mo motif for the whole piece, despite the art form’s notorious time-consumption. (See Culturephile coverage of Fred, by Misha Klein and Billygoat’s Dioscuri.) But, with an upcoming album release for the band, we suppose the show must go on.

Finally, the following piece, recently released by Portland Cello Project, features marionette puppetry in a scale set, and then not-to-scale live locations. Telling the tragic tale of a displaced shrimp in a big cruel world, this short points up the gulf-pollution crisis in a poignant, accessible way.